Trade space: How relationships shape deals
By Matt D'Anna
How relationships shape deals
As the offseason finally becomes official for every team, visions of lottery picks, mid-level exceptions, and summer leagues are dancing in fans’ heads. This year, the transition from the Finals to the Draft is the same work week. The coaching vacancies have come and gone, and the controlled chaos of player acquisition is about to begin. So…This. Means. Trades. And lots of them.
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At a minimum, a trade requires three entities: a trading team, a receiving team, and a player. Sure, there’s usually (at least) a second player involved, but there’s plenty of draft picks and cash considerations that can be used instead. But beyond the logistics, there’s some sort of connection that creates the opportunity for negotiation; a space to trade in. This space is dynamic and likely as strongly associated with the personalities of the dealing partners as it is with the personnel been dealt.
Thus, my contention: relationships matter. A lot. Instead of wading through the rumor mill and sorting what’s reliable and what isn’t, the key may be to look at the networks that have been built from previous transactions.
First, let’s examine how each team interacts with each other. By visualizing every NBA trade since 1948 (h/t to Basketball Reference for having the data, and my man Bo Schwartz Madsen for collecting it), we quickly see that for the most part, everyone trades with everyone else. Mostly. The size of those team nodes represent how much activity they have been involved in. While there’s an inherent longevity basis there (the Bulls have existed longer than the Grizzlies), it’s interesting that franchises like the Celtics and Spurs aren’t as active teams like the Nuggets and Bucks. Further, the color coding represents communities — the groups of teams that operate most similar. Since the beginning of time, there are four communities in the league:
- Pacers, 76ers, Kings, Nets, Blazers, Jazz, Warriors, Bulls, Spurs, Hornets (yellow)
- Celtics, Nuggets, Thunder, Bucks, Cavaliers, Mavericks, Magic (green)
- Hawks, Pistons, Clippers, Suns, Lakers, Knicks, Wizards (red)
- Timberwolves, Grizzlies, Heat, Rockets, Pelicans (blue)
This doesn’t mean that teams only trade within their community; it means they do so most often. You’ll notice there’s a decent amount of cross-division and cross-conference activity in each grouping. That’s logical — anecdotally, teams don’t like trading to their direct competition.
However, it’s still a hairball. So let’s look at just this past season’s activity to get a better sense of these relationships:
Same idea: size represents amount of activity, color represents communities. At this resolution, it demonstrates how active the Blazers, Magic, Heat, Hornets, and Grizzlies were. What’s also interesting: every team is in the network. This matters for two reasons: first, everyone is making moves. There are no outliers or non-participants. Second, some teams are only operating within their own network. Compare the Cavs and the Sixers. They made a similar number of moves (same size), but the activity is drastically different. The Cavs only operate within their network (all the connections are purple); whereas the Sixers touch the green, blue, and red networks.
These team-by-team connections are neat, but they don’t really tell the whole story. There’s a group a executives that serve as decision-makers. Turns out, that group is relatively small over time.
Every team has employed a General Manager from another team, at some point. The key takeaway is that there’s a group of people that cut across teams. Sometimes, it’s a weak connection — for example, Boston, who is one Chris Wallace away from being on an island — but it’s still there. So, isn’t it really more important to study who is making the trades — and not the team — to better understand these relationships over time? If we know who works with who, and who doesn’t work with each other, we may be able to look ahead to future trades. For example, let’s re-examine this last season by GM instead of team:
Forget that the Bucks and Thunder didn’t trade together; instead, John Hammond and Sam Presti didn’t. And, if you want to go from the Bucks to the Thunder, use Masai Ujiri. At least last season.
Based on this, if we look at the trade history for every active GM this upcoming season, we can identify patterns and relationships.
See Jerry Colangelo and Vlade Divac way out there? Not only are they barely connected to this network, but they share Ernie Grunfeld in common. Who’s most active? Unsurprisingly, Sam Presti, Danny Ainge, and Daryl Morey. But also look at Dell Demps, John Hammond, and Bryan Colangelo. Similar to the trade history network, there’s four communities here, too. What do those communities mean now? That someone like Daryl Morey has historically traded with Dell Demps, Pat Riley, Rich Cho, Chris Wallace, and Bryan Colangelo. Danny Ainge? He’s typically worked with Ryan McDonough, John Hammond, Jeff Bower, Bob Myers, Sam Presti, and (not a surprise) Doc Rivers. So, from this perspective: Boogie to the Celtics? Nah, there’s no previous relationship there. Derrick Rose to the Knicks? Maybe; Forman and Phil are at least in the same community.
So what?
If any of this makes sense, let’s apply some of it to a couple of current rumors. First, let’s examine the potential of a Kevin Love trade. David Griffin has been the Cavs GM since 2014; here’s a look at the people he’s partnered with:
Among those 13 different pairings, Griffin has made a deal with the same GM three times: Danny Ainge, Sam Hinkie, and Rob Hennigan. Hinkie is out in Philly, and the second deal with Hennigan was part of a three-teamer with the Blazers. Seemingly, the strongest, most direct relationship Griffin has is with Ainge (which admittedly isn’t by much). So Love to the Celtics?!? Maybe, but I wouldn’t rule out the potential of dealing with one of the previous partners from the opposing conference. The Blazers, Nuggets, and Jazz come to mind: Western conference teams with young assets. Conversely, given the diversity of Griffin’s trade history this could indicate a trade partner comes from someone he hasn’t dealt with before. Thus, I’d rank Love trade partners in five tiers:
- Celtics
- Blazers/Nuggets/Jazz
- No one. Just keep him in Cleveland.
- GMs Griffin hasn’t traded with before (hello there, Tom Thibodeau, and 19 other teams)
- Previous one-time dealers: Pacers, Knicks, Magic, Hornets, Bulls, Thunder
Second, let’s go to Philly, who allegedly is shopping Jahlil Okafor and/or Nerlens Noel. Both Colangelo’s are there, so let’s take a look at their combined trade histories:
They’ve been collectively making trades since the late 60s. Both of them have a lot of transactions with guys out of the league. Notably, there’s four people they’ve both dealt with in the past. Rod Thorn, Jerry Krause, and Wayne Embry aren’t around these days, which leaves…Jerry West.
Yes, that Jerry West — special advisor to the Warriors. The same Jerry West that just watched an aging starting center suffer a painful knee injury. The same Jerry West that is watching his team have seemingly little faith in the backup center; so much so that Anderson Varejo is logging significant minutes. That Jerry West, that offered critical insight in the nixed Kevin Love-Klay Thompson deal. How nicely would either a potentially elite defensive stopper, or a potentially elite low post scorer, compliment the core in Golden State?
Do the Warriors somehow pull off a deal for Okafor or Noel? I dunno, maybe. not sure how, but they’ve worked some magic before. The key is that the relationships are there; relationships that no one else seems to have.