NBA Trade Deadline portfolio: Paul Millsap

When Kyle Korver was traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers in early January, most of the league thought fellow free-agent-to-be Paul Millsap would be right behind him in the security line at the airport. The Hawks were in the middle of a massive slide at the time and it looked like the front office would try to get whatever assets they could for their vets and go into a rebuild. Instead, Atlanta took off, winning ten of their next fifteen games to put themselves in prime position for one of the top five seeds in the Eastern Conference playoffs. All of a sudden, trading Millsap and others didn’t look as appetizing. Millsap was quickly taken off the block publicly, though the Hawks are almost assuredly still listening to calls when they come in.

There simply isn’t a team in the league that wouldn’t benefit from having Paul Millsap on their squad. He’s an All-NBA-level player who doesn’t need the ball to be effective, fits into any kind of offense, and ranks among the best defenders in the league this season by ESPN’s DRPM. He’s perpetually one of the most underrated players among fans, who see his fairly pedestrian (for his reputation among coaches) box score stats and assume that he’s not having as large an impact on winning basketball games as he is. The Hawks thrive with Millsap’s disruptive defensive presence on the floor, to say nothing of his offensive skills in isolation, handling the ball, and spreading the floor. His shooting, ball handling, and passing fit just as well in the motion-based offense of the 2014-15 Hawks as it does in the pick-and-roll heavy offense of this season.

However, just because Millsap will be in the conversation to be on one of the league’s three All-NBA teams doesn’t mean that the Hawks wouldn’t listen to trade offers for their superstar. After being almost criminally underpaid for the majority of his career, Millsap signed a three-year, $60.2-million contract in the summer of 2015 to stay with the Hawks. That deal included a player option on the final year, 2017-18, meaning that Millsap can become a free agent this summer if he chooses. If he opts in, he’ll make $21.4 million next season. If he opts out, his pay next season can be as high as about $35.7 million, depending on exactly how the cap shakes out and what kind of contract he can demand.

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There’s almost zero chance that Millsap will opt into his contract for next season, so the Hawks have to be operating as if he’ll be an unrestricted free agent. He just turned 32 years old and will be looking for one more big payday before the end of his career, so Atlanta’s management will have to look themselves in the mirror and think about whether or not they want to bring back Millsap on a four- or five-year maximum contract that would almost certainly be an albatross after the first two years. Being the incumbent team, Atlanta can have conversations with him about what he might want in free agency and if he were willing to stay in Atlanta for a two- or three-year contract, Wes Wilcox and Mike Bundenholzer would be more open to retaining his services. But if he’s adamant about getting a longer contract and they’re not willing to give it to him, they’ll be able to find a trade partner for him.

Toronto and Denver were bandied about as the two most likely destinations when Millsap was first on the block, but the Raptors have slid recently and no longer look as though they’re one player away from competing with the Cavaliers for the Eastern Conference crown. Denver is the most interesting team in the league at the deadline; they have a plethora of young assets they could turn into a player like Millsap to try to make a run in the near future or they could sell off some of their veterans and fully commit to the youth movement.

Millsap’s contract situation depresses his trade value considerably, but a team who trades for him would retain his Bird rights, which would allow them certain advantages in bringing him back in the summer, such as 7.5 percent annual raises (non-incumbent teams could only offer 4.5 percent) and a fifth year, if both player and team agree to it.

For a team like Toronto, if they feel that Millsap would put them neck and neck with Cleveland, then they would be more willing to trade with Atlanta and take the risk that they’re only going to get three months of his high-level play. Denver, on the other hand, has no illusions about contending this season, even with Millsap in the fold. They would only trade for him if they were reasonably confident he would re-sign with them; they would have plenty of cap room to give him whatever he wanted. In a vacuum, signing Millsap to a massive four- or five-year contract might not be a great idea, but given Denver’s market and reputation in the free agent market, the opportunity cost of giving an aging Millsap that money is not as high as it would be for other teams.

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Boston always has to be mentioned in any trade conversation because of their war chest of draft picks and developing talent. The Celtics aren’t getting nearly as much out of Amir Johnson as they did last season and they’ll be in the market for an upgrade there if, like Toronto, they believe that Cleveland’s regular season foibles open the door for another Eastern Conference contender. Whatever ends up happening between Boston and Atlanta, you can be sure that Danny Ainge will say that the Celtics were very close to consummating the deal.