The unexpected virtue of incompetence: A puzzling Kings-Cavs trade six years later
Today marks the sixth anniversary of one of the most bizarre NBA trades of the past decade. On the eve of NBA lockout, Marc Stein of ESPN reported (in a story that is a fantastic read six years later) that the Cleveland Cavaliers had traded center J.J. Hickson to Sacramento, in exchange for forward Omri Casspi and the Kings’ 2012 first round pick (lottery protected). In what is surely the highlight of Stein’s piece, he dispels retrospectively hilarious rumors that had lingered from the 2009-10 season about a potential Cavs trade for Amar’e Stoudemire. At the time, there had been much speculation that the a deal was on the table, but Cleveland ended trade talks because it refused to give up Hickson to Phoenix!
Paul Westphal’s comments at the end of the piece only add to the hilarity, “[Hickson is] somebody that we are getting at a real good time in his career. He’s already shown a track record of success.”
If only you had known what you were getting yourself into Paul! The Kings waived Hickson in March 2012 after 35 forgettable games in Sacramento. Meanwhile Casspi posted the two worst seasons of his career in Cleveland, as the Cavs struggled to find an identity in the post-LeBron era.
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Although the Hickson-Casspi trade never yielded any intrigue on the court, it produced one of the most fascinating pick protection sagas in league history. That lottery protected 2012 pick that went to Cleveland conveyed just last week, nearly six full years after it was initially traded. The pick changed hands four times and survived protection in six straight years!
This is the story of that famous Sacramento draft pick and its wild odyssey around the NBA.
The Seven Year Rule
One of the most important provisions in the league’s CBA that regulates pick protection in trades is the Seven Year Rule. Although it has undergone some minor changes (outlined by Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders back in December), the rule has remained quite similar for the past decade.
The Seven Year Rule essentially prohibits teams from trading a future draft pick past seven years into the future. In 2011, this provision allowed teams to place six years’ worth of potential protections on a traded pick. When the Kings completed the Hickson deal, they put protections on the future pick they were sending to Cleveland all the way through the year 2017. James Ham of NBC Sports Bay Area broke down the specific protection scenarios in a piece this past April:
“Per the original deal, the first round selection was protected for picks 1-14 in 2012, 1-13 in 2013, 1-12 in 2014 and 1-10 in 2015, 2016 and 2017. If the pick was not conveyed during 2017, it instantly became a 2017 second round selection, completing the transaction.”
As is common with many trades involving future picks, the protection on Sacramento’s pick became less stringent further into the future. The logic is pretty obvious; the less protection on a pick, the more likely it is to convey. The Kings were also expecting to improve at that point, and build around Tyreke Evans and DeMarcus Cousins. But as anyone that has followed the NBA for the past decade has learned, things almost never go as expected for the Kings.
A series of bizarre and unfortunate events
If you look at the 2011-12 Sacramento team sheet, you’ll find some pretty interesting names on it. That season the Kings had DeMarcus Cousins, Isaiah Thomas, Hassan Whiteside, Tyreke Evans and of course the guy that can hit the rim from anywhere on a basketball court, Jimmer Fredette on the roster. Within two years Sacramento moved on from all of those players, with the exception of Cousins, and the Kings had changed coaches three times. Their trade for Rudy Gay in December 2013 failed to resuscitate the flatlining franchise.
Meanwhile in Cleveland, things were not going much better. The Cavs had signed Andrew Bynum to a two-year partially guaranteed contract in July 2013. Bynum never showed flashes of the skill that made him an All-Star back in 2012. Cleveland promptly traded him in January 2014, as part of a deal that included Sacramento’s protected pick to the Bulls in exchange for Luol Deng.
Congrats on another trade that worked out for almost nobody! The Bulls immediately waived Bynum and Luol Deng flopped in Cleveland. Although, Deng being on an expiring deal was one of the factors that helped the Cavs easily create space to bring LeBron back in the summer of 2014.
The Kings finished at 28-54 that season, falling within the top ten of the draft again and keeping their pick in the 2014 Draft; they selected Nik Stauskas aka Sauce Castillo with the No. 8 pick. By this time, most people across the league viewed the pick Sacramento owed to Chicago as a solid asset. The Kings had just gotten Rudy Gay and were going to make a push for the playoffs. Surely their pick would convey between 2015 and 2017 when it became only top ten protected…
But wait, think again! These are the Kings we’re talking about! After a hot start to the 2014-15 season (by their lowly standards), the Kings sputtered as viral meningitis sidelined DeMarcus Cousins. The franchise inexplicably fired Coach Mike Malone, with whom Cousins had connected, and hired “Furious” George Karl. The team underwent extreme turbulence during Karl’s two seasons at the helm, as he and Cousins constantly clashed. In 2015-16, after they made a series of transactions that have cost them dearly, the Kings surpassed the 30-win mark for the first time since 2008. They finished the season a lowly 33-49 and of course secured their first rounder for another year.
The grande finale
During the NBA Draft last week, the Chicago Bulls traded All-NBA star Jimmy Butler to the Timberwolves. That trade seems like an act of extortion on Minnesota’s part right now. To make matters worse for the Bulls, they didn’t get a first rounder out of the Kings again. Sacramento received the third pick in the draft, which went to Philly in exchange for the fifth pick as a result of a pick swap from Sam Hinkie’s fleecing of the Kings in the summer of 2015.
The Bulls received a somewhat bitter consolation prize after years of waiting for a first rounder. They got Sacramento’s second rounder, the 38th overall pick. In classic Bulls fashion, they promptly sold the pick to the Golden State Warriors for $3.5 million in cash. The Warriors got Jordan Bell of Oregon with the pick. The wacky six year journey of Sacramento’s protected first round pick was finally over.
Could any franchise but the Kings reach such levels of ineptitude so as to survive six years’ worth of protection thresholds? The Knicks might be only team that could come close to such ignominy (cheer up Knicks fans, Phil is gone… although Isiah might be back).
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The fruitless Hickson-Casspi swap seems idiotic in retrospect. But it’s the kind of move that is representative of a strange thing that can happen in the NBA: sometimes sheer incompetence pays off. The Cavs won three lotteries in four years, making one crappy decision after another. Then they basically fell ass-backward into LeBron’s return. The Kings stunk for so long that they kept their picks despite attempting to compete the last three years. Now they are in decent position to start over and rebuild. Of course, the smartest teams in the NBA tend to have the most sustained success. But rarely, being unintentionally bad can help. On a brighter note, the Kings can retire this awesome jersey (courtesy of Danny Leroux)!