How the Pelicans are aiming high with Omer Asik
It was announced last night that the New Orleans Pelicans and Houston Rockets had agreed to a deal that would see Rockets backup center Omer Asik traded to New Orleans in exchange for a protected first round draft pick in 2015. The trade cannot be completed for now, for two reasons - New Orleans needs cap space to absorb Asik's salaries, and per the Ted Stepien rule, since they had already traded their 2014 first rounder, cannot trade their 2015 first round pick until after the 2014 first round. But it seems it is cemented nonetheless.
That draft pick was later revealed by ESPN writer Brian Windhorst to be a doubly protected one. New Orleans will keep the pick if it is placed 1-3, and also if it is from 20-30. The idea of double protection is something Houston pioneered when they traded Kyle Lowry to the Toronto Raptors - they even had to ring up the league office to find out if it was actually allowed - and will see Houston receive the pick if, and only if, it is in the 4-19 range.
A lot of people immediately have focused on the '4' part of that. Don't. Focus on the 19. This is the area New Orleans expects to be in. It is the area they should be in. It is the area they now need to be in, but it is also the area which they really cannot miss.
Last season, the Pelicans were decimated by injuries. They suffered so many of them that they were granted a roster exception to sign a 16th player. Anthony Davis missed 15 games. Tyreke Evans missed 10. Eric Gordon missed 18 and limped in the other 64. Jrue Holiday missed 48. Jason Smith missed 51. And Ryan Anderson missed 60. They had a lot of new players to blood in and to begin shaping into a team, and yet they just could not do it because they had so little court time together.
But even then, even with all the injuries, even with the lack of cohesion and all the turnover, even with a patchwork quilt of a roster, the Pelicans still wound up only picking 10th in the draft this year (a pick conveyed to the 76ers). Short of significant injury to Anthony Davis, this was about as badly as a season could realistically go, and they still were not too dreadful. With a better run of health, the continued development of Davis and the addition of Asik, how could they possibly finish worse than that?
Looking forward to next year, then, the team should be better than this. The team should be a low playoff seed, and if they are not, they should very nearly be. In the Western Conference, a low playoff seed means a late first round pick - as evidence, see how this year's No. 8 seed, the Dallas Mavericks, were due to pick 21st this year. Returning all of their key players, with the addition of Asik, and the continued rise to superstardom of Davis, the Pelicans ought be in the postseason. And if there is another disaster, the 1-3 protection safeguards against anything too horrific.
Let's assume from here, then, that the pick is the No. 19 pick next season, or close to it. Is Omer Asik, the player and the price tag, worth that?
Asik is on the cap next season for $8,374,646, but will actually be paid $14,898,938. Houston are reportedly sending $1.5 million in cash in the deal, which will offset it somewhat, but that is still $13.4 million to pay him in just one season. And even the staunchest Asik defenders cannot say that, relative to everyone else at the position, he is worth that amount of money. He can't catch. You can't justify $13.4 million if you can't catch, surely.
Nevertheless, this bottom line only matters if you are Pelicans owner Tom Benson. Indeed, even Asik's $8.4 million cap number is not that important - the Pelicans are not in danger of the luxury tax next season, and will not realistically be.
What is a concern is the fact that Asik's contract has only one year left to run. When it expires next summer, the then-29 year old Asik will be in the prime of his career, and expecting a big contract.
New Orleans will give him the opportunity to prove himself worthy of it. With the departure of Greg Stiemsma, the likely departure of Jason Smith, the definite departure of Melvin Ely, and the fact that he is better than Alexis Ajinca and Jeff Withey, Asiik will get as many minutes as he can handle, and the Pelicans will be expecting a return to the 30-minute, 10-point, 12 rebound player he was in the 2012-13 season.
If he plays the way New Orleans expect him to, however, he is going to be expensive. A big contract for Asik will clog an already clogged cap. Gordon is still on the max contract the Suns gave him, while Evans is only a quarter of the way through a four-year, $44 million deal. It declines, but only slightly. Jrue Holiday is also earning eight figures for the next three years, and Anderson is not all that far short. All of these players will take a back seat if necessary to Davis, who will be offered the maximum salary on the first day he is allowed to be. Things are starting to get expensive in New Orleans, and they haven't even made the playoffs yet.
Paying Asik compounds the expenses, and yet they must be ready to do it. The alternative to that would be him leaving altogether. In that eventually, the Pelicans would have given away a lottery pick for a one year rental. This is not a good idea.
It is not, however, automatically a rental just because Asik is an expiring contract. The Pelicans are trading for Asik in the logical belief that they are trading for a 28-year-old defensive wall of a center. Warts and all, Asik's defensive metrics are off the charts, not as off the charts as they were when Tom Thibodeau was around to cradle them and down somewhat last year due to the obvious apathy he sported at times, but still very dominant on the glass and a wall in the paint, regardless of his shot block numbers. (Think Tyson Chandler blocks, not John Henson.)
It is, or should be, a giant infusion of talent at a position where giant infusions of talent are tough to come by, and the exact type of giant infusion of talent that the Pelicans need. Davis and Asik (for their interior defensive dominance) and Anderson and Asik (for the offensive efficiency and variety) both figure to be tremendous pairings. They will have him, they will give him the starting spot he misses, they will have his Bird rights. And they can keep him until long into his thirties if they wish to. The Pelicans must believe they are trading for a player better than any they could draft with the pick. And they are probably right.
The direct comparison here is to the case of Marcin Gortat. When Washington traded for him just before the start of last season, they sacrificed a future first round draft pick to get him, despite him only having one year left on his contract. The pick they gave up was in what was known to be a powerhouse draft - this one - and was only top-12 unprotected. Prior to this season, Washington had not made the playoffs in the John Wall era. So a team with a young star on his way to superstardom felt they needed an experienced starting-calibre centre in the prime of his career, at the position they most sorely needed, despite it being a win-now move from a team to have not experienced even a shred of winning to date. And it worked - look how pleasing of a season they had.
So if you want to hate on the Asik deal, hate on that one too. They're the same deal. They're first round picks for an in-his-prime centre who boosts the playoff chances and helps the development of the young superstar. They're trading youth for veterans in the belief that good youth needs more veterans. They're trading for expiring contracts in the belief it need not be a rental. Not every trade has to open up a championship window, and not every first round pick keeps one open.
This is not to say New Orleans' logic is infallible here. There a lot of problems with the team that Asik does not solve, and that the combination of cap space and the first round pick ideally could. There are more pressing concerns, most notably Gordon, who looks like Gilbert Arenas out there, and Evans, who serves no obvious role for big money. Having a first round pick and cap flexibility could help alleviate these concerns - New Orleans should not be (and likely will not be) dealing these two when their values are so low, but the more cap space and picks they have, the more remedy options they have.
It could also be argued that at best, the current incarnation of the Pelicans now has the maximum upside of a four or a five seed. This upside is reliant upon Davis - were he to reach the status of the truly elites, which is conceivable considering how brilliant he is, we can revise this upwards. But regardless of his progession, being capped out and having one less pick in the future makes it more difficult to keep the roster fluid, to keep improving and tweaking it. They have themselves a rotation of six or seven players worth exploring in the future, but if it does not work out, this deal will make it more painful.
Further to this, New Orleans are also gambling on the belief that Asik will rebound to where he was after a down year. It is slated to be a lot of money and a lot of commitment to a player who ranks in the lower half of starting caliber NBA centers - lest it be forgotten, the center position is not weak any more. They had to win the bidding war, as Asik had suitors, so we can only conclude it had to be a lottery first rather than a non-lottery first in order to do so. But the price is on the high side for a player and a transaction that leaves so many questions unresolved.
Nevertheless, what they likely bought was a quality center and a quality player. And if they pay the cost to retain him in one season's time, they will keep a quality center and a quality player. The trade will leave many questions about the Pelicans roster unanswered, but it answers one of them. That's a start, and just because the Pelicans were not good last year, it does not follow that it will happen again. Aim high. They are.