Instant Reaction: Wizards Trade Deni Avdija to Portland Trailblazers

Instant Reaction: Wizards Trade Deni Avdija to Portland Trailblazers

[Music] Washington wiard so I walked into the media room tonight World Dawkins comes in saying hello to everyone I try to crack a joke I put a a fist to his chest not literally pretending to be a microphone saying will who’s the pick he didn’t say anything but he didn’t mention that the Wizards were in trade discussions with the Portland Trailblazers off the top rope here early according to ESPN’s Adrian wowski the Wizards are sending Denny AIA to the Blazers from Malcolm Brogden the 14th overall pick tonight in a 2029 pick we don’t know uh Clarity wise whether or not that’s a first round pick or a second round pick it does I’m going to assume I’m going to assume it’s a one I’m going to assume it’s a first rounder and a w character limit yeah I’m about to say but Craig right off of the top here your instant reaction to that move it it felt like as you were mentioning there is a little bit of a log Jam for the Wizards in that 3 four spot but based off of the way AIA played post Allstar break I viewed him as one of the building blocks of the Wizards moving forward but obviously uh the the front off is not thinking the same way yeah I am it’s funny our our colleague Toby Al tier just texting me and Toby goes can you make sense of this trade and I went I’m going to try to on the radio so this is this is very very much uh happening in real time um apparently there’s two first in two seconds our YouTube chat as you can watch if you’re driving home right now you want to keep watch watching us uh just go to your smart TV YouTube at the team980 and and we’ll be uh live there so stories of obviously evolving I mean on the most Baseline level I think the Wizards are selling high on Denny Avia and I realized that is not a popular opinion but that was kind of my thing all last year we talked about this on on my show of I think Denny is a very very very good basketball player I think he’s a great dude I think he works really hard but I do think that there is a seal there that is lower than people in DC want to admit when it comes to his role in a winning team yes he’s the fourth fifth best player on a winning team he’s not your third star and if you accept that you’re on the hunt for those players and if Will Dawkins looks at this draft and says I think I can find that guy at 14 then it’s a no-brainer right um Denny’s on a good contract I understand why Portland would want him uh per cuz the thing is like they’ve got their Superstar right scoot Anderson’s their guy and so I understand it from Portland’s perspective I think it’s worth a flyer Danny Kenny make another leap but realistically you know I don’t think Denny on a winning team is like a 20 plus point 10 rebound guy he’s an 18 and8 guy and those guys I know those are good numbers but they are a diamond dozen in the NBA especially with his positional side and so if you can get uh let’s see the Blazers are sending the second most favorable of their 2029 first round round picks and two second round picks in the deal for Avia along with the 14th pick tonight uh and Malcolm Brogden and the other thing is I think we learned this last year Leno is we saw the Chris Paul trade and we’re all like who Paul right like we kind of knew they don’t actually have Chris Paul right and so is Malcolm Brogden a piece they look at as a good pairing with Jordan p uh you know a little bit more defensiv minded guy who can certainly take some of the shots take some of the pressure off some of the younger guys or do they flip him for another pick by the end of the night tonight and I think that’s the interesting piece of this when healthy Malcolm brogon has proven himself to be one of the better two-way guards in basketball he’s in a ilk of a Derek white uh in Boston they’re very similar players and I think when healthy there are contending teams that say hey he can play that role for my organization and if you’re Washington that’s what you have to bank on I know we’re we’re playing hypothetical here because we don’t know the long-term playing I don’t want him here longterm in the back court with Jordan P sure the injury history concerns me and I just think right now if you are the Wizards it is about asset collection and that ultimately is why this deal was made if you’re just joining us the Washington Wizards wasting no time uh with the NBA draft getting ready to start in under an hour they have already uh made a significant move they now have three first round picks number two overall and then number 26 overall and they just acquired the 14th overall pick from the Portland dril Trailblazers in exchange for Denny AIA uh as Craig just mentioned the second most favorable so I guess the P the TR Blazers must have two picks in 29 two picks in 29 they’re one I’m guessing uh one of those is the buck pick right so 2029 there’s a chance that by 2029 both the Bucks and the Blazers stink uh probably not with the box cuz jannis still should be pretty good we’ll see somehow 2029 is not that far away no it’s not think about it it is wild uh but that’s 5 years away and Giannis will still be probably pretty good uh but like L would be long gone by then we’ll see what iteration the Bucks are the Blazers have a long way to go maybe the Blazers are good by them with scoot Henderson and we’ll see what ultimately happens but I think the other thing about this is Brogden is an expiring contract uh so Brogden is 225 this year so you could do the straight player for player you didn’t have to do any salary filler but Brogden does clear your decks and I think another thing to think about in the long-term rebuild of the Washington Wizards is eventually they’re counting on this as a place that people are going to want to play right what they do tonight with these picks they now have and remember they have 26 so do they package 14 and 26 up to go into the top top 10 again like do they do they back out interesting I I think I think what we have to understand about Winger and Dawkins at this point in the process is they value flexibility yes they value wiggle room now you’ve taken a guy in Denny who they clearly liked but I don’t know that they loved and that’s me speculating based off the sheer fact that they justed him um you take a guy that you like but didn’t love you turn his long-term money into onee guy in Brockton who cares what that one guy is and then you have more flexibility moving forward and that is ultimately a good thing for when you want to start spending some of that money it also allows you to take on money in Trad so if you have to you know maybe make a trade and take on a bad contract to get a good player with that you’re a Dumping Ground now which is a really valuable place for teams to be to be that third team even in a trade in in as two other teams do more uh pertinent things that winds up getting you an extra first round pick especially in the next two drafts which are loaded even though tonight is not it is quite the contrast right for years it felt like the wi were giving out bad contracts uh now they’re taking them on in order to get draft Capital uh and I think as you mentioned the long-term flexibility financially is what Washington is securing moving forward the two largest guarantees on your roster contractually are Jordan p and Kyle kma and if you are buying into any of the reporting uh coming out on those guys K kosma another guy that may well uh be on the move tonight Craig I want to ask you this we knew coming into tonight Washington had a little bit of of a log Jam at that 34 spot moving Den AIA out we’ve seen some of the betting odds I think it’s right now atus 550 for Alex saw to be that number two overall pick do you think moving Denny increases the likelihood that that pick is Alex sawar or do you think those are independent I think that I I don’t think like SAR is the more important thing like the pick is the more important thing Denny aia’s presence on this team or not is not going to impact who they take where here’s what I think it matters right ultimately you have to have um you have to have minutes for these guys and want to quickly welcome our audience on 1067 the fan uh just joined us Nat’s postgame Craig hoffen Lenell Willingham I’m now doing lenell’s job because he’s driving the show but if I don’t keep talking then I’m going to lose my train of thought uh and and the train of thought I’m having right now is in response to breaking news that you might not have heard yet if you’re just joining us on 1067 the fan and haven’t checked your phone in the last 5 minutes which is ahead of tonight’s NBA draft the Washington Wizards have traded Denny Avia their 23-year-old uh star forward to the Portland Trailblazers they get two first round picks two seconds and Malcolm Brogden in return but ultimately where this matters for Alex sawar is if you don’t trade kozma and you have avette you have SAR and you have Bilal there just aren’t enough minutes to go around to maximize Alex SAR if he becomes the most he and de or in uh Bel become the most important people in the organization maximizing their development is your number one most important thing and if Denny’s around taking minutes from those guys you can’t do that and so you just signed Denny to the contract you don’t want him to be unhappy with his minutes you create you undo the Log Jam you create flexibility I know I’m I’m on Wizard’s Twitter right now and people hate it love but I I think you have to understand this is a long-term thing and really getting two first and two seconds for Denny AIA say that out loud they got two first and two seconds for Denny AIA if I would have told you not a bad deal put it in this perspective if I told you that a calendar year ago we were out here last year on The Concourse you would have said well what did Tenny do over the last 12 months to get his value that high I people can be sad about AIA being moved I think this is as you mentioned what this part of the rebuild is about they sold high on a guy that they may not have had in their long-term plans and I think ultimately what they can get at pick number 14 I I like kaan George out of the University of Miami I think comes in right away at 67 gives you that positional size can defend uh lacks a little bit of the athleticism but you can see the vision for you know where they could go uh the rest of the way tonight the other thing about this that I that I wanted to mention is something that you touched on briefly there have been a bunch of different reports out there before this trade had happened Craig that Washington was interested in acquiring ing a third first round pick they now have that third first round pick it’s now up to Will Dawkins and Company to get creative can you package 14 in 26 what does that get you and is there a player that they are coveting within that top 10 that maybe is on no one’s radar because the thing about this draft despite all of the conversation about this class being weak you know my old adage with it it is up to the town evaluators to go out and find the diamond in the rough and I think Washington with World Dawkins running things has a good one but they’re be someone in that top 10 that Washington may have had as the number one player on their board but they know he’s not going to drop and they now are are smiling ear to ear after this deal well let me let me throw a couple names at you one that makes a ton of sense is Nicol a toic um he is 18 years old uh played in The Adriatic League last year he would probably be a top 10 pick and was someone whose name was baned about at number two yeah before he tore his ACL early in the draft process thing right but we know how to fix acl’s it’s 2024 for sure so if you are a team like the Wizards and you have a longterm view of your organization you don’t care if he plays this year so you see that I understand that perspective but I’m going to speak for the fan for a second we’re already going through a pretty miserable rebuild which are gutting this team in in real time hi Will Dawkins here if I win you a championship in 5 years do you care am I going to be around in 5 years Mr you’ll come back if you’re here now right you’ll be back right BR if you’ve lived through wizard you know me I mean forget our lifetimes right since 1979 they have 150 games since 1979 you can wait a couple more years and if nicool a toic is a top three talent in this draft and you get two of the three best players cuz one of them tore their ACL hell yeah that’s a good use of the 14th pick or trading up to 10 or whatever you know and and the other one you have to mention uh this would be trade up is uh tinjon Salon because he’s the third french guy so clearly we’re just collecting French guys and if that’s the case then that is the case more on him though I I was watching some stuff on him last night in terms of the offensive Freedom that he was able to have the three-point shooting numbers are not there I thought I believe he shot about 31% last year in the league that he played in but the volume is there it was on four and a half to five attempts per game so he actually had a little bit more offensive freedom than a Zachary rishe or than an alexar and obviously gained that freedom toward the end but I am intrigued by a name like him but we we’re just getting started here live out on the conour to Capital One Arena lell Willingham alongside Craig Hoffman here at the Washington Wizards official 2024 NBA draft party Washington Wizards active early here about a half hour before the draft officially gets underway if you’re just joining us moments into the program the Washington Wizards pulling the trigger on a deal that sends Denny AIA to the Portland Trailblazers in exchange for two future first round picks as well as Malcolm Brogden a couple of seconds being thrown in there uh as well we gave our reaction to the pick I I’m still reacting here in real time because Denny was one of my favorite players to watch last year and I thought amidst all of the the losing in in the in the the blow 40-point blowouts by half Denny was the consistent guy in terms of playing hard each and every night and he had a career year for the Washington Wizards but obviously not a part of these long-term plans the Wizards though also have the number two overall pick and the number 26 overall pick and I want to talk about two here for hold on can I follow up on that for a second though um cuz I just got a tweet that I actually really like and I’m let me ask you a question though did you like the OG and and Obi extension for the Knicks today no lot of money for o a lot of money for OG and you’re pushing in the but they’re pushing in the chip to try to win now so I get it so uh at commies for Life uh because the commanders have a fantastic way to shorten their uh nickname uh at commies for life goes people also keep bringing up his contract but the team is going to be terrible for the duration of it by the time they compete again he’ll be a free agent again do you want to give him a 5year $250 million contract to be ideally the fourth best player on the team by then and like if you look at what the Knicks did and you’re like that’s what I want okay yeah then you keep Denny Avia for the long run and in four years when his contract is up he’ll be 27 years old and you can pay him you know it might shoot it might be 5 years 310 by then the way the Cap’s going and the New Media deal and all that it’s not really about the amount of money it’s about the percentage of the cap but it’s going to be a lot cuz Denny’s going to continue to produce for a bad team at a high level and you’re going to have to pay him Max money in four years and you will not have done a lot of winning between now and then or you can reset the clock with the 14th pick tonight you clear the decks because go the only thing that matters in trades for the money matching is this year so you go one for one and you trade Denny’s long-term money for Brogden who’s expiring after this year who you may be able to flip for another asset that’s what I think going end up happening here but I think Washington has a little bit of Leverage because he is an expiring contract going to cover it that and then 29 uh in 2029 like you get another pick cool let’s see if we can add another cheap guy in 29 or the other thing is cuz someone else tweeted me and was like well what do we care about the 202 nine pick okay trade that one yeah if you want to at this point it’s about asset collection and I think that is a hard concept for fans to grasp because it’s not fun it’s admitting that you’re not ready to win right now and that the product that’s going to be out on the floor coming up in the fall is’t going to be very good but I think what you said earlier is super intriguing to me now there are a bunch of different ways they can ultimately go with this thing but I have to think if you’re Will Dawkins if you’re Travis schlank if you’re Mike Winger Troy Weaver now in the mix and you have had the scouting chops that these guys have no disrespect at all the Denny ABIA they’ve got to feel in their heart of hearts that they get 10% get a better Prospect at 14 than what Denny AIA has turned into the last three or four years I mean it’s hard because Denny’s so young that that is the part of it that I do struggle with like he is 23 years old I just saw Tom habro My Pal formerly VN does a bunch of great work actually ironically including covering uh the Blazers on on TV um he um he just tweeted out Denny AIA is younger than Dalton connect he is so well there you go yeah if they DRFT D connect tonight congrats you’ve upgraded your shooting but you’ve actually gotten older right with that 14th pick right I don’t think connect will be there but like that is the kind of wild thing about this I I but I do think I do think that they like I tweeted this last night after the Brooklyn Houston swap right so Brooklyn trades um to with Houston a bunch of picks that allows Houston to have Phoenix’s pick swaps they get their own picks back and it’s just this giant 3D chess game and I think a lot of fans and frankly analysts and like I’m someone who follows the NBA at a pretty intense level and understands a lot of this CBA stuff like I actually wonder if the NBA has a problem now this stuff’s become so complicated it’s impossible to follow like the 3D chess that these front offices are are playing right now you see it come together for like Boston who started started 10 years ago like the the Celtics title that they just won started with the Kevin Garnett Paul Pierce trade to the Brooklyn Nets in 2013 2013 and it paid off in a title in 2024 so you just have to have and everyone would say that they did a great job building it for sure right and they got lucky ex with some of the way the the Brooklyn’s pick spell and the lotteries and the whole deal um brook or Philadelphia self- owning Trad out of drafting Jason Tatum to draft marel Foltz like there’s a lot of stuff that had to go right for Boston to get one and I think you just have to kind of stop looking at these deals in a vacuum like people people are upset about the deal that that’s the overall consent of course Den is popular he’s good he’s ascending but I also think he’s I’m sorry I’m just going to say it Denny obio by Wizards fans is overrated well yeah like now I’m it sound like a hot that’s like the most hot take Sports Radio I feel like come out of but it’s true Denny AIA is overrated by Wizards fans because he’s the best guy that was here right in certain things but Denny OB like oh he’ll guard Giannis yeah you see what Giannis did to this team the last couple years he dropped 50 how many guys have to drop 50 on you before you go maybe you’re not an elite perimeter Defender and I understand he’s ascending but like at the end of the day they got a guy that they are selling high on they think they can improve on and I think they’re right and the point that you made about the contra cont ract and commies for Life made about the contract moving forward like based on how high we all are on Denny more times than not it’s going to play out that way to where when the Wizards are good Denny is going to be worth $250 million and then your your books are going to be all screwed up because he’s going to be the fourth best player on your team point at that point you’re going to want to actually bring in free agents they going to want to come here and you’re going room to sign him and so like it is an asset management game that is a multi-year cap sheet and they have hired a lot of people that whose job it is to understand that to play the 3D chess on the long term and to just be like ah I’m sad the Wizards traded my favorite player like I’m sorry as I was saying all uh football draft season in in reference to Adam Peters and the commander new front office what the Wizards have assembled here you can tell me if you agree or not there are to me a top five to seven front office right now in the NBA based off the track records of the guys that they have in house we are at the mercy of the evaluator whatever they say goes and I’m on board with it because their track record in their previous destinations and how they’ve handled their first 12 months on the job here should show you that hey you got to trust these guys for sure but let’s not play dumb here right Denny’s contract is amazing not not only not only is it four years thank you someone said they love us LEL uh 4 years descending money yeah right so by 2027 28 when Denny’s 27 years old he’s been making 11 million that’s stealing it is that’s stealing in today’s cap era it is especially considering what Denny brings to the floor he ain’t no scrub I’m never we’re not confusing him with that he’s an ascending player and I think as you continue to mention the wizard sold high and it’s refreshing from my uh advantage point because for once they’re moving with some sort of foresight looking into the future instead of being in win nowo trying to contend with a bad roster like that’s what it’s been before Mike Winger Will Dawkins and Company came in so I’m all on board with it I’m super excited though to see what happens next because there are slew of reports that you know lead you to believe that Washington is trying to move back up into the top 10 and what fascinates me about that is we don’t know who the hell they could be targeting in the top 10 you talk to folks in NBA circles the talent range from 10 to 25 you get the same type of player so let Will Dawkins Mike Winger and The Whiz Avengers as I’m call alling them cook cuz they’re going to end up with a really good player tonight one way or another no and I I think that’s 100% correct and you got get guys on the same contract timeline right and and that’s a part of it that like I wasn’t even thinking about in terms of just being from the fans perspective like they know when they’re expected to compete selfishly I want it to be next year I’ve been saying it all week but if they have someone that can come in and be a franchise alterate player then maybe you accelerate your rebuild but realistically speaking they’re still two or three years away and tonight I think puts you in Prime position to set the foundation for what this rebuild is going to be and at the end of the day Leno they won 15 games last year no one sacred and I I hate to say that because I’m not trying to diminish Denny is a very very very very very good NBA basketball player but when you’re the second best player on a team that wins 15 games what and you’re getting two firsts and two seconds in return and Malcolm Brogden who’s not nothing I’m sorry like that’s that’s not a bad deal not a bad deal at all uh Sam Vine actually tweeted about the deal said it was a great move by the Washington Wizards and he’s someone that’s well respected uh in NBA circles but the Wizards active early and often lell Willingham Craig Hoffman out here on the Concourse at Capital One Arena at the Wizards 2024 NBA draft this is the Hoffman show on the team 980 in The Odyssey app

The Washington Wizards traded 23 year old forward Deni Avdija to the Portland Trailblazers RIGHT as we started our 2024 NBA Draft Show! Catch the instant reaction — as seen and heard on @TheTeam980 — as we discuss why Will Dawkins and Michael Winger would make this move, and if it was a good one by the Wizards.

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