Up, back and in: Historical guide to draft pick trade costs

Current Jazz exec Danny Ainge landed all-pro Jayson Tatum after pulling off the mother of all pick swaps. (Charles Krupa via sltrib.com)

Ahead of the 2017 NBA Draft, a certain Celtics executive had several options with the No. 1 overall pick. Markelle Fultz was the consensus top choice, but the Celtics fell in love with Jayson Tatum after a hot-shooting private workout. With the Lakers focused on Lonzo Ball with the second overall pick, Boston brass made a bold choice: they’d take an extra future first in exchange for letting Philadelphia swap up from three to one, and they’d still be in position to take Tatum and turn him into a 6-time All-Star (and counting).

That deal marks the only time this century that a No. 1 overall pick has been traded on or leading up to draft day. But it’s also noteworthy because of who that Boston decision-maker was: Danny Ainge, now CEO of basketball operations for the Jazz.

Every year since 2000, between two and eight draft-adjacent trades have happened each summer in which at least one first-rounder changed hands. The Jazz have been involved in 11 of those trades, and some wonder if Ainge and GM Justin Zanik may be looking at their options against this year. Because several hours before the May 12 gutpunch arrived via sealed envelopes on a Chicago soundstage, one of the top NBA news breakers mused that the Jazz might try to engineer their own luck if the lottery failed to deliver them a franchise-changer.

“Even if they don’t get the number one overall pick, they’re going to be trying to go for it,” Shams Charania said on the Pat McAfee Show, a program frequented by Jazz owner Ryan Smith from time to time.

Granted, this statement was made well before Dallas’ logo would emerge from the envelope marked with the big red “1.” The Mavs are probably the last team that could consider selling the top pick, given that they’re still fending off angry mobs after trading franchise star Luka Doncic in a shocking February deal. It was also before we knew the Jazz would slide all the way to fifth. But that highlights exactly why this was such a peculiar comment to make; hours before any results were known, Charania was confident enough about the Jazz’s desire to secure a cornerstone that he made that report on national TV.

The reality is that moving up in that draft range is pretty challenging — and moving all the way to the top overall pick is almost completely unprecedented. But given the noise here, we should revisit our due diligence around pick trade values for all the scenarios facing the Utah Jazz.

Draft-adjacent trades are their own little economy. Picks move all year long, but have a very different value in June deals where they’re more often the object of desire, rather than mere currency used in midseason star trades or salary dumps. (It’s the same reason the 2014 Andrew Wiggins doesn’t factor into this analysis; that was an August deal made in the context of Cleveland suddenly needing to put a win-now roster around prime LeBron James, and doesn’t inform as to the asset value of picks in the run-up to draft day.)

As such, what most interests us in this context is the body of trades made during the draft and immediately leading up to the draft (including those that for cap reasons aren’t consummated until after the July moratorium). There have been 139 draft-adjacent trades where a team moved up or otherwise secured a first-rounder. Those are the trades we care about for this study.

There’s a quarter century of data here, which is nice because it accounts for strong drafts, weak drafts and everything in between. But the other thing to remember here is that each year is different in terms of where the perceived breaks are between tiers and other factors in the macro landscape. For example, the 2005 establishment of the one-and-done rule surely shifted pick values for some period of time, and second-rounders may be more valuable now that teams have more ways to utilize players selected there, with second-round pick exceptions and even two-way contracts.

Caveats aside, here are all 139 trades, broken into some ranges:

Moving within/into the top 5

Six times. That’s it. In 25 years.

There have only been a half dozen times in the last quarter century of drafting that a team has done what many fans want the Jazz to do: move up within the top five. The good news is that the price hasn’t been exorbitant when it has happened.

Move-up trades in the top 5

All of these examples are basically the same thing: a team moving up 2-3 spots by attaching an extra good pick or something of similar value, like a non-star starter or a guy on a rookie contract.

But the main takeaway here is that this maneuver is rare, probably because the valuation of those picks in a given draft is very much an eye-of-the-beholder calculation. This year, for example, three through five is considered a pretty even tier, but if a given team is crazy about Ace Bailey and less sold on VJ Edgecombe and Tre Johnson, it could be pretty hard to calibrate the value needed to make all parties happy.

The other way to acquire a pick is by giving up future draft assets, but that type of trade has never yielded a top-5 selection since 2000. What has happened (albeit rarely) are trades into the top 5 that were primarily engineered around player value.

Player trades involving the top 5

The lesson behind this group of transactions is this: if you want to acquire an impending top-5 pick without it being a move-up deal, you should probably expect to have to sacrifice one of your team’s best players.

Elton Brand was coming off a 20-and-10 season and was clearly the Bulls’ best player when he was dealt for the #2 pick in 2001. Ditto for Shareef Abdur-Rahim (20 & 9), and Ray Allen was a 7-time All-Star and the face of the Sonics franchise at that point. Antawn Jamison was “just” the reigning sixth man and maybe the fourth or fifth most important Mav in a macro sense, but he was only one year removed from a 22-ppg peak over four years with Golden State.

The clear outlier is Minnesota’s 2009 acquisition of the fifth pick. They still had to give up 40% of their starting lineup, but neither Randy Foye nor Mike Miller were foundational pieces. If you’re hoping the Jazz can acquire an extra premium pick without giving up No. 5 or Lauri Markkanen, this is probably the only precedent in 25 years for that type of deal. 

Acquiring/upgrading lotto picks outside the top 5

Almost once a year on average, someone moves up from a later pick to somewhere in the 6-14 range.

Move-up trades involving lotto picks outside the top 5

Again, the costs here are pretty consistent. Smaller jumps (one to three spots) in most cases required something roughly valuing a first-round pick: a first, multiple seconds, a rotational player, a moderate salary dump, or in some outlier cases, cold hard cash.

The bigger jumps (5+) generally required multiple extra assets, although there are outlier cases, like when the Jazz made it all the way from 14 to 9 in the Trey Burke year and only gave up the 21st pick as sweetener.

In this range, it has occasionally been possible to pry a pick in the back half of the lottery with an offer built around future draft assets. But these are rarer (only 7 in 25 years), probably because in almost every case, the future asset wound up being less valuable than the pick that was surrendered initially.

Lotto picks outside the top 5 moved for future assets

And as far as player trades involving picks in the back half of the lottery, it’s kind of a mixed bag in terms of what’s required. Some picks in the 6-14 range were acquired for a star, some for a starter, and some as part of more complex deals with major pieces going in both directions (like the 2017 #7 as part of the Jimmy Butler-Zach LaVine deal).

Lotto picks outside the top 5 involved in player trades

Jeff Teague, Jrue Holiday and Antonio McDyess were all one-time All-Stars at the time of their trades, and the Butler-LaVine deal was a different type of trade altogether. So the takeaway here is that the price for a late lotto pick is usually a solid starter OR a borderline All-Star.

Non-lottery pick acquisitions

Move-up trades for picks outside the lottery are a lot more common and tend to require lesser assets.

Move-up trades with non-lottery picks

Pretty much the rule of thumb is that in order to trade a non-lottery first for a better non-lottery first, you have to attach another (bad) first, OR one or more seconds, OR a reserve-level player.

It’s also pretty common to buy a late first-round pick with seconds, future assets, or players.

Non-lottery picks for future assets

The small text here is testament that in the back half of the draft, there is generally a lot of movement. Some teams just want to defer their pick by a year or two, or move back into the second-round if they feel the talent there is similar but with cheaper salaries. That might be more true in the new cap environment, because now all teams have a way to sign second-rounders to deals that enable long-term team control.

Non-lottery picks for players

Again, this is a crowded list, but it’s mostly made up of rotation players or low-level starters.

All told, you could generally describe the cost of acquiring picks in those three ranges this way:

What the data says about 25 years worth of draft pick trades

This is a good guide to have as you think about Utah making potential buyer trades, but the same general rules apply if the Jazz decide to entertain offers to move down or out with either of their picks. That’s probably not their mindset as of this moment, but depending on how workouts and the draft itself unfold, this analysis could also ultimately inform what the Jazz get if the guy they fall in love with is someone who will be available at, say, #8 or #12. Or if they decide they have enough developmental projects and decide to trade #21 for the present-day equivalent of a Kurt Thomas or an Aaron Holiday. I don’t necessarily think that’s the move at this point, but the Jazz have a ton of flexibility in terms of how they could imagine their offseason as a whole.

The Jazz should be at least theoretically able to pursue a lot of different paths this summer with their collection of assets: one star, three expiring vets, seven recent draft picks, four non-guaranteed salaries, a dozen future firsts and eight seconds.