2018 NBA trade value rankings, Part 1

Whether you loved or hated them, Bill Simmons’ Trade Value columns were a touchstone for NBA discussions. Gone for a while, it’s about time for a comeback.

The first time I read one of Bill Simmons’ columns ranking the most valuable assets in the NBA was in the summer of 2004. I distinctly remember thinking what a cool idea it was, mostly because we had just come off a decade utterly owned by Shaquille O’Neal. No, his teams didn’t win every year, but it didn’t matter. For 10 solid seasons, every NBA conversation began and ended with “How is [Team X] gonna deal with Shaq?”

If you’re too young to remember, you know the idea now that any team with LeBron James at least has a shot at the title? It was the same thing with Shaq, only more so. In my mind, Shaq wasn’t just the most untouchable asset in the NBA, but maybe in the history of basketball.

Three weeks later, he was traded to the Miami Heat.

The move put into perspective just how impossible a task it was trying to put some order to the league’s most untouchable players. For as much crap as he took for those columns, we all owe Simmons a debt of gratitude for trying. They became a frame of reference and a jumping off point for arguments, and one that’s been sorely missed.

Until now.

If there’s ever been a time when we need a comeback for an NBA list that’s going to piss a whole lot of people off, what could be better than on the heels of a stretch where all hell is breaking loose?

Just think: In one roughly 72-hour period, we just had:

• Kemba Walker being put on the market
• A Wizards’ players only meeting gone awry
• The shaming of Kevin Love for getting sick
• Damian Lillard meeting with his owner
• Jason Kidd getting fired without Giannis Antetokounmpo knowing, and
• The Spurs – the freaking Spurs – maybe on the outs with their star player

Heck, Bobby Portis punching Nikola Mirotic in the face seems like a ripple in the water compared to the waves crashing down on the NBA landscape of late. The sheer magnitude of things happening makes a trade value ranking necessary…and impossible.

It’s been 17 years since Bill’s first list, and a lot has changed since then. Heck, even 2015 – the year of his last column – seems like forever ago. Ordering the best players in the world is more difficult now than ever.

Why? In addition to the volume of news coming out damn near by the hour, there are three main reasons, all of which are interrelated:

• LeBron changed the rules, and Kevin Durant doubled down. Sure, free agency has been around basketball for a long time, but something changed that fateful July night in 2010. Nothing is sacred anymore, a fact that was reaffirmed when KD exited stage left in the summer of 2016. In response, the league changed the rules to make it easier for teams to keep their stars. How’d that work out for the Clippers last summer with Chris Paul? Or in Cleveland with Kyrie Irving? Or in Indiana with Paul George? It’s not complicated: If a guy wants out, waive bye-bye. This, of course, goes hand in hand with…
• Shorter veteran contracts. When Simmons did the first one of these way back in 2001, Tracy McGrady was in the first year of a seven-year pact he signed with the Orlando Magic. He was averaging 27 points a game as a 21-year-old. Obviously he was a no brainer to end up near the top of the list. Today, the ink is barely dry on the extension Giannis Antetokounmpo signed last fall, and people are already talking about how teams are lining up to poach him away from the Bucks. This leads us to our last point…
• Rookie deals are now even more valuable, not only because they’re the best source of cheap labor in the NBA, but because the restricted free agency rules make it much easier for a team to keep a star through almost his first full decade in the league. The problem with rookies is that they’re usually bad, and may look entirely different with a year or two of experience. As a result, you’re ranking teenagers based on potential more than ever before. This can lead to patent ridiculousness. You’ve been warned.

Put it all together, and it makes for some interesting rankings. Needless to say, a top-50 trade value list looks a lot different than a list of the best 50 players in the NBA. A lot of the same guys might be on both lists, but nowhere near in the same order (remember this when you get to LeBron James. Again: you have been warned).

For those unfamiliar, a quick refresher on the rules, which remain unchanged since Simmons did 13 versions of this baby from 2001-15:

• The higher the player, the less likely it is that his team would trade him. If John Wall is no. 18, he is a better asset (by these rankings, at least) than everyone else from 19 on down.
• These rankings aren’t done in a vacuum. Everything matters — salary, age, contract length, team situation — the whole shebang.
• Last, but most important: This is an imperfect science, and because everything matters, it can lead to some tricky questions. Let’s use John Wall as an example again. The Wizards would never call up the Jazz to pitch a Donovan Mitchell for John Wall swap because Washington has faint hopes of contending in the near future and Wall makes that easier in the short term. If, however, the Wiz dialed the wrong number and Utah picked up, the Jazz brass wouldn’t even entertain the idea. Washington, on the other hand, would at least be intrigued. The fact that more of the other 28 teams would take Mitchell (who is on the first year of a rookie deal) than Wall (who will make $35 million on average over the next four years) matters, but it isn’t the end-all, be-all (keep this in mind when we get to the Golden State guys). Again, context matters.

Okay, enough build-up…let’s get own to it. A big thanks to NBA.com, BasketballReference.com, and Ben Falk’s indispensable CleaningTheGlass.com for providing all of the statistics in this article.

Before we hit the top 50 and honorable mentions, let’s pour one out for everyone’s favorite enigma who doesn’t have a place on the list but deserves to be mentioned…