Trade Value

One of the interesting conversations in sports is analysis of trades and potential trades. It's always fun to sit in a bar and analyze how good or horrible a given trade is. But it's also one of the most difficult judgement to make. For example, there's a lot of talk about the KG trade or about the J-Rich trade for Brandan Wright in the Golden State land. But who really knows what happens in the future given that Brandan Wright is a rookie who has not played a single possession in the NBA or even with Al Jefferson who went to Minny in the KG trade who is so young. 5 years from now when KG is old and over-paid, Jefferson could potentially be dominating the league. Similarly, Brandan Wright could retire as the best-ever power forward or he could just flame out of the league in 2 years. At least with established veterans like J-Rich, KG and Ray Allen, you know what you are getting. But things get a lot more unpredictable when these trades involve rookies and draft picks.

Now, I am not saying we all shut up and stop evaluating trades. Fans and media definitely have to evaluate every move of the GM and the management and make them accountable. No point giving them a free reign. Plus, if we don't talk in hypotheticals and about the future, what else do we as sports fans get to talk about to show our knowledge and expertise? So thats not what I am saying. But I want fans and media to understand that evaluation of these trades can change wildly with time. Sometimes these trades go one way for 3 years and goes the other way for the next 10 especially if it involves young players. I started thinking about all this with this whole Michael Vick saga. A lot of fans and experts conveniently forget that Michael Vick was traded for Ladainian Tomlinson.

The Chargers in 2001 had recently drafted a QB very high in the draft, a QB named Ryan Leaf. That move had set the franchise back by about 5 years and made them the laughing stock of the league. So they were literally scared to touch another QB when they earned the first pick in 2001 and a QB named Michael Vick was the prize of the draft. As good as Michael Vick looked, the Chargers reluctantly traded that pick away to avoid another QB disaster. Boy, aren't they glad today they did that with this whole dog fighting deal today? But forget the whole dog fighting deal. With that in the picture, no team would even trade a cheer leader's outfit for Vick. So thats not the point here. Atlanta jumped on that deal in 2001 and sent San Diego the fifth overall pick in the first round, their third-round pick, their second-round pick in 2002 and wide receiver Tim Dwight. Never mind that even Tim Dwight for Michael Vick would look lop-sided for San Diego ended up drafting a RB called Ladainian Tomlinson with that 5-Th pick. The rest of the picks in that trade have not yielded anything spectacular for the Chargers to date.

A lot of experts were all over San Diego for passing up on an incredible athlete, a transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime, position changing player. That was the take even 2 or 3 years in to the trade when it became obvious that LT was going to be good and he had already erased most of his draft-day doubts. Some people still said that as good as LT is, he is no Vick. Vick is such a high impact player who was hyped to be even bigger than the NFL. He was a big business windfall for the league as well because of the hype, his street-cred and the fact that he is a QB. But fast-forward 2 or 3 more years and it's clear that trade did involve an incredible athlete, a transcendent, once-in-a-lifetime, position changing player. But thats LT. I am talking even pre-dog days of this summer. Even without his current set of problems, Vick for LT is lop-sided in favor of the Chargers. In fact, the Chargers ended up picking Drew Brees in the second round of that 2001 draft to play QB for them instead of Vick and I wouldn't even trade Brees for Vick, dogs or no dogs. Vick never really reached his full-potential. It looked like we were never going to get the QB of the new millennium, Dan Marino of this generation. LT is all of that and more at the RB position. Thats the reality.

The morale of the story, don't be quick to judge trades.