Chris Paul, Bradley Beal and a What??-What?? Trade
Examining the first "blockbuster" trade in the Nuggets Title Era
Wow, apologies for the length of time between writing. The good news I’ll throw to you. Brian Foster and I regularly record the Boxscore Geeks podcast twice weekly, typically Tuesdays at 10:30 pm EST. My friend Landon and I stream vintage video games on Wednesday nights at 10 pm EST. You can catch the live recordings of those at twitch.tv/nerdnumbers. Finally, once a month, I record the Nerd! Podcast with Jeff May. So if you want to hear me talk about sports, video games, or nerdy subjects? I’ve been around.
I had intended my return to blogging to be about the Nuggets winning their first NBA title. An event, through amazing luck, I was able to attend with my dad, son, and brother. That will rank at an all-time high for me. And I believe Brian Foster and I will wax effusive next week on the Boxscore Geeks show. But before I had a chance to return from my travels in Colorado, collect my thoughts on the Nuggets and write, something else happened. Chris Paul was traded away, yet again. And like every other time in his NBA career, I couldn’t help but be stunned by the decision.
Thanks to Bobby Marks for a pretty simple breakdown:
Wizards get:
Chris Paul, 38 years old, $30 million/year for two years
Landry Shamet, 26 years old, $10 million/year for one year (with two years guaranteed behind it)
Suns get:
Bradley Beal, 30 years old, $50 million/year for four years.
There are picks and pick swaps included. I give very little value to draft picks in trade analysis for those that don't know. They are the constant in integrals or the big O notation (shout out to my math and computer science nerd followers). A topic for another day, but basically, the players above are the real value of the trade.
Let’s Talk Bradley Beal
Bradley Beal’s Boxscore Geeks Advanced Stats Here.
I’ve written extensively about Bradley Beal between Wages of Wins and Boxscore Geeks. He was a poor top-three pick who got a large extension. He did manage to surprise me by going from terrible to decent. Using the Wins Produced and WP48 metrics, which estimate, via the boxscore, what a player contributes to a team’s total wins and per-minute wins, Bradley Beals's best season was 2018-2019:
3028 minutes played, 10.5 Wins, 0.166 WP48.
For perspective, an average player gets a 0.100 WP48. Star players tend to get 0.200 WP48 and special generational players like Nikola Jokic? They exceed 0.300 WP48. Brad Beal’s peak? Which was five years ago? He was a decent player. And, the trick to his success was minutes played. The last three years tell an interesting story
2020-2021 2147 Minutes Played, 5.5 Wins, 0.123 WP48
2021-2022 1439 Minutes Played, 2.0 Wins, 0.067 WP48
2022-2023 1673 Minutes Played, 4.0 Wins, 0.114 WP48
Basically, in 2022 Bradley Beal dealt with major injuries. His production hasn’t peaked since, and neither have his minutes. That’s a problem. Bradley Beal is in his thirties. In his best days, he was barely worth the money and now commands over 30% of the Suns’ salary cap.
That’s not great. Another obvious issue is as follows. Bradley Beal is really only good at one thing, which is scoring. Last season Bradley Beal had a True Shooting Percentage — which factors in free throws and threes — of 59.3%. And that’s good. The average shooting guard is around 56.8%. But an issue is, that’s all Bradley Beal is good at.
Bradley Beal vs. Devin Booker vs. Average Shooting Guard Comparison Here
And that’s a problem because the Suns already have a player in Devin Booker, who is basically the same. Devin Booker is an above-average shooting guard about five years younger than Bradley Beal, who shoots a lot at above average. To his credit, Booker is a slightly better passer than Beal, but neither is great.
To risk poking the hornet’s nest, Booker and Beal are the type of players who have always gotten me in trouble. They are above-average players. They are good scorers. Their peak games are ridiculous. Booker has scored 70 points in a game, and Beal has scored 60. But on a day-to-day aggregate? They’re not worth max contracts, and having two of them on your squad for over 60% of your cap? Well, you’ll probably not win it all with that strategy. This is a reminder that Devin Booker is on a four-year, $224 million deal, which means the Suns will invest over $400 million into Booker and Beal if they keep them both around.
Let’s Talk Chris Paul
Chris Paul’s Boxscore Geeks advanced stats here
Chris Paul is one the greatest point guards ever to play the game. That is a remarkable stat. Using the peak season, WP48 and Wins? Here’s Chris Paul’s Peak season with five different franchises:
2007-2008 New Orleans Hornets - 3005 Minutes Played, 23.4 Wins, 0.374 WP48
2014-2015 LA Clippers - 2857 Minutes Played, 20.5 Wins, 0.345 WP48
2017-2018 Houston Rockets - 1847 Minutes Played, 12.1 Wins, 0.315 WP48
2019-2020 OKC Thunder - 2208 Minutes Played, 12.2 Wins, 0.265 WP48
2021-2022 Phoenix Suns - 2139 Minutes Played, 15.2 Wins, 0.341 WP48
Putting up ten wins and star-level performance with five franchises? It’s rare. But the rough part is Chris Paul’s age. First, good news, players like Jason Kidd and John Stockton stayed productive till their 40s. Chris Paul was a much better player than Bradley Beal last season, and at “only” $30 million a season over two years, he’s not much of a risk. But let’s talk about two parts of his last season. First, let’s talk regular season:
2022-2023 - 1889 Minutes Played, 9.6 Wins, 0.243 WP48
A decent dip in production from the season before. Chris Paul dealt with injuries last year. Nothing says he can’t return to form next season. But at 38? I’d be a little worried. Also, as a Nuggets fan, I was able to watch for the first time in his career that Chris Paul had a below-average playoffs where he played in multiple rounds. Now, I subscribe to the Billy Beane reality that the playoffs are a small sample size and not proof of anything. It’s hard not to think Chris Paul may finally come to earth next season.
The reality is even a diminished Chris Paul is better than Bradley Beal. A harsh reality, I hope, doesn’t get me much flack. But, as the Wizards were a 35-win team? Even if he sticks around, Chris Paul might not be enough to get them into playoff shape. And that’s a larger point. The Wizards are allegedly already looking to move on from Chris Paul. I would absolutely cheer a return to the Clippers for him. And that will mean the Wizards got out of a bad Bradley Beal contract, which is still a win. But it leads to a very interesting question of if Beal had any real value in the NBA if the best the Wizards could do was dump his contract on the Suns.
It’s a bigger question for the Suns, though. Yes, Chris Paul and now Kevin Durant are former greats dealing with age and injury. It was a risky strategy of the Suns to trade much of their young core for Durant. But guess what? It basically worked. The Nuggets demolished their opponents en route to the NBA Finals. Yes, a lot of that was due to favorable seeding. Which, guess what? That’s why it matters that the Nuggets had the best player in the regular season. I’m still bitter.
But at two wins against the Nuggets, with a squad that wasn’t even together the whole season, the Suns got the closest to anyone at taking down the Nuggets. Rather than see if this team with a full year might do better, they jettisoned one of the best point guards ever for a mediocre/redundant shooting guard. I honestly don’t get it. Allegedly, Dandre Ayton may be on the block as well. And, sadly, the Suns’ title window may already be closed.
It’s easy to say the Wizards won this trade. But my confusion basically boils down to the fact that I don’t think the Wizards or Suns had a long-term plan entering this trade, and that’s bizarre. In an era of “advanced stats” and lionizing “clever” front offices, I still remain convinced most of them don’t know what they’re doing. I’m already fine passing that judgment on the Suns after this trade. We’ll have to see what the Wizards do next to see, though. I guarantee we’ll talk about that at least a little on the Boxscore Geeks show.
Until next time, which hopefully won’t be as long!