Raptors Trade: Evaluation

Toronto receives: Amir Johnson + Sonny Weems

Milwaukee receives: Carlos Delfino (sign and trade) + Roko Ukic

Note: because Amir Johnson and Sonny Weems were just involved in a trade less than a month ago, either this transaction is two ‘1 for 1’ deals or it may take up to a month before it is officially completed.

Does this Work Financially?

Amir Johnson 2009/10 salary: $3.941,667
(total contract: $3,941,667)
Sonny Weems 2009/10 salary: $736,420
(total contract: $1,590,809)

*Note: with Sonny Weems he has a two year contract at the minimum with a team early termination clause and a qualifying offer in 2011/2012.

Carlos Delfino 2009/10 salary: $3,666,000
(total contract: ~$11,000,000)
Roko Ukic 2009/10 salary: $1,350,000
(total contract: $2,800,000)

The deal does not work financially if they are traded in two separate ‘1 on 1’ transactions unless further pieces are added. Therefore I believe that this trade will become official once Johnson and Weems are eligible to be traded again.

Why the Raptors Make this Trade?

The Raptors are able to parlay a third-string point guard and a player who - in all likelihood – was not going to play for them this year for a young power forward with good potential and a young swingman for the back of the bench.

Amir Johnson

Amir Johnson was the 56th pick of the 2005 draft, and the last high school player ever drafted. Johnson is a still a young player (at 22) who has the potential to become a good to great player in this league. His PER rating last season was 13.5, which is just below the NBA average of 15. His offensive efficiency was very good last year with an eFg% of .595 and TS% of .608, well above league averages. This would suggest that he tends to take high percentage shots in and around the cylinder. His assist rate % is quite low at 3.4%, but I feel that he will be able to improve that with experience and practice. In addition, he had a fairly low usage rate of 11.1% meaning that he did not have many plays ran for him.

Amir Johnson is also fairly good on the defensive side of the ball. He has a block percentage of 5.1% (2.4 blocks per 36 minutes) and has a defensive rating of 105, which is better than Bargnani’s defensive rating of 109 and Bosh’s of 108.

In terms of offense and defensive, the true value of Johnson can be seen through the ratings differential. His differential of 15 is greater than Bosh’s of 6 and Bargnani’s of -8.

Amir Johnson’s rebounding ability is what really makes this acquisition a very good one. He has an offensive rebounding rate of 13.1 (which is very impressive) and a defensive rebounding rate of 17.2. In general, he grabs around 15% of available rebounds, which is much better than Bargnani’s rate of 9.3% and similar to Bosh’s 14.5%. He instantly becomes one of the best rebounders on this team.

In general, I see Johnson as the second best big man on the Raptors behind Chris Bosh and would excel in a role of grabbing rebounds and playing defense. He is also a good finisher around the rim and tends to take only high percentage shots. He would be an ideal fit in the starting line-up alongside Bosh and Turkolu. However, I do not foresee Triano having the guts to stick Bargnani on the bench. Dave, from NBARoundtable, says his pick and roll defensive is very good and his presence may go a long way to solving this Raptor’s defensive problems.

I have heard concerns saying that Johnson will not play many minutes because many consider him the 5th big man behind Bosh, Bargnani, Evans and Rasho. In my opinion, this is completely untrue because he will prove to be a better player than both Evans and Rasho. Minutes are not going to arbitrary go to the veterans and I firmly believe Johnson will be the first big off the bench at the all-star break, if not earlier.

Sonny Weems

Sonny Weems was the 39th pick of 2008 draft but was traded almost immediately to Denver on draft day. He was injured early last season, and when he recovered he was assigned to Denver’s D-League affiliate in Colorado. He only played 55 minutes, which is hardly a large enough sample to analyze his statistics and I have never seen him play. He seems like an athletic player who may be able to develop into a rotation worthy player down the road.

From this deal, Toronto adds $3,328,087 assuming they were not going to sign Delfino and they are going to keep Weems. Toronto has no contract obligations next year as they have an ETO on Weems and Johnson’s contract is expiring.

Why the Bucks Make this Trade?

The Bucks were heavily stocked at the power forward position with Ersan Ilyasova, Kurt Thomas, and newly signed Hakim Warrick. Milwaukee’s front office must assume that Johnson was not going to play heavy minutes for the team and decided to trade him and a minimum contract for a solid two guard in Carlos Delfino and point guard depth in Roko Ukic. Ukic is insurance if (when?) Sessions leaves to another team as a restricted free agent.

Carlos Delfino

Carlos Delfino did not play in the NBA last year, but played the previous year at Toronto. He was drafted with the 25th pick of the first round by Detroit in the 2003 draft. Looking at his most recent season in the NBA, on offense he shot a TS% of .537 and an eFg% of .492, which are both slightly below the league average. He had a good assist rate of 11.1% and had a pretty high usage rate of 19.0%. Overall, he was a slightly inefficient scorer who made the pass when needed.

On defense, Delfino had a blocking percentage of 0.5% and a steal percentage of 1.9%. From a subjective standpoint, he seemed like a below-average to average defender, who tried to keep his defender ahead of him but should not be considered elite.

Looking at the rating differential, Delfino is +1, which is okay. His defensive rating is good but his offensive rating of 107 is poor. In comparison of some Raptors last year, Parker posted a rate of -6, Marion posted a rate of -3 and Moon has a rate of -1. So in comparison, he would have performed better than some of the other Raptor swingmen of last season.

Rebounding-wise, Delfino is one of best at his position. His total rebounding rate of 11.0 was better than Bargnani’s rate last year! In comparison, Parker had a rate of 7.1, Moon had a rate of 10.6 and Marion had a rate 13.8. He is a very good rebounder for his position.

Delfino was not going to sign for the Raptors because of the limited minutes behind Turkolu and the other swingmen. There was no guarantee that he would have had a starting spot and Delfino would not have left his Russian team for a rotation spot with less money. I believe Scott Skiles would give him a large role on the Bucks team and this must have been discussed before Delfino would consider the sign-and-trade.

Roko Ukic

Roko Ukic was a second round pick by the Raptors in 2005 with the 41st pick. His first year in the league was last year with the Raptors. Ukic is a very poor offensive player with a TS% of .430 and eFg% of .397, which is among the worst in the league. His assist rate is 27.2 % which is very good but it may be largely because he deferred to his teammates when he played. He had a high usage rate, largely because he is a point guard, but surprising considering his poor shooting percentages.

Ukic was also pretty poor on defense with a steal rate of 1.8 and an assist rate of 0.2. In comparison, Calderon rates for those two measures was 1.7 and 0.2 respectively, which shows that our point guard tandem was very, very poor defensively. Some subjective reports have said that he is a good defensive player with good tools, but I haven’t seen this defensive quality yet.

What was really telling was his ratings differential. Ukic had a very ugly -20 (93 on offense and 113 on defense) indicating that he was poor offensively and defensively. For comparison, Calderon had a rate of +11.

In terms of rebounding, Ukic has a total rebounding rate of 4.9%, which is below-average for his position.

My opinion of Ukic is not very positive. He has shown to be a very weak offensive and defensive player with below-average rebounding rates. He may improve with more familiarity of the league, but he is already 25, and has way too much to work on for him to even be considered a rotation quality player.

Conclusions

I think this is a good trade for Toronto which could even become great or even excellent depending on how much playing time they give to Johnson. Toronto has managed to trade two players who are out of their rotation into a player who should be considered their second-best big man. Great trade for the Raptors.

Grade for Toronto: A

I think this is an average trade for Milwaukee. I think Johnson would’ve been better than their other options at power forward, but they do have enough depth to compensate for him. Milwaukee has Michael Redd, Joe Alexander and Charlie Bell who play Delfino’s position and he might round out their wing players. Delfino would provide average defending, below average scoring and great rebounding from the two spot. With respect to Ukic, I do not think he will play much, I still think he will be a third string pg (behind Ridnour and Jennings). If I was a Milwaukee fan, I would have rather not have signed Warrick, and keep Johnson as my starting power forward. But, in general, they did get a rotation quality player in Delfino for a good price.

Grade for Milwaukee: C+