The Great Marginal Big Man Swap of 2017
TRADE GRADES: Miles Plumlee for Roy Hibbert and Spencer Hawes
Welcome to Trade Grades, where we take a look at the trades and transactions of the NBA. Today we’re going to take a look at the recent trade of Miles Plumlee for Spencer Hawes and Roy Hibbert.
MILES PLUMLEE, Milwaukee Bucks
9.7 minutes per game
2.6 points per game
.6 assists per game
1.7 rebounds per game
SPENCER HAWES, Charlotte Hornets
17.9 minutes per game
7.3 points per game
1.8 assists per game
4.2 rebounds per game
ROY HIBBERT, Charlotte Hornets
16 minutes per game
5.2 points per game
.5 assists per game
3.6 rebounds per game
Miles Plumlee isn’t a good basketball player, at least not at this point in his career. He was useful in small minutes last year, posting career best shooting marks in a small role putting up 5 points per game. He had a few nice games towards the end of the 2015–2016 season, picking up a good number of rebounds and occasionally scoring in double digits as Giannis Antetokounmpo began his ascent to stardom.
And then the Bucks paid him $12.5 million a year.
The contract was questionable at the time and has only been worse since. Plumlee’s minutes have been spotty and his production has been the worst of his career. After starting the first few games of the 2016–2017 season, he’s moved back and forth from the bench to DNP-CD status. It’s one of the worst contracts given out in an offseason marked by very bad big man contracts.
Charlotte, meanwhile, has had big man problems of its own. Cody Zeller remains one of the league’s best-kept secrets as a stellar role player, but Spencer Hawes was negative value when Charlotte traded for him, and has remained that over the course of his Charlotte career. As a mostly-immobile big man with limited utility on defense, Hawes has kept his NBA career alive by serving as a stretch big man. But in recent years he’s not even been great at shooting from outside, his main NBA skill. This year he’s shooting three-pointers at 29% on 1.6 attempts per game, which is well below league average.
And Roy Hibbert, a low-cost gamble signed in the offseason, has fallen a long way from his Indiana Pacers heyday. A menacing rim protector with intimidating size and superlative grasp of the law of verticality, Hibbert anchored the defense of some of the fiercest competition LeBron James ever faced in the Eastern Conference Playoffs. But internal issues and the decline of some of its key contributors doomed that Pacers team, and Hibbert found himself a relic in an NBA increasingly embracing speed instead of size. Nothing in his tenure in Charlotte has inspired the same sort of intimidating awe as those defensive powerhouse Pacers squads. In fact, Hibbert’s lack of foot speed has been a liability for Charlotte’s bench units, which have been lackluster across the board. Teams have grown smarter about the way in which they attack huge slow rim protectors, forcing Hibbert to play further from the basket.
Neither team has gotten much out of their backup big men.
Why do the swap at all, then?
Charlotte (for some reason) likes Plumlee. Clifford has done well extracting good play from guys who’ve been marginal at their other stops, Marco Belinelli being one example. Belinelli’s pickup by the Hornets was universally panned, but he’s been a decent contributor for a team in need of bench help. Perhaps Plumlee will be similar.
On the other hand, Plumlee’s value on the court has never been so low. He’s not shown enough at any of the other stops he’s made so far in the NBA to justify the contract he received from the Bucks, and without major improvement he’s likely to remain an anchor on their salary cap. He’s 28 years old, the time when most NBA players are in their prime. It’s a gamble, and it doesn’t seem like there’s enough upside to justify it.
On the Bucks side, it’s a move to clear salary. Hibbert is expiring this offseason, and Hawes has a player option for the coming year. Even if he opts in, $6 million is much easier to handle than $12.5 million. Hibbert and Hawes aren’t awe-inspiring names, but if rumors from our own Keith Smith about Milwaukee trying to deal Greg Monroe and/or John Henson are true, they’re warm bodies for depth at the center spot.
Unless Miles Plumlee has a mid-career awakening, the Milwaukee Bucks come out the clear winners in this trade. They clear a bunch of salary for next year and gain a little depth at center to help ease the blow of parting with Monroe or Henson. Neither Hibbert nor Hawes is likely to be much of a difference-maker, but they don’t need to be, at least not for now. Because Milwaukee’s clearing so much long-term salary for minimal cost, it’s a great move for them.
For Charlotte, they’ve taken on a great deal of long-term salary for a player who’s been mediocre at best in every place he’s played. It’s a big risk with very little upside, and it seems like a reach. Not a great move for them.
Milwaukee won this trade by a mile. Even counting for performance on the court, there’s not much difference, and they’ve cleared a lot of salary.
Charlotte: D
Milwaukee: A
All stats from Basketball-Reference.com. All salary information from BasketballInsiders.com
