Looking Back at the Tony Snell Trade
With the regular season almost over, let’s look back at one of the Bulls’ early season moves.
Let’s get this out of the way early — the Bulls lost the Tony Snell trade. When the news broke in late October 2016 that the Bulls had shipped Snell off to Milwaukee for Michael Carter-Williams, the response was mixed. Some were happy to see the beleaguered wing depart after an underwhelming 2015–16 campaign, and hailed the trade as a good move. Unfortunately, the more the season has gone on, the more evident it is that those optimistic about this trade were mistaken.
Snell was coming off a year in which he averaged 5.3 points in over 20 minutes per game, shot 37.2 percent from the field, and posted a 6.3 PER. It seems impossible that a team could trade a player with those numbers and have people thinking “wow, they lost this trade”, but that’s exactly the case. Snell had underachieved, sure, but his positive on-court Net Rating (+4.5) and floor spacing ability indicated that he still had some intrinsic value as a player. Michael Carter-Williams? Not so much.
Before we go into further detail, it’s important to recognize how terrible of a fit Carter-Williams was from the beginning. The Bulls were coming out of the preseason with four point guards on the roster; Rajon Rondo, Jerian Grant, Isaiah Canaan, and Spencer Dinwiddie. None particularly impressed, especially from the three point line.
“What must we do?,” Gar Forman asked himself.
Trade for another non-shooting point guard!
A career 25.5 percent three point shooter, Carter-Williams obviously would do little to shore up the Bulls’ notorious lack of shooting. With four point guards already in the ranks, it wasn’t even like he would fill a positional need. From GarPax’s perspective, it would seem that this trade was merely about acquiring talent — regardless of roster construction. The Bulls waived Dinwiddie in order to make room for Carter-Williams. Despite his underwhelming Bucks career, Carter-Williams did win Rookie of the Year with the 76ers in 2014, and at 6’5” with long arms, he still had the physical tools to succeed. With a fresh start, perhaps he could carve out a role as the Bulls’ point guard of the future, or at the very least, as a useful NBA player.
*Ron Howard voice* He did not.
Michael Carter-Williams has struggled immensely since putting on a Bulls jersey. It could be because he’s the victim of poor coaching and a bad environment, or simply because he’s not a good basketball player, but the answer likely lies somewhere in the middle. The start of his season was immediately thrown off by a knee and wrist injury that saw him miss 27 straight games, but even after his return he’s been unable to establish any kind of consistency. The numbers are ugly — 6.8 PPG, 3.5 RPG, and 2.5 APG on 36.5 percent shooting, and 23.8 percent from three. He’s failed to score in double digits since February 12, the team has a Net Rating of -2.4 when he’s on the court, and he fouls like a guy who can’t move his feet at the YMCA, averaging over four per 36 minutes. His assist-to-turnover ratio is a piddling 1.7, good for 148th in the NBA.
The eye test plays out even worse; his outside shots crater off the backboard at angles not seen since the extinction of the dinosaurs, and his out of control drives to the basket have resulted in more layups that don’t touch the rim than by any Bull since…. Joakim Noah (alright, bad example). Behold, Carter-Williams’ horrendous shot chart:
Of course, trades go two (and sometimes more) ways, and I’d be remiss not to look at how our old friend Tony Snell is doing. He’s doing pretty well, all things considered! After injuries that have left the Bucks without one of Khris Middleton or Jabari Parker for the whole year, Snell has been the starting 2-guard for Milwaukee every game this season. A more consistent starting role has seen him playing to his strengths; his three-point attempt rate is up to 65.8 percent, and he’s taking 4.4 per game. He’s knocking down a solid 40.0 percent of these shots as well, and as a result, his true shooting percentage has skyrocketed to a career high 59.8 percent. There are still many games he’s largely invisible, like when he famously posted a 0 point, 0 rebound, 0 assist, 0 steal, and 0 block performance in 28 minutes earlier this year. But by and large, for a guy who’s sole job is to play OK defense and make open threes (the type of player the Bulls desperately needed coming into the year), Tony Snell has been pretty solid. That’s certainly more than you can say for Michael Carter-Williams.
It seems poetic that the Bulls’ playoff hopes were dealt a blow on Saturday night when they lost to the league-worst Nets on the back of Spencer Dinwiddie (19 points), whom the Bulls shunned in favor of Carter-Williams (who scored 7 points on a terrible 2-for-10 field goals). For what it’s worth, Dinwiddie has been a better version of Carter-Williams in almost every category. Another tall point guard, he’s posting a 58.5 true shooting percentage compared to a putrid 43.7 for MCW, shooting nearly 39 percent from three, and both turning the ball over and fouling at a lower rate. Yeah. Whoops.
Michael Carter-Williams and Tony Snell are both restricted free agents this coming offseason. While Snell should be in line to earn a solid payday, MCW may be lucky to still be in the league. At the time, optimists saw this Bulls trade as something of a lateral move, an opportunity for a couple of underachieving young players to get their feet under themselves in a new environment. Make no mistake, the Tony Snell trade was a perfect example of Gar Forman throwing garbage at the wall to see what sticks, a truly aimless move doomed to fail from the start. If that was the goal, for whatever masochistic reason, Forman hasn’t disappointed. I wish I could say the same for Michael Carter-Williams.
Sign-up for our Newsletter! Bulls Confidential in your inbox every Friday!!
