Basketball GM Mode

The Chicago Ironworks offer their 27-year-old 88 OVR wing for your 25-year-old 82 OVR guard, your 24-year-old 80 OVR big, and an unprotected first two seasons out.

• You are getting the best player in the deal, which is usually how titles get won — two very good players lose a seven-game series to one great one more often than not.
• But you are emptying two roster spots and a future first to do it. Under a hard cap those spots get filled with minimum contracts, and your eighth through tenth men get materially worse.
• Accept if you are already a top-four seed and this wing is the piece that makes you a favourite. Reject if you are a play-in team — you would be spending your flexibility to become a slightly better play-in team.

The Los Angeles Palms offer their 33-year-old 87 OVR forward, three seasons left at $42M per year, for your late first and a young rotation big.

• The rating is real but the contract is the trade. Three seasons at $42M for a player already past his peak is negative value — that money is nearly a third of your cap for the whole window.
• By season two he is an 83 on a max deal and you cannot move him without attaching a pick. You would be paying an asset now for the privilege of paying another one later.
• The correct version of this trade is the reverse: they should be attaching a first to you to take the contract.

The Miami Riptide offer two future firsts (their own, both unprotected) for your 31-year-old 84 OVR centre on an expiring deal.

• An 84 OVR centre raises a rebuilding team from 24 wins to maybe 31. That is the worst possible outcome — worse lottery odds, no closer to contending.
• Two unprotected firsts from a team that just consolidated is exactly the asset class you want: their roster is now top-heavy and one injury away from a bad season, which is when unprotected picks pay off.
• This is the single most reliable value trade in a GM game. Take it every time your best player will not still be your best player in three seasons.

You hold picks 8 and 19. The Detroit Assembly will send you pick 3 for both, plus a future second.

• On the value curve, picks 8 and 19 together come to roughly 405 against pick 3 at 720 — you are paying under market to move up. That looks like a clear win.
• It is only a win if you need a star more than you need bodies. A rebuilding roster with six open spots should keep both picks; a team with a young core already in place should consolidate into the one prospect who can be its best player.
• The tiebreaker is who is actually on the board at 3. If the draft's top tier is two deep, trading up to 3 buys you the fourth-best prospect at a first-tier price.