Trade (Deadline) Ten Years Later - The Three Team Trade (Andre Miller/Jan Vesely/Eric Maynor)
Saving the best trade of the deadline (when ranked by most teams) for last!
The Names: Denver Nuggets receive: Jan Vesely (from WAS). Washington Wizards receive: Andre Miller (from DEN), Protected 2014 2nd (from PHI). Philadelphia 76ers receive: Eric Maynor and 2015 2nd (from WAS), future 2nd (from Denver)
The Team Context: We discussed Denver last Thursday in the context of their complementary trade for Aaron Brooks and discussed Philadelphia repeatedly this month as they tried to sell everybody on their roster. That leaves us with Washington.
Ernie Grunfeld was appointed as Wizards general manager in 2003 and immediately oversaw some mildly competitive teams through the middle of the decade. But things started to blow up and the team plummeted to a 19-63 record in 2008-09. The best piece of context for what the Wizards were like in these years is that, with the 5th pick in the 2009 Draft on account of their atrocious record, Washington opted to trade the pick for Randy Foye and Mike Miller in an attempt to remain as competitive as possible. Minnesota took the highly-regarded Ricky Rubio with the pick, while Foye and Miller both left Washington after the 26-56 2009-10 season. After a few more years of unpleasant scuffling, 2013-14 was the first year in a while where it seemed like scraping together a competitive team would actually result in a playoff appearance. With John Wall entering his fourth season and Bradley Beal entering his second (each of whom had been acquired with very high draft picks after losing seasons), the Wizards finally seemed to have an exciting core on an upward trajectory.
The Player Context: My sincere apologies to Eric Maynor, who I’ve been promoting as “Eric Gaynor” in my posts this entire time. Eric Gaynor is an accounting lecturer at Bentley University and has never played in an NBA game. Eric MAYNOR was the 20th overall pick in the 2009 Draft (the first VCU Ram to be selected in the first round), taken by the Utah Jazz to backup Deron Williams. But in December of his rookie year, the Jazz sent him along with the $6.5 million salary of injured Matt Harpring to Oklahoma City for Theoretical Peter Fehse. Maynor grew into a sizable backup role on the Thunder until he tore his ACL in January of 2012, then was traded to Portland shortly after his return in February 2013. As a free agent that summer, Maynor signed with the Washington Wizards on a 2-year deal for about $2 million each year. By December, we already had blog posts titled “The Eric Maynor Problem” that described Maynor as “among the worst rotation players in the entire league.”
The other Wizard on the move was Jan Vesely, selected by Washington with the 6th overall pick in 2011 based on compelling qualities he demonstrated while playing at Partizan in Serbia. Vesely pulled off a neat trick where he was almost immediately recognized as a bust of a draft pick, but remained somewhat beloved by Wizards fans even as they mourned the circumstances that brought him into their lives. Everybody could agree that he was a nice guy and was trying hard but that his efforts were not going to be sufficient to make him a good NBA player, with the root causes of this inadequacy being the only debatable topic – was Vesely always doomed to fail, or was he hindered by an incompetent Wizards development team? His rookie contract was set to expire after the season and nobody expected or wanted him to return to Washington.
Andre Miller was the player headed to DC. Miller was a respected veteran who was top-10 in NBA history in assists (he’s since been passed by Chris Paul, Lebron James, and Russell Westbrook) and was on the verge of his 38th birthday, known for his longevity more than anything. Miller played 632 consecutive games between 2002-03 and 2010, when his streak ended due to a suspension he earned from an incident where he “turned himself into a human battering ram and torpedoed a blindsided Blake Griffin into the stanchion under the Clippers basket.” Miller restarted his streak and it stood at 239 straight games before Nuggets coach Brian Shaw made him a healthy scratch for the first time in his 15-year career on January 1, 2014. Miller yelled at Shaw about the perceived disrespect, earning a suspension for conduct detrimental to the team, then never returned to the Nuggets rotation. Sounds like a trade candidate to me!
The Trade: Well there were three teams involved, so obviously this is the grand finale of the deadline. Objectively, this is more clearly a two-team swap of Jan Vesely for Andre Miller, but employing a unique structure where Eric Maynor is removed from the equation. The Wizards wanted to win now and needed a backup point guard to do it, while the Nuggets were seizing an opportunity to add more theoretical upside to their roster in exchange for a guy they hadn’t played in two months. The 76ers were involved because there was an opportunity to turn their salary cap space into second round draft picks. Maynor was also still young enough that he could be a compelling piece for the 76ers to try out down the stretch, even if nobody REALLY thought there was much there anymore.
Vesely finished his workout on the day of the trade deadline, then went home to eat lunch. He was surprised to hear from his agent that he would be traded, despite his limited play in Washington. “I was working hard, but things didn’t work out,” Vesely said, recounting that he frantically threw everything he could in a suitcase before flying to Chicago to join his new team.
The Reaction: Michael Levin at Liberty Ballers cheered the trade with a hearty and sincere “I’d rather be the third team in a trade than win a championship.” In fact, Philadelphia had accumulated so many 2nd-round picks by this point that their fans were probably happier than anybody else about this trade. There were reports that the 76ers had accumulated a beyond-parody nine second-round picks after this trade, but that math incorrectly assumed the picks in this trade were 2014 2nd-rounders. So instead it was only a measly seven 2nd-round picks. Not that it matters too much; what difference could there be between a 2016 2nd-round pick from Denver and a 2014 2nd-round pick from Denver?
The second happiest fanbase was Washington, who and saw a chance to make a huge upgrade at backup point guard in exchange for players that fans acknowledged were bad. For the first time in a while, a competitive move made by the Wizards front office made sense. The consensus trade grade for Washington was around a B.
Denver was in the midst of a nightmare season and couldn’t be too thrilled, but at least was getting something back for a player who was clearly on the outs.
The Results: Andre Miller started a new (much shorter) ironman streak on arrival in Washington, playing in every game for the rest of the Wizards season. Washington made the playoffs and even won a round over the Chicago Bulls before making a respectable second-round exit to the Indiana Pacers. Miller stuck around with Washington until next year’s trade deadline, when he was traded for old friend (since yesterday) Ramon Sessions.
Jan Vesely continued to underperform and was often a healthy scratch in Denver until it became clear that the Nuggets were missing the playoffs anyways. He played in the final ten Nuggets games of the season and, in his final NBA game, had 4 points and 3 rebounds that felt a lot more respectable if you ignore the three fouls and three turnovers. After the season, he returned to Europe and signed a three year contract with Fenerbahce in Turkey. The number #6 pick was out of the NBA after just three seasons.
Eric Maynor played in 8 games in Philadelphia, averaging 14 minutes just 3.8 points per game. He was waived in March to open a roster spot for James Nunnally, thereby ending his NBA career. He missed the only shot he took in his final NBA game, but had assists on the final two 76ers baskets.
The protected 2nd-round pick that Philadelphia sent to Washington did not convey. The 2nd-round picks received by Philadelphia in 2015 and 2016 were used to select Artūras Gudaitis and David Michineau, respectively. Neither has played in the NBA but they have been traded a combined six times since this deal as they continue having lovely careers in Europe.
The Aftermath: Speaking of his time in the NBA in 2018, Jan Vesely said it was “not a very happy part of my life” and that he had to learn to love basketball again in Turkey. It seems like it worked out, as Vesely became a star over his eight seasons with Fenerbahce. Vesely was a EuroLeague champion in 2017 and won MVP of the league in 2019 to add to numerous accolades he received from domestic competition in Turkey. Despite rumors that he was being offered $30 million NBA contracts, Vesely has not left European competition. In 2022, Vesely signed a three-year deal with Barcelona, where he continues to play to this day. The team won each of their most recent domestic and EuroLeague matches, with Vesely playing horribly in the former and great in the latter. He also led the team to victory in the most recent El Clasico.
Eric Maynor’s European career was less distinguished than Vesely’s – that’s not necessarily a slight to Maynor in the generic sense given how great Vesely’s career was, but I’d like for you to interpret it as somewhat of a slight. Maynor joined Pallacanestro Varese in Italy for the 2014-15 and 2016-17 seasons, with the intervening year spent at Nizhny Novgorod in Russia. He averaged 13.5 points per game on 13.5 shots in his first season with Varese, shooting an unpleasant 35% from the field, then finished fourth in Serie A in turnovers (82 in 29 games) in his second season with the team. Maynor’s final playing season was spent with Orlandina Basket, an Italian team that was relegated to Serie A2 in his one year there. Maynor is currently in his first year as a full-fledged assistant coach with the Oklahoma City Thunder after four prior seasons spent in a coaching capacity within the organization; two as an assistant with the G-League team and two as a player development coach.
The oldest guy in the trade was the only one whose NBA career continued after the season, with Miller playing on the Wizards and then on the Kings following his 2015 deadline trade. At the age of 39, Miller signed a one-year deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves, then was waived in February and joined the San Antonio Spurs. His final career game was Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals, where the Spurs were defeated by the Oklahoma City Thunder in Kevin Durant’s final year with the team. In typical Andre Miller style, he had two points, four assists, and zero turnovers. He was hired as the head coach of Denver’s G League affiliate, the Grand Rapids Gold, in August 2022.
Miscellaneous: Jan Vesely, Wizard. A Wizards fan attempting a halfcourt shot in March 2017 said “this is for Jan Vesely” immediately before airballing a shot. Oklahoma City’s uniforms are officially the “Association Edition” (white), “Icon Edition” (blue), or “Statement Edition” (red). Orlandina Basket played its earliest games outside in the courtyard of local elementary schools. Eric Maynor has been sharing these fun drawings of OKC players on Twitter for much of the season. Jan Vesely has the record for most made 2-pointers in EuroLeague history.
This concludes the 2014 NBA Trade Deadline! There are no more trades for the rest of the month, but stay tuned for more multimedia approaches to this deadline in the coming days (or hours?)