LOS ANGELES, CA - JANUARY 06: Kobe Bryant #24 of the Los Angeles Lakers shoots over Klay Thompson #11 of the Golden State Warriors at Staples Center on January 6, 2012 in Los Angeles, California. The Lakers won 97-90. (Image credit: Getty Images via @daylife)At the NBA trade deadline this season, late first-round picks were at a premium.
The Houston Rockets dealt Jordan Hill, an athletic 6’10, 245, 24-year-old big man with a 15.4 PER, for a first-round pick from the Los Angeles Lakers, assuming the cost of buying out Derek Fisher’s $3.4 million player option next season in the process.
The Cleveland Cavaliers dealt Ramon Sessions, a legit NBA starter who is only 25-years-old, for the Lakers’ other first-round pick, assuming the cost of Luke Walton’s $6.1 million salary in 2013
The most eyebrow-raising move of all was the Golden State Warriors essentially paying $11.4 million dollars for the San Antonio Spurs' first-round pick. Stephen Jackson’s contract expires after 2013 while Richard Jefferson will almost certainly pick up his player option for the 2013-14 season.
In a league that typically scoffs at the value of these picks, which have usually been available for $3 million in cash, it’s fair to wonder what these teams are thinking. However, two things, both the result of the lockout, are different in 2012: the heightened luxury tax penalties in the new CBA have increased the value of first-rounders’ cost-controlled salaries while the uncertainty surrounding the 2011-12 season helped keep many of college basketball’s top players in school an extra season.
Kentucky and North Carolina, the two favorites in the NCAA Tournament, have at least five players who would have been first-round picks last year: Harrison Barnes, Tyler Zeller, John Henson, Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb. At least five more collegiate players -- Jared Sullinger (Ohio State), Jeremy Lamb (UConn), Perry Jones III (Baylor), Jeffrey Taylor and Festus Ezeli (Vanderbilt) -- would have been first-round picks in 2011, one of the weakest drafts in recent memory.
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