Around the Arc: The Caruso-Giddey Trade

Hi, & welcome to Around the Arc. A semi-regular thoughts and discussion about anything that is going around the league whether it’s trades or free agency right now or anything I found interesting enough to just talk about. Here, I’ll be looking further into what’s happened and provide that extra context, analysis, and stats, and simply dig a bit deeper into what’s happened.

Right now, we are two days before the draft and still plenty of time before the official free agency starts. But already a lot has happened(or hasn’t happened, which leaves us with so many questions), so let’s see what’s been happening!

The Bulls Make A Trade, Finally

So, the Bulls have made their first trade since August 2021, when they traded Lauri Markkanen. The Bulls haven’t had the best luck involving trades recently, whether that was trading away Markkanen, trading for Nikola Vucevic, not trading Alex Caruso sooner, or not simply not getting more assets for trading him right now.

On the other end, the Oklahoma City Thunder essentially didn’t have a downside here. There were already questions about the long-term fit with Josh Giddey going forward with the team contending this quickly. Those questions meant that the extensions were unlikely, so they decided to get one of the best defenders in the league without giving up any of their 100 first-round picks. Caruso is also eligible for a four-year, 80 million extension six months after the trade, so they’re likely not losing him either.

Let’s just go through what each team is getting. Starting with the Bulls.

They’re getting a 21-year-old guard who has shown many flashes, has improved over the years, is already one of the best passers in the league and is “still” just 21 years old!

He may not be ready for a team that’s looking to contend right now, thus the Thunder were willing to trade him, but not being able to help a contender at 21, isn’t also a sign that the player is bad.

He has improved his efficiency in each season — 48% → 53% → 55% true shooting in the last three seasons. The same goes with his 2pt and 3pt shooting. All improving each year.

Although he’s definitely not a shooter(that also being one of the biggest holes in his game), he is able to to get to the rim consistently. This year, over 37% of his shots are within 4ft and he’s shooting 61%! Take Shai Gilgeous-Alexander off the court, and that improves to 42% frequency.

His impact metrics and other advanced stats all show steady improvement over the years too, particularly on offense:

Towards the end of the year, he’s had a 15-game stretch(March 10th → April 7th) averaging 17 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists on 59% eFG & 60% TS. There are flashes and promises there.

He obviously does have his limitations, if he didn’t the Thunder probably wouldn’t have traded him. His reluctance as a “bad” shooter hurts him a lot. Him needing the ball without being a consistent scorer is also not ideal. And the environment that he’s going to be in will likely also not be what he’s been used to. With that said, though, he’s a 21-year-old that the Bulls are taking a chance on. They won’t be competing and can afford to have him on a rebuilding team.

Let’s get to the Thunder. They’re getting arguably the best guard defender in the league.

According to the estimated plus-minus, Caruso’s D-EPM is +3.4, good enough to be fifth overall in the entire league. He’s been in the 99th percentile in D-EPM in three of the four last seasons. What also stands out is his steal rate, which has been above 2.6%(94th percentile or higher) in his last five seasons. You combine that with what the Thunder are already doing with them forcing live ball turnovers, it’s going to be chaos on the defensive end.

Even with the Bulls, they constantly ranked near the top of the league with him on the court when it comes to causing turnovers — 15.6%, 17.1%, 15.7% opponent TOV in the last three years and they all get around 3% worse without him.

When looking at the Bulls’ defense in general, their drop-off without Caruso is absolutely wild. Here’s the Bulls’ defense with him on vs off:

• 2024: 114.1 → 119.7
• 2023: 109.2 → 115.2
• 2022: 108.1 → 116.7

That’s an insane level of impact. That’s the defender that the Thunder are getting. That’s the rich getting richer there. The Thunder were already the fourth-best defense and led the league in opponent turnover percentage, per Cleaning the Glass.

Though I have questions on the offensive end, is Caruso a better off-ball player than Giddey? I think that’s an easy yes, but by how much?

Looking at his offensive impact, it’s a negative in every single season of his career. That’s the same with other metrics such as O-LEBRON.

The Bulls offense also was better without him on the court, going from 113.9 to 116.6 without him. Even on the championship team with the Los Angeles Lakers, their offense jumped from 115.2 to 118.6 in the playoffs.

He’s a career 38% 3pt shooter on 2.6 attempts. He just had his best season with 40.8% on 4.7 attempts — doubling his volume from last season. This was his most efficient season by a good margin. He had a 59.3% eFG and 61.3% TS. And yet, all the impact metrics still paint him as a negative.

He’s also a “very” turnover-prone player:

He is an efficient player at the rim, though does struggle around the paint — shot 66% at the rim in his time with the Bulls, but only 34% within 10ft. But how much does that efficiency matter when he’s a very low volume guy. He only takes sub 3 shots inside the arc.

Then there are his spot-up efficiency’s percentiles over the years(starting this year)

• 52th → 53rd → 33rd → 73rd → 39th(25th in the bubble playoffs)

That’s not exactly great and I wonder if he will pose the same issues offensively as the Thunder had with Giddey. This is kind of why I don’t get the total upside of this trade for the Thunder when looking at it in a vacuum. Defensively, this is 100% an upgrade that’s significant. You can’t go wrong on bringing a defender like that. But all of the question marks come on offense too. And without considering other moves, this doesn’t address or help them offensively.

Around the Arc!

Outside of the main trade and the draft happening in 2 days, there hasn’t been much noise so far, even if teams are allowed to negotiate with their own free agents.

The whole uncertainty with Paul George, Klay Thompson, Donovan Mitchell, Jimmy Butler, LeBron James, and many other lower-tier stars, all makes it very unknown right now.

There are so many routes that many teams can go down through, that it’s hard to predict or talk about potential moves because everything is on the table right now.

The thing with George can go one of many ways — he can go to Philadelphia, stay in LA, or go to a wild card team such as the Orlando Magic. And being still an elite player, such a move can and will shift things. Any team that adds George to the core, will significantly improve.

However, we have news that Kenny Atkinson is heading to Cleveland and that might push Mitchell to sign an extension with the Cavaliers. If that happens, that’s one fewer to worry about moving.

With the changes to the CBA, though, there is almost a guarantee that something will change. Whether it’s a team that can’t afford to keep its players, teams needing to fill out their cap space, teams making a splash or good teams looking to improve, there should be plenty of moves made.

And I do wonder how much of the new CBA will actually be beneficial for the league if it can cause great teams to break up or force them into uncomfortable decisions because of the restrictions on how they could improve the team.