The Waive and Stretch: Dalano Banton Earning Minutes, The Orlando Magic's Size Advantage, Trade Bonus Tracker, And More

Dec 02, 2024

Welcome back to another edition of The Waive and Stretch Newsletter. A quick shameless plug to note that I am looking to work in basketball in any capacity and would love to connect with anyone in the industry or trying to break in. Please feel free to share this with anyone who you think might find it interesting. Let's get into it!

What Caught My Attention This Week

Dalano Banton Earning Minutes In a Crowded Backcourt
The Portland Trail Blazers are finding their way through this re-building process after the Damian Lillard trade. They’ve centered this re-build around a trio of young guards in Shaedon Sharpe, Anfernee Simons, and Scoot Henderson, thus making it pretty difficult for significant backcourt minutes hard to come by in Portland.

However, the recent play of Dalano Banton has given him a case for consistent minutes despite the crowded backcourt. Through his first seven games of the year, he only averaged 8.6 minutes a game with the Blazers going 1-6. Since, he’s played 23 minutes per game, with the Blazers going 5-5 in that stretch. Banton is averaging 21.4 points, 5.1 rebounds and 5.5 assists per 36 minutes. He’s the lone Blazer with a positive net rating, leads the team in Usage Rate and is third in Assist %. He’s also second in the entire league behind Nikola Jokic in on/off differential, with a +27.2 differential per Cleaning The Glass!! The next closest Blazer is Jabari Walker, who’s 69th with a +7.8 differential and has played a little over a third of the minutes Banton has. He ended up in Portland as a salary dump from Boston last trade deadline, but has played his way into the rotation ever since becoming a Blazer.

With that 6’9” frame at the guard spot, Banton is really able to utilize that length on the defensive end. He’s able to get late contests on jumpers and shots at the rim, swallow up smaller defenders and live in the passing lanes to rack up steals and blocks.

He’s one of two players to post a BLK% of at least 2% and a STL% of 2.8% on Cleaning The Glass, alongside defensive darling Tari Eason.

Offensively, he’s cleaned up his shot diet, with a career-high 78% of his shots coming from either the rim or the three point line. He’s also shooting a career-high 41% from three as well, a number he has not come close to in previous seasons.

His size allows him to see over the defense and find his teammates while creating out of the pick and roll and on the drive.

Banton is an unrestricted free agent this offseason and the Blazers will have Early Bird Rights on him. He keeps up this play, and he should be in line for a payday come July.

Two Things To Keep An Eye On This Season

The Orlando Magic’s Size Advantage
Since Paolo Banchero’s injury, the Orlando Magic have gone 12-5 and have had the eighth best net rating in the League. They’ve hung their hat on the defensive side of the ball, with a 104.8 defensive rating during that stretch, the best in the League. Their size and length on that side of the ball has become almost too much for their opponents to handle. The Magic have led the League so far in minutes played by players 6’10” and up with almost 43% of their total minutes. With guys like Goga Bitadze, Franz Wagner, Moritz Wagner, Paolo Banchero, Jonathan Isaac, and Wendell Carter Jr, Orlando’s size in the frontcourt seems never ending.

Recently, the Magic have really leaned into this size. In the last three games, the Magic have been starting two true centers at the same time in Wendell Carter Jr and Goga Bitadze. Pairing these two with Franz Wagner, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Jalen Suggs has produced a dominant defensive lineup with a 90.9 defensive rating. Though its only been 109 possessions together, the Bitadze/Carter frontcourt pairing has been blitzing opponents to the tune of a 51.3 net rating per Cleaning The Glass. Without surprise, they are killing teams on the offensive glass and keep their opponents from rebounding their own misses.

Its a small sample size, but nonetheless I expect the Magic to continue to batter opponents with their size and length and keep up their current pace until Paolo Banchero returns.

Trade Bonus Tracker
As we inch closer to trade season, I’ve put together a trade bonus tracker on the Ducking The Tax site that’s automated so that it will update each day for the current trade kicker amount for each player. Trade bonuses can often be forgotten but can be key sticking points when it comes to trade negotiations and viability, and there are a good number of them out there. The below screenshot is an example of what it looks like, but you can check out the full tracker here.