Given the conditions you’ve stated, of course I’d take it. Ten years isn’t that far off, and you’ve eliminated all of the major concerns that would make it a bad idea. Absent some extraordinary need for success this year, I don’t think there’s much of an argument for not taking it.
In the real world, on the other hand, it probably would be too much of a risk.
I’d accept it assuming I didn’t have the number 1 pick that year with a can’t miss prospect at a valuable position (eg. Peyton Manning). Even in that case though, the chance that one pick would be better than 5 is pretty slim.
Picks lose value the further they are in the future. As an example, a first round pick next year is worth only a second round pick this year, and so on.
In this hypothetical trade, the first round pick this year is worth far more than the five first round picks ten years from now, so I would not accept this trade.
No, because it would hurt my franchise long after I’m gone.
Remember that ten years is much longer than the average player’s career, so ten years down the road you’ll lose out on five consecutive first rounders while getting no value back in any way, shape or form since the guy you drafted in 2015 is likely long retired.
That doesn’t change the fact that this year’s first rounder is worth more than those five firsts put together.
The fact that franchises tend to discount to present value when dealing with future picks is, IMO, dumb. It makes sense to treat money now as more valuable than an equal amount of money later because money can be invested and compounded, so getting it sooner provides a tangible benefit. Not so with draft picks: the total expected utility of a first round pick this year is equal to the total expected utility of a first rounder next year, or in ten years. *Almost *any time another team offers you one of those “a 1 next year for your 2 this year” type deals, you should pounce on it.
Of course, the real reason GMs treat present picks as more valuable has little to do what’s best for the team, but rather what’s best for the GM: keep putting off success while you build up assets, and there’s a chance you might not be around when your investments finally pay off. I imagine there’s also a large part of it that is simply short-sightedness: teams become enamored of the player in front of them now, and don’t have the same kind of emotional attachment to “next year’s #1,” even though there will undoubtedly be someone they love available with that pick, too. They also tend to be irrationally confident that they’ll be picking at the end of the round next year.
Anyway, there could be unusual circumstances wherein success now is more important than success later – say, there’s a referendum on stadium funding looming – in which case it might make sense to reject the OP’s trade. But if I’m a Rooney or a Mara, and there’s effectively no chance my family will be selling the team in the foreseeable future, I would mandate that we accept the deal.
If I were Jerry Jones or Dan Rooney, an owner who’s more or less his own GM, I’d say “Sure.”
But realistically, a GM who serves at the whim of another owner CAN’T wait ten years to improve his team. After several bad or mediocre seasons, he’ll be out on his ear. He has to win early and often. Yes, he has to think long-term, but not TOO long-term.
In real life, if a GM accepted this deal, and his team went 6-10 the next 5 seasons, he’d be fired. And when the team finally DOES get the benefit of all those first-round draft picks, no one will remember him and give him the credit.
Yeah, the conditions answer the question. As written the question is basically “do you know what’s good for you.” If first round picks are going to be worth the same in ten years, and I can have five of them then or one of them now, this is just that friggin’ marshmallow test that all the kindergartners fail.
Under those conditions, I want five marshmallows later. Under the conditions that would obtain in real life, I would want to do it but probably be prevented by other forces. It’s extremely hard to be a GM and convince your fan base & ownership that even a one year delay on adding an asset is acceptable; anything beyond a year and I doubt people would even distinguish between the assets you obtained and getting literally nothing (see the media response to a lot of Sam Hinkie’s moves for examples of this).
Whether it is or not, that’s how they’re valued in trades - one round per year is the discount rate.
I’d make the deal, then try to move these extra picks years in the future for fewer sooner. The draft is a crapshoot, and the more guys you can draft the better your chances that they include somebody useful. Plus, with the rookie pay scale, lower-round picks count a lot less toward the cap.
I’m not so sure about that. To the extent that a first-round pick equates to more winning now, that means higher attendence, more money, more attractive to FAs. There is some investent value. Certainly the customers, or at least many of them, generally value the present value.
There’s also the fact that while draft picks are fully fungible, players are not – and when these deals are made, teams are doing it because they want to draft a specific player that meets a specific need or that they think is a great deal at this spot in the draft. The higher pick next year is an abstraction; it could well be you end up on the clock next year, unhappy with all your choices, and looking to trade down.
But I think that’s the point of the thought experiment. Is that traditional wisdom correct?
Personally, I think it’s not. There are considerations that could matter, like a team needing to win now for season ticket sales or upcoming changes in ownership or a very talented draft class or a question on draft position, but by and large I think a whole class difference in draft picks is severely overranking current draft picks for future value.
Cap space is an issue here. Can you afford to pay 5 years worth of double first round picks? You’re devoting an awful lot of money to rookies under this system, and that might not be the best use of your money.