A Less Than Devon-stating Move Home For Smith

We wrote about Devon Smith earlier in the week – in short, injury issues and “lack of development” as perceived by some has hurt Smith’s value in recent years. At 22, Smith looked nearly certain to be a future All-Australian; at 24 that is far from the case.

Smith is rated by the HPN system to be the fourth most valuable part of the trade, due to his recent loss of value. Just two years ago we would have projected Smith to be worth about the same as pick 3.

If he can get over his injury issues, and find a consistent role for the Dons (who aren’t hurting for speedy half forwards), the sky is the limit for Smith. But that’s a big if, and this trade factors the risk in.

The Giants are getting rid of a couple of lower picks to get back in at the top end of the draft, which is a pretty long standing strategy for the club – one which has worked to date. The Dons, presumably, will look to flip these new assets for the other players they’re keen on.

Here are the players with the most similar PAPLEY projections to Smith at the same age:

Who wins this trade will nearly entirely depend on the health and performance of Smith going forward; as well as the “two lower picks v one higher” argument.

With the evidence at hand, the best we can do is suggest that the trade is within a reasonably fair range on Smith’s current risk factor.

Verdict: Fair Trade

Note: This post is part of a series of posts using a valuation method called Player Approximate Value (PAV) to evaluate trades for fairness and balance. Elsewhere, you can read much more about the method and theory behind PAV and also about PAPLEY, the projection method used to derive expected future PAVs. This method expresses both picks and players in terms of expected future value allowing them to be compared on this common basis.