For two of the last three off-seasons, Marcus Adams has been rumoured to want a move out of the Kennel – back to WA in 2016, and to Brisbane this year. As the trade period wound to a close, Brisbane and the Dogs were able to get the deal over the line, and the Bulldogs were paid handsomely for the privilege.
Adams was originally picked up by the Bulldogs as a mature age, ready made key position defender. He was often reliable without being excellent, holding down the fort sternly. At the Lions, he will have the likes of Harris Andrews, Darcy Gardiner and Luke Hodge for company down back – a potentially fierce backline.
Adams looks as projecting minimal value going forward, but that’s largely due to the fact that he has never topped 11 games in a season yet. If he can get fit and stay on the park, he might be a cornerstone of the defence for the next five years – a decent sized “if”. Despite his age, there’s not really a “help the kids with his experience” angle given he’s played 27 senior AFL games to Gardiner’s 82 or Andrews’ 76.
There’s no hiding this – it’s a huge price to pay for someone like Adams. Giving up either of those two picks would have been likely too much for a player who rarely plays, at a position where the Lions have some depth. Maybe the Lions weren’t intending to use the 2018 pick, and the Dogs wouldn’t have done the deal without the 2019 pick, but from here this deal feels rash.
Verdict: Unfair trade. The Bulldogs cash in.
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.