Plus, protections remove the upside of a deal. Take away the upside, you take away value, and you're able to trade for less value. That much is obvious, but how it plays out is that different teams have very different views of the probability distribution of a team's outcome 3-5 years down the line. Like it was reported about the Billy King deal, the reaction in the Nets' front office was "we're going to be deep in the playoffs anyway, so what would that right-to-swap-picks really cost us?" As long as (A) your time horizon is very different than your counterparty's (nighthob's point) or (B) your projections of your future are very different than your counterparty's, you might well be inclined to do it unprotected.