Discussing Other Teams' Moves (Part III)

[LyricalRico]

Blowing up the Mavs...

Mavs trade: Dampier, Howard, Terry, and Stackhouse
Mavs receive: J.O'Neal, M.Dunleavy, J.Jeffries, and R.Balkman

Knicks trade: Marbury, Jeffries, Balkman, #5 pick
Knicks receive: Dampier, Howard, and Terry

Pacers trade: J.O'Neal and Dunleavy
Pacers receive: Marbury, Stackhouse, and #5

TRADE ID 4583533

Why for Indiana? They help their short and longterm cap and get a high draft pick.

Foster/Koufos(#11)
Murphy/Diogu
Granger/S.Williams
Mayo(#5)/Stackhouse
Tinsley/Marbury

Why for New York? They get vets with playoff experience instead of more youth. This also gives them a better compliment to Randolph and the freedom to trade Curry.

Dampier/Curry(?)
Randolph/Lee
Howard/QRich
Crawford/Collins
Terry/Robinson

Why for Dallas? They try to compete with the Twin Towers in LA and Phoenix, as well as the Spurs. They also get younger and more versatile.

O'Neal/Bass
Nowizki/Jeffries
Dunleavy/Balkman
Jones/FA
Kidd/Barea(?)

The biggest hitch to this deal is Indy giving up Dunleavy. I'm sure they'd rather trade Murphy but I couldn't find a 4th team to take him. Stack still gives them scoring off the bench and Mayo as a chance to be much better than Dunleavy.

I think it works for all teams.

[penbeast0]

Can't believe Indy can't do better than that for O'Neal and Dunleavy . . . of course I'm not sold on Mayo like some are. Not sure NY is willing to give that pick for Howard either, even to dump Marbury.

[LyricalRico]

^ They don't have to take Mayo. They could take Kevin Love and Gordon, or Jordan and Westbrook. They could do anything with the picks. The point is that they're getting value plus cap relief.

[LyricalRico]

Man, LeBron has ZERO help. Of course I'd like it to stay that way because I hate his guts but I assume Danny Ferry will try to improve the Cleveland roster. How can he do it?

I think the key is moviing Ben Wallace to backup center and trying to trade his expirings for a starting quality PF who can help carry the scoring load. Would they risk going after Zach Randolph?

Cleveland trades: Wally, Verajao, 2nd round pick
Knicks trade: Randolph and Balkman
TRADE ID 4583783

Draft
#19 - Chris Douglas-Roberts

Free Agency
Re-Sign Gibson
Sign Chris Duhon

Final Roster

Ilgauskas/Wallace
Randolph/J.Smith
LeBron/Balkman
Pavlovic/CDR
Duhon/Gibson

Much younger and more athletic. The big question would be how Zach would fit in with Z and also defensively. But I think they have to take the chance.

[Kanyewest]

^^
So are you saying Chris Duhon is an upgrade over Delonte West? Personally, Delonte suits the team better because of his ability to hit the three while Duhon is a better defender.

[LyricalRico]

^ Well, with Randolph and Pavlovic starting I think you need all the defense you can get from the other positions. Also, with Zach the Cleveland offense would no longer just be LeBron driving and kicking to shooters. So yes - I'd prefer Duhon over West in that scenario.

[nate33]

Given Randolph's awful contract and attitude, I don't think Cleveland would have to include Varajeo in the package. A simple trade of Wallace for Randolph makes more sense for both teams.

Randolph gives Cleveland another offensive threat and Wallace gives New York a defensive guy pair with Curry. The real key is that by dumping Randolph, New York positions themselves to go after Lebron in 2010.

New York could follow up by making this three-way trade with Washington and Memphis:

New York trades: Malik Rose + Jared Jeffries
New York receives: Antonio Daniels + Brian Cardinal

Memphis trades: Kyle Lowry + Brian Cardinal
Memphis receives: Etan Thomas + Pecherov + #18 pick + MEM pick

Washington trades: E.Thomas + A.Daniels + Pesh + #18 + MEM pick
Washington receives: K.Lowry + J.Jeffries + M.Rose

New York swaps a 3-year contract and a 1-year contract for two 2-year contracts. The idea is for them to be well under the cap in Summer 2010. After these two trades, New York will have Curry, Crawford and a bunch of rookie contracts on the payroll (that's $21M plus maybe $10M more in rookie deals.) They'd have cap room to throw a MAX contract at Lebron. Their team would be reasonably capable in the interim with:

PG Daniels/Robinson
SG Crawford/Mayo
SF Balkman/Chandler/Cardinal
PF Wallace/Lee
C Curry/James

At the very least, they eliminate the knucklehead factor (I'd buy out QRich). Heck, if they wanted to, they could swap Marbury's $20M expiring contract for a big 2-year contract of a better player. Shaq, maybe? JO?

Washington does it for obvious reasons. They replace AD with Lowry. They add Jeffries as an extra Lebron defender. They EJ proof the roster by swapping Etan for Rose. (Rose can be the emergency 3rd string center but EJ won't be tempted to have him take Haywood's minutes.) Also, Rose's expiring contract alleviates luxtax concerns in 2009.

Memphis does it to relieve a log jam at PG. They swap the totally unnecessary Cardinal for a physical backup center in Etan. They add a first round pick, and get the Memphis pick. Pecherov is additional sweetener who is locked into a very cheap rookie deal.

I'm awesome.

[LyricalRico]

Given Randolph's awful contract and attitude, I don't think Cleveland would have to include Varajeo in the package. A simple trade of Wallace for Randolph makes more sense for both teams.

Randolph gives Cleveland another offensive threat and Wallace gives New York a defensive guy pair with Curry. The real key is that by dumping Randolph, New York positions themselves to go after Lebron in 2010.

If Ben were an expiring I'd agree with you 100% but his deal isn't much better than Randolph's. I think Cleveland has to include some kind of sweetener.

New York could follow up by making this three-way trade with Washington and Memphis:

New York trades: Malik Rose + Jared Jeffries
New York receives: Antonio Daniels + Brian Cardinal

Memphis trades: Kyle Lowry + Brian Cardinal
Memphis receives: Etan Thomas + Pecherov + #18 pick + MEM pick

Washington trades: E.Thomas + A.Daniels + Pesh + #18 + MEM pick
Washington receives: K.Lowry + J.Jeffries + M.Rose

<snip>

I'm awesome.

Yes, for this you are awesome.

Haywood/Blatche
Jamison/Songaila/Rose
Caron/Jeffries
Stevenson/Young
Arenas/Lowry/Mason

IR - McGuire, #48, minimum salary scrub

Me likey.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

God these threads are boring. How can you guys talk about this stuff for hours on end?

[nate33]

It's a LOOOOONG offseason Zonker. Get used to it.

[ZonkertheBrainless]

yeah in a couple months I'll be posting alternate lineups like hands...

[ZonkertheBrainless]

Does San Antonio have any bad contracts? Is Etan's contract going to be the albatross that keeps us from getting over the hump, or do all teams have one or two lousy contracts?

[ZonkertheBrainless]

Some interesting statistics:

Number of teams remaining in the playoffs: 8
Of these, number of teams with salary over $68 mil: 4
(Utah, Detroit, Orland, and New Orleans all have salaries under $68 mil)
Utah and Orlando have the fifth and fourth lowest salaries in the NBA this season.

Average $/win (reg season) of teams still in playoffs besides Cleveland: $1.17 mil
Cleveland $/win: $1.8 mil

Zards $/win: $1.57 mil, 13th.
Zards wins: 43, 14th.

Correlation between wins and salary: .00000003 (basically zero in other words)

Discussion question:
Has Jerry Sloan ever won coach of the year award? Why not?

[ZonkertheBrainless]

Besides Cleveland, all the teams still in the playoffs have the lowest $/win figures in the NBA. Don't know what that means though. I guess it means don't spend too much on your bench.

[LyricalRico]

Besides Cleveland, all the teams still in the playoffs have the lowest $/win figures in the NBA. Don't know what that means though. I guess it means don't spend too much on your bench.

It could also mean that good GMs find cheap talent.

Or it could mean build a winning team and good players will sign with you for cheap.

[nate33]

Besides Cleveland, all the teams still in the playoffs have the lowest $/win figures in the NBA. Don't know what that means though. I guess it means don't spend too much on your bench.

My answer is that it takes superstars to win.

True superstars are contractual bargains even if they are paid the Max. Guys like Chris Paul, Lebron, Kobe and Duncan are worth $25-30M but they're only paid $10-20. (Paul is actually much cheaper because he's still on his rookie deal.)

If you don't have a true superstar and instead have some second tier stars, chances are your dollar/win number is going to be kind of high. Teams like Atlanta, Washington, Golden State, Utah, Dallas and Denver have second-tier stars earning Max or near-Max money.

The lone exception is Detroit. Dumars has done a fabulous job managing payrolls on that team.

[Kanyewest]

A good trade Nate. I like the move of getting Lowry. Jeffries is also more useful to this team than Etan.

Still, there could be some problems with this trade

1. Depending on who the Knicks draft (Rose or Bayless) the Knicks might have no need for Antonio Daniels, especially if they are rebuilding.

2. While Memphis adds a 1st round pick, Memphis ends up taking on more salary because of Etan's trade kicker.

3. Because of that trade kicker of Jared Jeffries, don't the Wizards get dangerously close to the luxury tax for the 2008-09 season?

[nate33]

1. Depending on who the Knicks draft (Rose or Bayless) the Knicks might have no need for Antonio Daniels, especially if they are rebuilding.

I don't think it's a big concern. Mayo has the size to play SG (as does Daniels and Crawford, for that matter). And rookie PG's rarely start anyhow. Basically, I see New York just running with a bunch of combo guards. AD, Crawford and Mayo would be interchangable and any of them could play alongside Robinson. Bayless might be a bit more of a concern because he's more of a pure PG.

2. While Memphis adds a 1st round pick, Memphis ends up taking on more salary because of Etan's trade kicker.

We'd be sending Etan's $6.8M plus his $1.1M trade kicker. Memphis would send out Cardinal's $6.3M plus Lowry's $1.2M. So they're sending out $7.5M and getting back $7.9M. That's easily within the 125% Exemption. However, if we include Pecherov, they'd be getting back $9.3M which cuts it close (125% of $7.5M is $9.375M).

The more I think about it, the more I think we shouldn't include Pecherov in the first place. The #18, the MEM pick and the upgrade from Cardinal to Etan is enough for Lowry.

3. Because of that trade kicker of Jared Jeffries, don't the Wizards get dangerously close to the luxury tax for the 2008-09 season?

Not really. We are sending out 13.1M in salary (Etan + AD) plus we are saving about $1.5M by giving away the pick. We are receiving $14.9M plus Jeffries' trade kicker. That trade kicker will be no more than $0.9M. So at worst, we increase the payroll by $1.2M. If we end up including Pecherov in the package, we'd actually save $0.2M in the transaction

2008 was never that much of a problem with respect to the luxtax anyhow. It's 2009 where things get dicey. And 2009 would no longer a problem thanks to Malik Rose's expiring contract.

[LyricalRico]

MJ flexing his muscles again in Charlotte again by giving Bickerstaff the boot. I'm betting they don't hire anybody and MJ takes over the personnel decisions. Who would have thought it would be MJ and LB starring in "Grumpy Old Men III - The BobCats Debacle".

[LyricalRico]

One of the first plays Mike D'Antoni is expected to draw up as the Knicks' new coach is for Stephon Marbury to run up the Garden floor ... and out the door back to Phoenix to rejoin the Suns.

Once D'Antoni is formally named to succeed Isiah Thomas, he is expected to try to make a push for two of his favorite Suns - forward Boris Diaw and guard Leandro Barbosa, who reportedly have fallen out of favor with Suns management. According to a person close to D'Antoni, one of his first moves would be to get the Knicks to offer Marbury and his expiring $22 million contract as a central part of the deal.

http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/baske ... suns_.html

Very interesting. I can see Kerr wanting to dump Diaw since he's nowhere near with the $9M per he's going to be making over the next 4 yeras. But Barbosa is a perennial 6th man of the year candidate who provides instant offense at a reasonable price. I would think that any coach with any system would use a guy like that.

The main problem is Marbury's salary, which is more than Diaw and Barbosa combined. Phoenix would have to include Raja Bell just to make the numbers work. No, I don't see them doing that. But what about this:

Suns trade: Diaw and Barbosa
Knicks trade: Jeffries, Rose, and Balkman
(Will work after the BYC's expire.)

This gives the Suns two more defenders and an expiring contract. If they take a PG of the future with the Hawks pick they'd be in good shape.

Shaq/Amare
Amare/Jeffries/Rose
Hill/Balkman
Bell/Strawberry
Nash/#15

A young bench but much better defensively and their cap is in better shape. If you think NY gets too much, they can add their 2009 first (lottery protected).