Long Term Plan? (merged threads)

[barelyawake]

Got bored in an airport. Figured I'd work on the Wizards' puzzle for an hour.

We banked on Kwame. We lost. Everything since then has been because we banked on Kwame and lost. It's time to shoot the moon or rebuild. I'll try to do both.

Trade 1: AJ out, defense in. AJ for Stephen Jackson/Foyle. Add fillers on either side to even out the trade. Add pieces from our side like Opec, expirings (Etan), etc. They want a vet PG, we have Mike James. If you can get Marco, do it. GS has alot of salary (and much they want to get rid of, and we have expirings), so there's alot of different ways to work it.
Gives GS a scorer next to Andris and a real (well, real compared to their current lot) PF. Jackson gives us toughness, defense, flex and someone who has played with the Spurs (I love Spurs/championship players). Jackson can play some point/point SG next to Arenas. We have needed a glue guy here forever. For a third guard (with Arenas/Young) or for a glue guy I'd rather have Diaw, or Bell, or Hinrich (but it's a matter of who will take AJ). Jackson will do. In case of injury, this guy can fill four spots if needed.

Arenas/Jackson/Crit
Jackson/Young/Arenas
Caron/Jackson/Dom
Blatche/Song/Java
Haywood/Java


Trade 2: Get a PF
Now, you deal with the draft pick. You need a PF, but timing is the issue. Is Griffin NBA ready? Will we get the top draft pick? Can Griffin step in as a leader right away (or wouldn't he be better off the bench behind a vet leader)? Is Griffin going to be better than who you could trade the pick for?
So, you look at AK, Bosh, Boozer, Amare, JO and Brand. I believe you could get almost any of those with the package of Caron and our pick/or one of Blatche/Java (so you have to decide between one of Griffin, Thabeet, Blatche or Java). I believe in Dom and Young, so Caron is expendable (except for his leadership). You have emotional players in Arenas and Jackson now (even if Jackson is a capt. on the Warriors), so you really need a strong leader (and a strong coach). JO, when healthy, is really the guy you want. But, will he stay healthy? Same with Brand. If you can get any of them with a straight Caron plus filler, that's the best bet (because you're really banking on Griffin long term). Say you have to give Caron (and one of Java or Blatche) to get JO -- again JO is an example for whatever PF. I like JO because he is tougher than Bosh (though older and more injury prone).

Arenas/Jackson/Crit
Young/Stevenson/Arenas/Crit
Jackson/Dom
JO/Griffin/Vet
Haywood/Blatche/JO

Fill out the roster with two vet leaders at PG and PF (Song is fine here if you haven't traded him, but I'd rather someone with a ring who is a leader) and you're ready right now. This roster is ready for now and the future. One tweak trade or signing to add more leadership would help. Draft a SF or sign Gelabale.

Of course, if Rubio is the truth, then you can always flip Arenas instead of Caron.

Rubio/Jackson (or vet signing)/Crit
Young/Jackson/Stevenson
Caron/Jackson/Dom
Bosh (or whatever PF)/Blatche/vet
Haywood/Java

Again, these deals are only the bones. You can add players from either side to even the talent/salaries out, and make it fair for both teams. And I just used JO as an example. Plug in whatever PF you want that you think makes more sense (and/or add a third team in the trades). If we don't get the top pick, you can take out Griffin's name, and plug in Thabeet. And if Griffin is an NBA ready superstar (I question that), you don't necessarily need the second trade.

That's how I'd fix the Wiz. PS home in DC perm now (though not going to be online much at all). Long story. However, probably moving in a year. Christ I need to get married; buy a small corner store in a hundred person town; and just sell gumballs for the rest of my days.

[nate33]

Nate, call me crazy.......but after seeing the curious trade of Daniels for James, I don't have a ton of faith in EG any longer. The whole "Mike James resurgence then trade" theories bouncing about on the board seem quite unlikely.

James fell of the NBA radar for two complete years. Those types of players won't be in high demand, especially when they are starting for a 4-21 squad. I think more than likely Daniels for James was another Chucky Atkins type move, doing an illogical favor for a veteran player in the twilight of his career.

We should have held onto Daniels, come late January/February there would have been much better options on the table for a classy backup PG who knows how to control an offense. There will inevitably be a few teams putting together some runs between now and Feb, and hence getting their playoff run hops up. I suspect Daniels would have been quite interesting to those teams looking to solidify their second rotation. Mike James? Not even close.

He made the Daniels/James swap so that we could absorb Crittenton's salary using the 125% trade exemption. Basically, he needed to get the total money involved in the trade package large enough so that Crittenton's salary was less than 25% of it. I think EG made what he perceived to be a talent-neutral, cap-neutral deal by swapping James for Daniels.

At the time, I didn't think it was a good move because I thought James really sucked. So far, I have been proven wrong. James isn't great, but he's not awful either. He's at least as effective as Daniels was. Maybe EG foresaw that James would thrive in this system.

I'm a little irked that New Orleans ended up with that Memphis 2nd rounder and not us. But other than that, I don't mind the premise of the trade. I'm not a big fan of Crittenton, but I'll cede that he is probably a talent worthy of a heavily protected future first round pick. Overall, the trade doesn't diminsh my esteem of EG.

The challenge for EG will be to find a way to dump salary without giving up valuable assets in the process. If he cand do that, I'll be impressed. (Or maybe, he has no intention of doing so because Abe has agreed to pay the luxtax. It would explain why we gave away the 2nd round pick this year. Abe may be wiling to eat our existing luxtax burden, but he doesn't want to make it worse by adding the extra salary of a 2nd round pick.)

[nate33]

Trade 1: AJ out, defense in. AJ for Stephen Jackson/Foyle.

I could live with this. I don't agree that Jackson can be a big PG alongside Arenas though. Jackson is less of a guard than Butler is. I'd leave him at SF and move Butler to SG. The bottom line is that it gets us a little more D at a more affordable salary. I think there are better Jamison trades out there, but this one is probably better than standing pat.

Trade 2: Get a PF
So, you look at AK, Bosh, Boozer, Amare, JO and Brand. I believe you could get almost any of those with the package of Caron and our pick/or one of Blatche/Java (so you have to decide between one of Griffin, Thabeet, Blatche or Java).

I darn near vomited when you suggested that JO is worth Butler plus our lotto pick. That's an unfathomably bad trade. JO costs $21M a year, he's injury prone, and he can't shoot. He's a very good defender but no better than Haywood. Frankly, I don't think he's much better than Blatche, or rather, he won't be better than Blatche over the next 2 seasons. I'd much rather play Blatche at $3M a year than JO at $21M a year, that's for damn sure. I wouldn't even trade the lotto pick plus Etan, James and Songaila for JO. I certainly wouldn't give them Butler.

That said, I'm intrigued by the idea of trading the pick and filler for one of the other PF's on your list. I wouldn't include Butler, but we might be able to get Kirilenko just by offering our pick and the 2010 contracts. We'd have a shot at Amare if we gave them the pick plus Blatche plus the 2010 contracts.

[barelyawake]

Keep in mind I haven't watched much ball in the last two years (only a few games and a bunch of news clips since alot of time I've been out of the country). "I don't agree that Jackson can be a big PG alongside Arenas though." I thought Jackson was playing alot of point in GS. I could be wrong (as I stated).

"I darn near vomited when you suggested that JO is worth Butler plus our lotto pick." Yeah, as I said I was using JO as any PF. The cost depends on the PF you get. For JO, I was saying Caron and Java. And you can tag on other project players to make-up the difference. If one is to get JO, you do it banking on Griffin as your future. JO acts only as a rock to hold the team together for a couple years as it builds, and he teaches Griffin how to play (and then be the vet off the bench). I believe very much in the concept that vets hand the game to the youth (and that's how they best develop). I also don't believe in developing too many players at once. IMO it's all a matter of timing. Picking a year to break out and developing a roster for that year (which includes the vets leading the way there). JO then becomes the leader off the bench, once Griffin takes his spot. I see JO as the foundation you build on (to help the team develop -- especially Blatche and Griffin).

And again, I kept it general since I really have no clue how much these guys have slowed down (or progressed) in the last couple years. I have a general idea, but not as much eyewitness testimony as previous years. You can plug in whatever trades or players you want. I was going more for a concept of direction of the type of deals to look for and the framework/goal.

[Wizardspride]

Trade 1: AJ out, defense in. AJ for Stephen Jackson/Foyle.

I could live with this. I don't agree that Jackson can be a big PG alongside Arenas though. Jackson is less of a guard than Butler is. I'd leave him at SF and move Butler to SG. The bottom line is that it gets us a little more D at a more affordable salary. I think there are better Jamison trades out there, but this one is probably better than standing pat.

Trade 2: Get a PF
So, you look at AK, Bosh, Boozer, Amare, JO and Brand. I believe you could get almost any of those with the package of Caron and our pick/or one of Blatche/Java (so you have to decide between one of Griffin, Thabeet, Blatche or Java).

I darn near vomited when you suggested that JO is worth Butler plus our lotto pick. That's an unfathomably bad trade. JO costs $21M a year, he's injury prone, and he can't shoot. He's a very good defender but no better than Haywood. Frankly, I don't think he's much better than Blatche, or rather, he won't be better than Blatche over the next 2 seasons. I'd much rather play Blatche at $3M a year than JO at $21M a year, that's for damn sure. I wouldn't even trade the lotto pick plus Etan, James and Songaila for JO. I certainly wouldn't give them Butler.

That said, I'm intrigued by the idea of trading the pick and filler for one of the other PF's on your list. I wouldn't include Butler, but we might be able to get Kirilenko just by offering our pick and the 2010 contracts. We'd have a shot at Amare if we gave them the pick plus Blatche plus the 2010 contracts.

Nate...please don't tell me that you're willing to give up a top 5 pick for Kirilenko?

[fishercob]

I would. We'd have to move Jamison for an upgrade at shooting guard and or/salary relief. But Jeff Green for Ray Allen seemed to work out pretty well for the C's.

[Wizardspride]

I would. We'd have to move Jamison for an upgrade at shooting guard and or/salary relief. But Jeff Green for Ray Allen seemed to work out pretty well for the C's.

Kirilenko's not Ray Allen. Not even close.

I'm not willing to trade a potential star for an average player.

[fishercob]

I would. We'd have to move Jamison for an upgrade at shooting guard and or/salary relief. But Jeff Green for Ray Allen seemed to work out pretty well for the C's.

Kirilenko's not Ray Allen. Not even close.

I'm not willing to trade a potential star for an average player.

Right. Kirilenko is 5 years younger, has more good basketball left in him, and led his team to the Euro championship 2 summers ago. He provides something the WIzards sorely need -- defense -- and if we moved Jamison, he could play his natural position here.

[nate33]

Nate...please don't tell me that you're willing to give up a top 5 pick for Kirilenko?

Kirilenko's pace-adjusted per 40 stats:

Code: Select all

kirilenko  PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  PER
2008-09   15.0  6.3  3.8  1.8  1.7  2.6 .513 .597 18.8
2007-08   12.6  5.4  4.5  1.4  1.7  2.2 .546 .603 17.1
2006-07   10.2  5.7  3.5  1.3  2.5  2.4 .490 .558 14.2
2005-06   15.2  8.0  4.3  1.5  3.2  2.9 .485 .556 20.6
2004-05   17.7  7.1  3.7  1.9  3.8  2.5 .520 .599 24.3
2003-04   17.0  8.3  3.2  2.0  2.8  2.8 .479 .559 22.7
2002-03   16.0  7.0  2.3  2.0  2.9  2.3 .519 .598 21.0
2001-02   15.0  6.8  1.6  2.0  2.7  1.8 .470 .553 18.7

If you look at the numbers closely, you'll note that all of his PER 20+ seasons took place when he got a majority of his minutes at PF. His PER drops as a SF. This year, he's playing some of both positions so he's creeping back up.

Basically, he's a disruptive defensive force who scores at a high percentage while being an excellent passer. He won't score at a high rate, but when Arenas comes back, we won't need so much scoring from the position.

As fishercob mentioned, the best thing to do would be to follow up by trading Jamison for a SG. Chicago would jump on a Jamison for HInrich trade. Better yet would be to convince Portland to trade LaFrentz and Rudy Fernandez for Jamison and filler. I'd love to see this lineup:

PG Arenas/Crittenton
SG Fernandez/Young
SF Butler/DMac
PF Kirilenko/Blatche
C Haywood/McGee

[mhd]

Nate, to me the only sure way to avoid the tax is the Butler to Portland scenerio (Wiz trade Butler, Etan, Stevenson for Raef, Outlaw, Rudy). We get rid of our worst contracts and save a boatload of money.

No team is going to trade an expiring for Songaila. The best we'll do is a Rasual Butler for Darius trade (to shave a year off of the contract).

After that, I'd try and do a 3-way deal where we trade Jamison to team X, team X and Wizards young players go to Dallas, and we get Josh Howard to replace Caron. We'd include our 2010 expirings. I'll come up with a trade.

[LyricalRico]

After that, I'd try and do a 3-way deal where we trade Jamison to team X, team X and Wizards young players go to Dallas, and we get Josh Howard to replace Caron.

A big thumbs down on that one, bro. I could see if Howard was a lot bigger, but he's not. I could see if Howard was a lot cheaper, but he's not. I could see if Howard was a lot younger, but he's not. I would consider that a downgrade.

I'd much rather keep Butler and try to use Jamison in some other way. Maybe he won't get us expiring contracts but maybe he can get us a good compliment to Arenas or a true PF.

[Kanyewest]

AK47 is more of a small forward than a power forward. He's a bit undersized for someone at the power forward position, he isn't a great rebounder (average at best for a starting PF), and he has trouble in general guarding bigger players. AK47 is only listed at 225 pounds, much lighter than most power forwards in the league. I would rather let EG draft a player for the future.

[Dat2U]

I was just going over the salary cap figures for the next few years. It's going to be a problem. Here's our our salary picture looks over the next four years:

Code: Select all

Player           08/09  09/10  10/11  11/12
Arenas,Gilbert   14.65  16.19  17.73  19.27
Jamison,Antawn    9.93  11.65  13.36  15.08
Butler,Caron      9.25  10.03  10.81    - 
Thomas,Etan       6.86   7.35    -      - 
James,Mike        6.20   6.40    -      - 
Haywood,Brendan   5.50   6.00    -      - 
Songaila,Darius   4.26   4.55   4.84    - 
Stevenson,Desha   3.62   3.89   4.15    - 
Blatche,Andray    2.74   3.00   3.26   3.52
Young,Nick        1.60   1.75   2.69    - 
Pecherov,Olesky   1.45   1.55   2.38    - 
McGee,JaVale      1.39   1.50   1.60   2.46
Javaris Critten   1.38   1.48   2.28    - 
McGuire,Dominic   0.71   0.83    -      - 
2009 pick (#4)     -     3.01   3.23   3.46
2010 pick (#23)    -      -     1.20   1.29
2011 pick (#23)    -      -      -     1.24

Total Salary     69.54  79.17  67.55  46.33
Salary Cap       58.68  60.44  62.25  64.12
Luxury Tax       71.15  73.74  75.95  78.23
Money Available   1.61  -5.43   8.40  31.90

I'm assuming we draft 4th in this draft and then in the early 20's thereafter. With the addition of Crittenton and the higher-than-anticipated draft pick, our salary situation is pretty bleak. We project to be more than $5M over the luxtax next year, and we have just $8.4M in luxtax space in 2010/11 excluding Haywood. Haywood is gonna cost at least $7M.

I can tell you this: we may as well scrap the Big Trade plan. That ain't gonna fly. Any trade that sends out the 2010 expirings of Etan and James and brings back long term salary is going to force us into the luxury tax in 2010/11 (or, at the very least, it'll cost us Haywood). If EG wants to set up a Big Trade, he's going to have to unload Songaila and/or Stevenson first. If there's any interest in Songaila out there right now, EG needs to make the deal. I don't know if Songaila's trade value will ever be this high again.

At this point, if EG wants to avoid the luxtax, his only real chance is to try and move Mike James for an expiring contract by the Trade Deadline. Something like James + Pecherov + 2nd round pick for Malik Rose could work. My guess is that NY is first going to try to use Rose's contract as a bribe to get Jeffries off their hands. But if that doesn't pan out, my Mike James trade might be a decent option for them. It gives them depth at guard and center for 2009/10 without impacting their Lebron plans.

I was never quite on board with the method of using expirings to make a big deal, considering we are already on the cusp of lux tax land. What I'm afraid of is seeing this team turn into the 2nd coming of the New York Knicks where we trade for longer & more expensive contracts and dole out MLE sized deals to average players every season. I just don't a team can go very far when the majority of the roster is overpaid & mediocre.

My long running theory has been to actually clear cap room.

I prefer to let the James & Thomas deals expire next year. Don't trade them for anything other than similar expiring contracts. In fact I would not be opposed to a buyout for Etan to simply open up a roster space and ensure against Etan ever starting for us again.

Next, I'd look to move Songaila & Stevenson for 2010 expirings so they'll come off the books the same time as Thomas & James' contracts. I wish we held onto the Memphis pick b/c honestly it may be worth more than Critt and the rate things are going now and could be used as an enticement to take a contract with an extra year on it. Until Critt gets on the court and actually starts producing, I can't consider him as part of the Wizards' long term future. If the Wizards could somehow dump Songaila, Stevenson (Stevenson will be the tougher of the two) and let Pech & maybe even Critt go(solely based on performance) they could be $8 mil under the cap (using your projections) by the 2010 offseason.

If they trade Jamison, they can get around $21 million under the cap. It's just not about acquiring a 2010 free agent in my view. The cap room itself can be used to facilitate a trade. in fact, I think cap room would be more enticing than expiring deal or a moderate to mediocre player. How bout a deal that includes Blatche & Young plus cap space for star? A team could get two relatively young players and a ton of cap room and reload pretty quickly. The best thing about it, we could field a solid nucleus with Gil, Butler, Wood, McGee, 2010 high lottery pick, Blatche & Young, be competitive and have a ton of flexibility. There would be no rush to do anything. If there's no free agent we want in 2010, fine. If there's no star available for trade in 2010, fine. There's always 2011.

That's the direction I'd like to see us go in. Keep a core of relatively young & productive players. Our big three would be Gil, Wood & Butler (although I'm not opposed to trading him either), surrounded by our young guys. We'd jettison alot of vets, er dead weight so that in less than two years, we'd have a decent roster on hand, plenty of cap room, and plenty of flexibility to improve either through free agency or trade.

[Dat2U]

Also AK47 gets a big no from me. I like the player but hate contract and hate the idea of throwing our 2010 expirings & a top 5 pick out there for him.

If AK could win us a championship I'd consider it, but I don't AK is enough. We'd be capped out, be in lux tax land and have little flexibilty to improve.

[Butter]

Nate, to me the only sure way to avoid the tax is the Butler to Portland scenerio (Wiz trade Butler, Etan, Stevenson for Raef, Outlaw, Rudy). We get rid of our worst contracts and save a boatload of money.

No team is going to trade an expiring for Songaila. The best we'll do is a Rasual Butler for Darius trade (to shave a year off of the contract).

After that, I'd try and do a 3-way deal where we trade Jamison to team X, team X and Wizards young players go to Dallas, and we get Josh Howard to replace Caron. We'd include our 2010 expirings. I'll come up with a trade.

I was just cruising the board to see if there was a realistic deal that could send Butler to the Blazers. First, let me say that I realize that Butler is an All-Star and arguably the Wizards best player. That being said, I know the Blazers are going to have to give up significant talent and/or take on bad contracts. for a player of his caliber. Like all Blazer homers, I'd prefer to keep the Oden, Aldridge, Roy core together.

Would the Wiz be interested in this type of deal mentioned by MHD? I saw some interest in Martell Webster by another poster, there are probably a couple of variables that could be played with to make this more appealing, like giving the Wiz 1st round draft picks.

I look forward to your input.

[nate33]

If the Wizards could somehow dump Songaila, Stevenson (Stevenson will be the tougher of the two) and let Pech & maybe even Critt go(solely based on performance) they could be $8 mil under the cap (using your projections) by the 2010 offseason.

If they trade Jamison, they can get around $21 million under the cap.

Are you counting Haywood in those figures? I think Haywood is going to cost at least $7M in 2010, probably more like $9M. Basically, we have no chance of cap room unless we dump Jamison, Stevenson and Songaila.

I'm not too excited about the cap room strategy in 2010 because there will be so many other teams with a ton of money on the market. I can see Lebron, Amare, Bosh, Wade, Yao and Nowitzki being gobbled up real quick, and then there will still be at least 4 or 5 teams left with max room throwing their money at second-tier guys like Joe Johnson, Mike Miller, Rip Hamilton, Brad Miller, Michael Redd and so forth. We'll either have to overpay for those second tier guys, or be stuck with third tier guys like Udonis Haslem.

[nate33]

Nate, to me the only sure way to avoid the tax is the Butler to Portland scenerio (Wiz trade Butler, Etan, Stevenson for Raef, Outlaw, Rudy). We get rid of our worst contracts and save a boatload of money.

No team is going to trade an expiring for Songaila. The best we'll do is a Rasual Butler for Darius trade (to shave a year off of the contract).

After that, I'd try and do a 3-way deal where we trade Jamison to team X, team X and Wizards young players go to Dallas, and we get Josh Howard to replace Caron. We'd include our 2010 expirings. I'll come up with a trade.

I was just cruising the board to see if there was a realistic deal that could send Butler to the Blazers. First, let me say that I realize that Butler is an All-Star and arguably the Wizards best player. That being said, I know the Blazers are going to have to give up significant talent and/or take on bad contracts. for a player of his caliber. Like all Blazer homers, I'd prefer to keep the Oden, Aldridge, Roy core together.

Would the Wiz be interested in this type of deal mentioned by MHD? I saw some interest in Martell Webster by another poster, there are probably a couple of variables that could be played with to make this more appealing, like giving the Wiz 1st round draft picks.

I look forward to your input.

I hate the Butler trade. For some reason, mhd has left the reservation and has gone on a demented quest to trade Caron Butler. He has posted about 10 Butler trades on the Trade Board. They all seem to be aimed at trading Butler for youth and cap room. I never understood the logic because Butler is already fairly young and on a cap friendly contract.

For me, I don't see any Butler trade that is oriented around us trading quality (Butler) for quantity (i.e. a combo of decent young players and short contracts). If Butler is involved in a trade, it'll be the other way around. We'll trade Butler plus other pieces for a player even better than Butler.

[Butter]

Nate, to me the only sure way to avoid the tax is the Butler to Portland scenerio (Wiz trade Butler, Etan, Stevenson for Raef, Outlaw, Rudy). We get rid of our worst contracts and save a boatload of money.

No team is going to trade an expiring for Songaila. The best we'll do is a Rasual Butler for Darius trade (to shave a year off of the contract).

After that, I'd try and do a 3-way deal where we trade Jamison to team X, team X and Wizards young players go to Dallas, and we get Josh Howard to replace Caron. We'd include our 2010 expirings. I'll come up with a trade.

I was just cruising the board to see if there was a realistic deal that could send Butler to the Blazers. First, let me say that I realize that Butler is an All-Star and arguably the Wizards best player. That being said, I know the Blazers are going to have to give up significant talent and/or take on bad contracts. for a player of his caliber. Like all Blazer homers, I'd prefer to keep the Oden, Aldridge, Roy core together.

Would the Wiz be interested in this type of deal mentioned by MHD? I saw some interest in Martell Webster by another poster, there are probably a couple of variables that could be played with to make this more appealing, like giving the Wiz 1st round draft picks.

I look forward to your input.

I hate the Butler trade. For some reason, mhd has left the reservation and has gone on a demented quest to trade Caron Butler. He has posted about 10 Butler trades on the Trade Board. They all seem to be aimed at trading Butler for youth and cap room. I never understood the logic because Butler is already fairly young and on a cap friendly contract.

For me, I don't see any Butler trade that is oriented around us trading quality (Butler) for quantity (i.e. a combo of decent young players and short contracts). If Butler is involved in a trade, it'll be the other way around. We'll trade Butler plus other pieces for a player even better than Butler.

Right, I got you. Sounds like his opinion is a bit different than other fans on here.

I was looking at the salaries, and thinking that the Blazers could send young talent and absorb some of the longer deals, like Songalia and Stevenson, of you were interested in dumping them? Anyways, its always nice to compare notes with other fans. I don't really following the Wizards, so I don't know who's really available from your team.

[nate33]

After looking at the salary numbers, I'm no longer in favor of a Big Trade strategy. I figure we should keep our eyes open for any trade that will help unload our overpaid players

Unfortunately, with so many teams looking to acquire 2010 contracts, the premium will be high. I don't consider it all that likely that we'll be able to trade one of our 2011 contracts for a 2010 contract. The only exception is that Songaila might be dealable if he continues to play so well. Any Songaila recipient would have to meet the following 3 criteria: (1) be in "win now" mode; (2) be in need of depth at PF; and (3) have a 2009 or 2010 contract available as trade bait. As luck would have it, there are two teams who meet this criteria: New Orleans and Orlando. EG might be able to work out a Songaila for Cook trade or a Songaila for R.Butler trade.

Short of the trading Songaila, the only cap clearing moves that are likely might be ones involving exchanging one of our 2010 contracts for a 2009 contract. This is needed to save us from the luxury tax. Fortunately, 2009 contracts aren't really at that much of a premium. Indeed, there are a handful of teams sitting on 2009 contracts that wouldn't mind if those contracts lasted a year longer. These are teams that are setting themselves up for 2010 free agency but need to replace their 2009 contracts with somebody or else they'd have to field a skeleton crew throughout the 2009/10 season. New York is the most prominent example. Minnesota is another possibility. So is Toronto. Any of those teams might consider trading us an expiring contract in exchange for Mike James + $3M + a 2nd round pick.

[Dat2U]

If the Wizards could somehow dump Songaila, Stevenson (Stevenson will be the tougher of the two) and let Pech & maybe even Critt go(solely based on performance) they could be $8 mil under the cap (using your projections) by the 2010 offseason.

If they trade Jamison, they can get around $21 million under the cap.

Are you counting Haywood in those figures? I think Haywood is going to cost at least $7M in 2010, probably more like $9M. Basically, we have no chance of cap room unless we dump Jamison, Stevenson and Songaila.

I'm not too excited about the cap room strategy in 2010 because there will be so many other teams with a ton of money on the market. I can see Lebron, Amare, Bosh, Wade, Yao and Nowitzki being gobbled up real quick, and then there will still be at least 4 or 5 teams left with max room throwing their money at second-tier guys like Joe Johnson, Mike Miller, Rip Hamilton, Brad Miller, Michael Redd and so forth. We'll either have to overpay for those second tier guys, or be stuck with third tier guys like Udonis Haslem.

Okay so say Wood gets a deal that starts at $7-8 mil in 2010 with raises thereafter. That's still gives us room to be flexible. Any scenario I've mentioned says that we absolutely must dump Songaila & Stevenson along with trading Jamison. Doing that will still give us $13-14 mil in cap space for 2010.

Again, its just not about acquiring cap space to grab a free agent. I don't want to overpay for Mike Miller or Udonis Haslem either. My thought process is that cap space be used as an enticement in a trade. Much like Denver traded Marcus Camby for cap room & a 2nd round pick (although I think a package of Blatche & Young or a pick can get us something better). Also if the 2010 offseason doesn't present any real opportunities for improvement then why not save space for a trade during the trade deadline or even wait for the 2011 offseason?

To me its about flexibility, the plan I put forward gives the team alot of room to play with. We just don't have to wait until everything lines up perfectly (much like the plan to use our expirings next year to make a big trade). We'd have the money available, we'd already have a decent team that's competitive, we'd just be waiting for that right player to come available. Maybe its a disgruntled star, a guy closing in on FA who may not stay with his home team, a star who needs a change of scenery, either way, we'd be right there to pounce. We'd have young talent, picks & most off all immediate cap savings to make owners drool at the money they'd save off the bat.