Blowing your team up differs from rebuilding in that you actually need to rid yourself of youthful-core pieces that you wouldve otherwise have kept if not for this dire need of cap relief. In most rebuilding processes you have the team with an aging star whos team is not doing so well, ridding themselves of those stars becomes the centerpiece of the deal and where the CAP relief usually comes from. (Think Vince Carter to Orlando) But scenarios where its the same team struggling, only instead of a star they have all that money tied to mediocre talent, and thats when you have a team that needs blowing up. Your cap situation is so bad, that you need to rid yourself of your future in order to have a future. Trading your prime players in their prime if need be. Thats the best way I can explain it, now I dont know how much money these owners have so Im not trying to judge them, but if I were basing this list off the premise that no team can afford such minimal returns on their finances for such a long duration, then these are the teams that meet my criteria. Teams devoting inordinate sums of money for minimal productivity yet possess players making nil with the kind of upside and talent to make OTHER teams think twice about passing up the commitment. Philly 4-4 Over CAP for next 2 YRS Brand+Dalembert - Next 2Years 54.2Million -15.8PPG, 11.9Reb, 1.5Ast (12.4PER/-2.3PER Differential) From a Per Possession standpoint, they are basically paying 2 guys more money than what the Celtics pay for superior production from 1 player (KG). Granted thats 1 gifted player but if thats not a scream for help I dont know what is. The overall commitment is longer than 2 years, this is just what Philly is paying in the foreseeable future. They wont be able to rid themselves of both, and they would prefer to toss Brand away but wont be able to unless they trade Iggy and thats where things get interesting. The Sixers basically have 2 options of self destruction: Trade Iggy+Brand (134Million) and rebuild around Young and Speights with +12M available in 2010 and BUTTLOADS in 2011. or Trade Speights and Dalembert(+Green)(31.M) and try to keep the team in contention with Brand saddle bagging the franchise for the next decade. If you opt for this route you basically have no cap space till 2011 but your not pushing luxury. In other words, they couldve kept Andre Miller if they were in this position a year ago. One things for sure Philly cant just stick at it, they will be stuck at this level of play for years to come as by the time the big contracts expire the extensions of their core players will be kicking in. New Orleans Over Luxury Tax next 2 YRS Peja 14.5M(2YRS) Morris 6.4M (2YRS) Posey 6.4M(3YRS) This team has devoted 26M on this year alone to 3 bench players. Emeka is highly overpaid as well but they just acquired him. West is actually underpaid and provides a decent return on his modest 9Million (and scaling down) salary. But hes not enough of an asset to help New Orleans get out of this mess, leaving only 1 solution. The Hornets have to trade yet another future HOFer for the sake of their franchise. CP3 has to go, its really that simple. He wont want to stay in a floundering franchise and you cant improve the team with these contracts. Seeing as how CP3 is such a franchise altering player, they have the luxury of throwing out alot of garbage with him. Problem is where do you start? Do you think any of these teams should trade their franchise players away? Any teams Im not considering?
