ESPN--Time to play let's make a deal

Getting itchy yet?

We're a third of the way through the season (really), we have six weeks left to the trade deadline, but with apologies to Greivis Vasquez and Marreese Speights, thus far the regular season has yet to see a single significant trade consummated.

At some point, that's going to change, especially now that everybody has seen what's working and what needs fixing. While there is a technical roadblock to deal-making at the moment -- much of the league isn't trade eligible until March 1 -- there are still several players on the market who could change uniforms before then.

That's where I come in. Using the Trade Machine and a heavy dollop of common sense, I'm going to look at some trades that could or should happen in the near future. Here's what I came up with:


Chris Kaman to Houston (Proposed trade)
Kaman is at the top of the trade heap at the moment, as he's being held out of games while the Hornets look for a deal for him. He can be traded as part of a package starting Feb. 12, or in a one-for-one trade before then.

The problem is that Kaman makes $14 million, which makes it extremely difficult to put together trades for him. For example, Kaman to Boston makes tons of basketball sense, but a deal for Jermaine O'Neal and JaJuan Johnson still requires Boston to throw in another $5 million in salary. I can't imagine the Celtics lumping in Chris Wilcox and Keyon Dooling just to get Kaman, because their rotation would be a mess after that.

The one trade that sort of makes sense is to send him to Indiana, which can snag Kaman using just its cap space. The Pacers would save the Hornets a big chunk of money in the process, send Louis Amundson back to New Orleans, and throw in a low-level prospect (say, Lance Stephenson) as a sweetener. But I don't think Indiana is willing to spend so much money to solve a problem it doesn't have -- the Pacers need guards, not bigs.

The other deal that works is to send Kaman to Portland for Marcus Camby, with the Blazers sending a guard prospect back to New Orleans. This is unpalatable for two reasons : 1) it just leaves the Hornets doing the same dance with Camby, and 2) the Blazers would inevitably face Camby on another Western team's roster after his inevitable buyout from New Orleans.

But the deal that works best is Houston's. The Rockets need another big and just so happen to have $11 million in unwanted expiring contracts lying around in the form of Terrence Williams, Hasheem Thabeet and Jonny Flynn; Houston is probably not going to part with New York's first-round pick (top-five protected) given the Knicks' struggles, but the Rockets have a second-rounder from Minnesota and a future first (2014 or later, depending on when they give New Jersey the pick they owe from the Terrence Williams deal).


Stephen Jackson to New Jersey (Proposed trade)
Jackson got a DNP on Monday night and the Bucks seemed perfectly fine without him, as wings Carlos Delfino, Shaun Livingston and Mike Dunleavy are of roughly comparable quality to Jackson. The problem is that he has a terrible contract, which means he can only be traded for another equally terrible contract.

However, it appears there are several different workable combinations with New Jersey -- which is convenient given that Jackson and Dwight Howard have talked of wanting to play with each other. Even without Howard, the Nets have a glaring hole on the wings now that MarShon Brooks is out with a toe injury, and Jackson could help fill it.

Moreover, all these deals can be done now, with no March 1 limitations on the key players. The crux of the deal would be trading Jackson for Jordan Farmar and Johan Petro, all of whom have two years left on their deals and at roughly equal money.

Farmar has gone gangbusters of late but is difficult to use with Deron Williams and Sundiata Gaines, which is where part 2 of my deal comes in -- Milwaukee sends back the bigger Beno Udrih and Jon Brockman, and the Bucks get Anthony Morrow and Damion James. James is out for the season and has an expiring contract; Morrow gives Milwaukee another deep shooter to round out the wing rotation. Udrih, meanwhile, is more easily used in two-guard sets with Williams. As for Brockman, he fills the frontcourt void that Petro's absence creates.


Steve Nash to Portland (Proposed trade)
Nash is a free agent after the season and, as our Marc Stein noted earlier this year, his contract isn't extension-eligible. So any team trading for him would basically be taking him on as a rental. Who would do such a thing?

Well, the Blazers might. Portland has been undone by uneven backcourt play so far this year, something that obviously would change the second Nash showed up. And they have the perfect pieces to put into a deal. Raymond Felton has an expiring contract of his own that nearly matches Nash's, which means the deal basically comes down to prospects. Portland can offer two young guards -- Nolan Smith and Elliot Williams -- and possibly a future draft pick, as well.

This may seem like small change for a player of Nash's caliber, but again, it's just a half-season rental, and I'm not sure the Suns will get any better offers than this. A year ago they might have been able to do nearly the same deal except with Nicolas Batum coming back; that isn't happening now.

The Suns may not be willing to deal Nash, of course; that's been their stance the past two years. But the overwhelmingly obvious fact that this team isn't any good even with Nash may cause them to change their tune.



O.J. Mayo and Ramon Sessions to Indiana in a 4-team deal (Proposed trade)
Admittedly, this one is a little difficult, but put the pieces together and it all makes sense. Cleveland trades Sessions and Ryan Hollins and gets back a great guard prospect in Eric Bledsoe. Memphis trades O.J. Mayo and Marreese Speights, and gets back a real power forward in Tyler Hansbrough and a real backup guard in Randy Foye. (Side note: For some reason the trade machine blew up once I added Speights to this deal, so I left him out in the link. But he'd need to be in it to keep Memphis under the luxury tax).

Indiana gets a guard who can actually pass in Sessions, a long-range shooter in Mayo, who they can keep as a restricted free agent, and a fourth big in Hollins, and deals out three bench players (Hansbrough, Dahntay Jones and Amundson). And the Clippers deal from their excess at the guard spots to fill in the roster, sending out Foye and Bledsoe and getting back a wing defender (Jones) and a frontcourt reserve (Amundson). If they really need another point guard I'm sure Indy could add A.J. Price to this swap, too.

(Finally, a quick aside on the Clippers -- heck yes, that was the best dunk I've seen since Vince posterized Frederic Weis.)


Dwight Howard to the Nets
Unless the Lakers are willing to do a Andrew Bynum-Pau Gasol combo, this has become the best deal on the board. I say "become" because this wasn't the case a couple of months ago. However, MarShon Brooks' emergence has given the Nets another tantalizing piece to put into a Howard deal. He is out with a broken toe but that shouldn't bother the Magic, who would be making this deal for the long term.

Because of Kris Humphries' involvement it couldn't be consummated until March 1 and can't be done on the Trade Machine, but the deal is Dwight Howard, Chris Duhon and Hedo Turkoglu to New Jersey for Brooks, Humphries, Brook Lopez and Mehmet Okur. The Nets could actually get a $3.1 million trade exception for Lopez as well, while the Magic would get one worth $3.2 million for Duhon.

In addition, New Jersey can include four first-round picks: Its own picks in 2012, 2014 and 2016, and a pick owed to it by Houston from the Terrence Williams trade. It's the best way to get Orlando out of its salary-cap mess and give it the pieces to rebuild, and obviously it puts New Jersey in great shape with a Howard-Williams core.

 

Spoiler

Getting itchy yet?



We're a third of the way through the season (really), we have six weeks left to the trade deadline, but with apologies to Greivis Vasquez and Marreese Speights, thus far the regular season has yet to see a single significant trade consummated.



At some point, that's going to change, especially now that everybody has seen what's working and what needs fixing. While there is a technical roadblock to deal-making at the moment -- much of the league isn't trade eligible until March 1 -- there are still several players on the market who could change uniforms before then.



That's where I come in. Using the Trade Machine and a heavy dollop of common sense, I'm going to look at some trades that could or should happen in the near future. Here's what I came up with:







Chris Kaman to Houston (Proposed trade)


Kaman is at the top of the trade heap at the moment, as he's being held out of games while the Hornets look for a deal for him. He can be traded as part of a package starting Feb. 12, or in a one-for-one trade before then.



The problem is that Kaman makes $14 million, which makes it extremely difficult to put together trades for him. For example, Kaman to Boston makes tons of basketball sense, but a deal for Jermaine O'Neal and JaJuan Johnson still requires Boston to throw in another $5 million in salary. I can't imagine the Celtics lumping in Chris Wilcox and Keyon Dooling just to get Kaman, because their rotation would be a mess after that.



The one trade that sort of makes sense is to send him to Indiana, which can snag Kaman using just its cap space. The Pacers would save the Hornets a big chunk of money in the process, send Louis Amundson back to New Orleans, and throw in a low-level prospect (say, Lance Stephenson) as a sweetener. But I don't think Indiana is willing to spend so much money to solve a problem it doesn't have -- the Pacers need guards, not bigs.



The other deal that works is to send Kaman to Portland for Marcus Camby, with the Blazers sending a guard prospect back to New Orleans. This is unpalatable for two reasons : 1) it just leaves the Hornets doing the same dance with Camby, and 2) the Blazers would inevitably face Camby on another Western team's roster after his inevitable buyout from New Orleans.



But the deal that works best is Houston's. The Rockets need another big and just so happen to have $11 million in unwanted expiring contracts lying around in the form of Terrence Williams, Hasheem Thabeet and Jonny Flynn; Houston is probably not going to part with New York's first-round pick (top-five protected) given the Knicks' struggles, but the Rockets have a second-rounder from Minnesota and a future first (2014 or later, depending on when they give New Jersey the pick they owe from the Terrence Williams deal).





Stephen Jackson to New Jersey (Proposed trade)


Jackson got a DNP on Monday night and the Bucks seemed perfectly fine without him, as wings Carlos Delfino, Shaun Livingston and Mike Dunleavy are of roughly comparable quality to Jackson. The problem is that he has a terrible contract, which means he can only be traded for another equally terrible contract.



However, it appears there are several different workable combinations with New Jersey -- which is convenient given that Jackson and Dwight Howard have talked of wanting to play with each other. Even without Howard, the Nets have a glaring hole on the wings now that MarShon Brooks is out with a toe injury, and Jackson could help fill it.



Moreover, all these deals can be done now, with no March 1 limitations on the key players. The crux of the deal would be trading Jackson for Jordan Farmar and Johan Petro, all of whom have two years left on their deals and at roughly equal money.



Farmar has gone gangbusters of late but is difficult to use with Deron Williams and Sundiata Gaines, which is where part 2 of my deal comes in -- Milwaukee sends back the bigger Beno Udrih and Jon Brockman, and the Bucks get Anthony Morrow and Damion James. James is out for the season and has an expiring contract; Morrow gives Milwaukee another deep shooter to round out the wing rotation. Udrih, meanwhile, is more easily used in two-guard sets with Williams. As for Brockman, he fills the frontcourt void that Petro's absence creates.





Steve Nash to Portland (Proposed trade)


Nash is a free agent after the season and, as our Marc Stein noted earlier this year, his contract isn't extension-eligible. So any team trading for him would basically be taking him on as a rental. Who would do such a thing?



Well, the Blazers might. Portland has been undone by uneven backcourt play so far this year, something that obviously would change the second Nash showed up. And they have the perfect pieces to put into a deal. Raymond Felton has an expiring contract of his own that nearly matches Nash's, which means the deal basically comes down to prospects. Portland can offer two young guards -- Nolan Smith and Elliot Williams -- and possibly a future draft pick, as well.



This may seem like small change for a player of Nash's caliber, but again, it's just a half-season rental, and I'm not sure the Suns will get any better offers than this. A year ago they might have been able to do nearly the same deal except with Nicolas Batum coming back; that isn't happening now.



The Suns may not be willing to deal Nash, of course; that's been their stance the past two years. But the overwhelmingly obvious fact that this team isn't any good even with Nash may cause them to change their tune.









O.J. Mayo and Ramon Sessions to Indiana in a 4-team deal (Proposed trade)


Admittedly, this one is a little difficult, but put the pieces together and it all makes sense. Cleveland trades Sessions and Ryan Hollins and gets back a great guard prospect in Eric Bledsoe. Memphis trades O.J. Mayo and Marreese Speights, and gets back a real power forward in Tyler Hansbrough and a real backup guard in Randy Foye. (Side note: For some reason the trade machine blew up once I added Speights to this deal, so I left him out in the link. But he'd need to be in it to keep Memphis under the luxury tax).



Indiana gets a guard who can actually pass in Sessions, a long-range shooter in Mayo, who they can keep as a restricted free agent, and a fourth big in Hollins, and deals out three bench players (Hansbrough, Dahntay Jones and Amundson). And the Clippers deal from their excess at the guard spots to fill in the roster, sending out Foye and Bledsoe and getting back a wing defender (Jones) and a frontcourt reserve (Amundson). If they really need another point guard I'm sure Indy could add A.J. Price to this swap, too.



(Finally, a quick aside on the Clippers -- heck yes, that was the best dunk I've seen since Vince posterized Frederic Weis.)





Dwight Howard to the Nets


Unless the Lakers are willing to do a Andrew Bynum-Pau Gasol combo, this has become the best deal on the board. I say "become" because this wasn't the case a couple of months ago. However, MarShon Brooks' emergence has given the Nets another tantalizing piece to put into a Howard deal. He is out with a broken toe but that shouldn't bother the Magic, who would be making this deal for the long term.



Because of Kris Humphries' involvement it couldn't be consummated until March 1 and can't be done on the Trade Machine, but the deal is Dwight Howard, Chris Duhon and Hedo Turkoglu to New Jersey for Brooks, Humphries, Brook Lopez and Mehmet Okur. The Nets could actually get a $3.1 million trade exception for Lopez as well, while the Magic would get one worth $3.2 million for Duhon.



In addition, New Jersey can include four first-round picks: Its own picks in 2012, 2014 and 2016, and a pick owed to it by Houston from the Terrence Williams trade. It's the best way to get Orlando out of its salary-cap mess and give it the pieces to rebuild, and obviously it puts New Jersey in great shape with a Howard-Williams core.

 

To me the best trade would be a 3 team trade that centers around WB and DH, with the 3rd team providing filler. Its quite hard to come up with a working scenario, but if they could work out something like DH for WB+Perkins+filler that would be awesome for both teams. Orlando gets the best collection of talent possible and OKC suddenly has 2 of the top 3 players in the league IMHO.

 

dwight howard wouldn't sign with okc - he wants to be in a big market.

 

Just to post my trade idea

3 team western conference trade

Houston Rockets / Utah Jazz/ Memphis Grizzlies

Rockets get:

OJ Mayo
Al Jefferson
Josh Selby

Memphis Gets:

Luis Scola
Chase Budinger

Utah Gets:
Kevin Martin
Johnny Flynn
darell arthur

In this scenario - the rockets fulfill their need for a big man and a superstar potential player in oj mayo. I fully believe that mayo has just been on a team that doesn't utilize him in the correct manner. With the ball in rudy gays and zach randolph's hands, there just isn't enough scoring to go around, which leads me to....

the memphis grizzlies gets a similar player to zach randolph since he's been injured. they receive an immediate backup to their sg and sf in a quality cheap prospect in budinger.

finally - utah gets rid of their large contract in pf in al jefferson. they have a log jam with millsap, kanter, favors, and they have a gaping hole in their back court. devin harris just hasn't looked the same and you get a potential quality starter in johnny flynn on the cheap and they fulfill their need for a scorer in martin. darrell arthur also has potential but obviously can't play for them this year due to his injury.

everyone wins.

 

A lot of drama with oj. Sometimes they shop him and sometimes he's essential to success and being used properly by hollins. I saw his first game as a rookie and wow he was impressive against our big 3. Yao Mac and artest

 

The trade that Morey and his people should be dreaming about is one where we can unite D Williams and Dwight here in Houston and hope they convince them to both sign 2-3 years each with opt out clauses if we don't build a contender around them.

NJ trades Deron Williams/Brook Lopez for Kevin Martin/Luis Scola/Kyle Lowry/Jordan Hill (They do this trade if they don't think they will lock up Lopez long-term, Kevin Martin is a big cap hit for them this year but next year becomes a really valuable expiring, plus Hill+Morrow+draft pick(s) can get them Kaman from NO)

Orl trades Dwight Howard/Hedo Turkgolu for Brook Lopez/Marcus Morris/Hasheem Thabeet/Johnny Flinn (Starting center + Young talent + $9 mil in expiring and we took Hedo's horrible contract off their hands which added to the expirings gives them $20 mil in cap even after signing Lopez to a max contract all for Dwight Howard, possibly throw in T Will and draft picks to make it happen)

Hou trades Kevin Martin/Luis Scola/Kyle Lowry/Jordan Hill/Marcus Morris/Hasheem Thabeet/Johnny Flinn for Dwight Howard/Deron Williams/Hedo Turkgolu

Unfortunately it leaves us with a kinda awkward team but it shouldn't be hard to draft pieces to play with a front court of Dwight/Dalembert/P Pat with D Williams running the point.

We never see trades like this in the NBA right? But I know someone in Houston has to have worked on making something like this happen.

 

i don't think it is wise to consider the 09ers good talents, many GMs are probably not interested in them.

 

Sure, they are "expirings" so if you are talking about my post I was referring to Marcus Morris as the "young talent".

Irrespective, GMs, depending on their situation, may need them (the 09 expirings) to make trades work today without hurting themselves the following year. So we have chips to trade if it's worth compromising future free agency and getting Dwight and D-Wil would justify sending out all of our expirings if we kept our cheap wings in Parsons/Budinger.

 

This is probably one of the fairest fantasy trades I've seen. No one is getting royally screwed as is the case in most fantasy trades. The Grizz might want a little more than Scola and Chase for Arthur and Mayo but it's close in value.

 

the issue is that they don't have much salary since oj mayo is still on his rookie contract. we'd probably have to give them our new york first rounder which i'd still do but not too much more. like i said before, mayo is kind of their odd man out in their lineup but he would fulfill kmart's role here quite nicely.

 

the only other thing i can think of is giving them pat pat + thabeet instead of scola but scola kinda = randolph....memphis is in a win now scenario - so they need to keep their lineup. if they took this trade, whenever randolph does become healthy, scola would be an immediate 25-30 minute instant energy player off the bench to spell with mareese speights

 

Warriors need to trade Stephen Curry before he turns out like Roy.