I was reading the article below about how the Jazz have struck out so far this year in the FA market, even with $21 million to spend, & wondered if they might be desperate enough to make a move just to make a move. The article is very funny for all the Jazz haters. With us on the verge of losing Posey, due to the Luxury Tax, I thought I'd throw this trade out there as a way of letting us reduce salary, keep Posey, & solidify the SG/SF positions. Now, don't panic when you see one of the players involved. I'll explain why I believe it's a good move. Houston sends Mobley/Cato/Moochie to Utah. Utah sends Harpring/Ostertag to Houston. Utah sends Raul Lopez/a future #1 pick to the Clippers through Houston. The Clippers send Keyon Dooling to Houston. The Clippers agree to an under the table agreement to not match Maggette's offer from Utah (Thus, the future #1 pick). Utah gives up Harpring/Ostertag/future #1 pick/Lopez in exchange for a starting defensive-minded center in Cato, a solid starting SG in Mobley, a flashy reserve PG in Moochie & reassurances that the Clippers won't match their offer to Maggette. The Clippers give up a reserve PG in Dooling & unofficially, the rights to match Maggette's offer, in exchange for a reserve PG in Raul Lopez & a future #1 pick from Utah through Houston. Houston gives up Cato/Mobley/Moochie in exchange for Harpring/Ostertag. By trading for Ostertag (expiring contract), we reduce next year's team salary by ~$8.9 million. That would allow us to match Memphis's offer to Posey, without going over the Luxury Tax threshhold. Cato only played about 17 mpg & may very well play less this next year. Ostertag could play those few minutes & not hurt us. We also get rid of Moochie's contract. With the signing of Piatkowski, the trade for Harpring/Dooling, & the resigning of Posey, we'd have a new lineup of: C: Ming/Ostertag/FA(Jelani McCoy/Vladimir Stepania) PF: Griffin/Taylor/FA(T-Mo/Samaki Walker/Popeye Jones) SF: Harpring/Nachbar/Rice SG: Posey/Piatkowski/Hawkins PG: Francis/Dooling http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jul/07262003/sports/78733.asp Monson: Promising offseason turns to desperation By Gordon Monson Salt Lake Tribune Columnist Come on in to Dr. Feelgood's office, Kevin, and take a load off. Punch up a pillow, and get all comfy. The good doctor will be right with you . . . Uh, thanks, Nurse Kratchet. Aaach, K.O., how have you been? I haven't seen you since . . . since . . . when? . . . that session shortly after last year's draft when you thought you could outsmart everybody in the NBA and take Curtis Borchardt, even after all the teams in front of you passed on him because of that bad wheel and you went with him anyway, and, sure enough, phfftww goes the foot bone, again, and . . . Hey, Doc, I'm fully aware. Well, what's troubling you this time? Did Sasha Pavlovic break his foot, too? No, he just sprained it. Was there another Tony Parker in the draft who you passed on in favor of a guard who later blew out his knee . . . twice? No. Oooh, oooh, don't tell me, you drafted an unproven high school shooting guard like DeShawn Stevenson who can dunk real fancy and all but who, every time he shoots anything outside of 15 feet, looks as though he's rebuilding the Great Wall of China? It's the free-agent market, Doc. What? . . . You wasted another wad of cash on some dog like John Amaechi? Doc, you're hardly lifting my spirits here. In fact, you're blowing a hole in the bottom of my boat. I'm not the one pulling the trigger, bub. I'll cut straight to it, Doc. We're striking out. It's the biggest free-agent season in Jazz history. We lost Stock. We lost Karl. We have $21 million to spend, and, well, we ain't got Jack Squat to show for it. Did the Clippers match your offer to him, too? You're a laugh a minute, Doc. Actually, I'm blubbering like a baby. We go after Elton Brand, and the Heat stick their nose into our pie, and, next thing, Donald Sterling . . . Donald Frickin' Sterling, Doc! . . . opens the vault. We go after Andre Miller, a former Ute, and, instead, he signs with . . . with . . . oh, Doc, I can barely utter it . . . Spell it, then. D . . . E . . . Detroit? * . . . Andre signed with Denmark? . . . V . . . E . . . R . . . Not the Nuggets. Finally, you feel my pain, Doc. And that's just the start. We invite in Gilbert Arenas. He toys with us. We chase down Speedy Claxton. Uh, no. We check out Tyronn Lue. He turns his back. And there's more bad news . . . You gave Ostertag a four-year extension? We're desperate, Doc, not insane. What? What? . . . We offered nearly $70 million over seven years for Brad Miller, and he rejected it for a sign-and-trade deal with Sacramento. It's good to be Kings. And Corey Maggette, the one guy willing to sign an offer sheet, probably will wind up back with the Clips. It could be an oh-fer offseason, Doc. A bummer summer. What if we go 0-82 next year? Now, now, don't panic. Our starting lineup could be Ostertag, Kirilenko, Harpring, Stevenson and Lopez. OK, panic. But we won't fold the tents, Doc. At least we will not admit it publicly. Larry raised ticket prices, so he told us to be aggressive . . . How about if he applies the $21 mill to ticket discounts? . . . and, dammit, we will charge forward, even as we over-charge. Booo-yaaah, straight into the lottery, with more ping-pong balls than anyone. There's your sweet, little upshot, though, the No. 1 pick in the draft. Gee, I feel so happy. Just one thing: Don't muff the pick this time.
Not one of your better ones, IMO. 1.) The under the table thing is completely illegal, and would very likely get smacked down by the league office. Teams can't cut deals to not match offers. 2.) Harpring is probably the best player they have outside of maybe Kirilenko, and Lopez is a guy they have hopes for at PG. Do they even have anyone else at PG? In your scenario, they're still left with their 3 best players at 2 positions (Kirilenko, Mobley, Maggette at the 2/3) 3.) A team in broken down-rebuild mode like Utah will not want to part with a #1 pick. Even worse, this loads them down with worse contracts. Ostertag only has a year left vs. Cato's 3 years, and Moochie's 4 years. Utah has Borchardt and Collins as hopefuls for center- I doubt they'd want multi-years tied into another center before finding out what they have. (I realize they went hard after Miller, but Miller is coming off all-star year.) 4.) Our biggest problem is salary for the upcoming season. Just looking off the top of my head, we have Mobley/Cato/Moochie going out, and Ostertag/Harpring/Dooling coming back- aren't those salaries near equal? That won't help us keep Posey really at all. I don't think that's anything more than a lateral move at best.
i panicked. plus, expiring contracts don't help us for this year's LT just the way Rice's expiring contract won't help with the posey signing. hilarious article though. that's a week's worth of b****ing at cc.net and they've made the playoffs the last 4 years.
I have 2 problems with this 1. "secret agreements" make me think of Joe Smith. 2. I think I would rather have a pot of starving rats tied to my stomach than have to watch Greg Ostertag 82 frikkin' times a year........................I mean that.
Yea, it's a reach, but I thought I'd give it a go. My original rough draft had Utah ending up with Cato/Wilcox/"Q"/Maggette & Mobley going to the Clippers, but I decided to go with something a little less complicated. Yes, I know that. I just included it for clarification. The real deal would be Utah sending us a #1 for giving up Mobley & Cato. Then we give the Clippers Utah's #1 pick for Dooling, since I would consider Dooling to be the best of the 3 PG's. It might get looked at, but I believe it would still pass. They've got Mo Williams & I'm assuming they'll resign Mark Jackson or pursue another FA PG. As for the 2/3 log jam, doesn't Kirilenko play the PF some? Thus my question, are they desperate? Also, Borchardt has a history of foot problems & maybe, just maybe, Utah is concerned about him ever staying healthy (I'm still reaching for straws). Yes, the salaries are about equal, but Ostertag's expires at the end of the year & Dooling has a qualifying offer coming (not sure if the Clippers picked it up). When does the league determine if there'll be a Luxury Tax & does it include salaries that have expired at the end of the season in their calculations?
i wanna say LT calculations are made based on your salary at the end of the season, but a contract that expires is still included b/c it was on your team as the season ended. which means if you start with 50M and make a trade mid season and end with 45M, 45M is the number they use. i believe that was the whole deal with terrell brandon's contract. not only does it expire for cap purposes next season, but it does so in february so it removes 11M from for LT purposes this season.
Then it looks like we're going to be paying the Luxury Tax anyway. With the signing of Piatkowski, we're at about $54 million already & only have 10 players under contract. Since it looks like we'll be paying the tax this year, the trade would allow us to build a strong nucleus & avoid it next year.
This may be a stupid question but, I have read many references here along the lines of " we don't even know if there will be a tax this year" like it is a league -wide decision. How and when is this determination made?
i'm pretty sure at the end of the year, they calculate all of the nba's income, or basketball related income (BRI) to be more precise. they then add up all of the money paid to players. if the amount paid to players exceeds a certain percentage of BRI (i wanna say 55%), the LT is enforced. the luxury tax limit for each team i believe is calculated by taking BRI, multiplying it by the 55% number, and then dividing that by 29. those teams over the LT barrier then pay a dollar for dollar tax and those under get a share of that money paid to them. there is also another number for something called the cliff provision. it is set at some other % (61?) of BRI/29. if a team is over the LT, but under the cliff, they do not lose their entire share of the LT rebate. they lose it on a prorated basis as their payroll goes from the LT to the cliff (i.e. if you're 60% of the way b/t the LT and cliff, you lose 60% of your rebate). i think i explained all of that correctly and did not confuse those percentages with some other facet of the CBA. as an aside, i think owner's should be wary of the LT as a general practice b/c it is a way of keeping salaries down. if every owner just said "hey there's not gonna be an LT" and just spent whatever, eventually there would be an LT b/c player's salary would go past the 55% mark. going over the LT should be a move generally reserved for a team that feels it has it's roster set and wants to keep it together and thus signs the players to long term deals. we, along with most teams, do not have our roster set for the future, and thus should be wary of the LT. if and when we get a roster we feel we can win a title with, then we should feel comfortable exceeding the LT to retain our players. but only then.
I will personally kick Van Gundy's ass if Cuttino is traded to Utah. Can someone please tell me why so many people on this board hate Cuttino?
I know there are people that hate Mobley, but people want to trade Mobley, Cato and Moochie for Harpring and Dooling, risk the Clippers and Jazz getting into SERIOUS trouble with the league, and have the Rocks going into the season without a back-up center and a further depleted frontline, all for the purpose of getting rid of Cuttino Mobley!?
My mistake, I see we pick up Ostertag, which makes the deal WORSE! I'd rather have Cato anyday of the week over Ostertag. The salaries match, Mobley and Harpring are a wash, Ostertag is a downgrade over Cato and Dooling hasn't proven a thing so who knows if he is better then Moochie. You screw up the chemistry of a team that missed the playoffs by 1 game just for the sake of dumping Mobley.
I like the Ostertag deal for Taylor better than Cato, but I'd be happy to move both along with the Mooch. Utah, you hear that? Scoring Power Forward who will "replace" Karl Malone. Locked up. Can't run away, like everyone else you try to chase to Salt lick. How about a real, defensive-minded Center to replace Oster-Tags. Whoa! And the point guard you so richly deserve to replace Stockton . All we want is some cap space and Harpring or Kirilenko. No biggie. Oh yeah, a lotto pick, too. Let's make a deal! Do you get over, or what ?
Try going back & reading it a 3rd time. The purpose was not for the sake of dumping Mobley, it was to retain Posey & give us some breathing room under the Luxury Tax. Ostertag's contract expires this year & Dooling's contract will be going into the qualifying offer year. Thus, we dump Cato (3 yrs left) & Moochie's (4 yrs left) contracts, while picking up a solid SF & resigning Posey to be our SG. As for our backup center, we sign a veteran at the end of the year to play the 17 mpg that Cato did, for a fraction of Cato's cost. Don't worry though, it'll never happen.
