Hell yes. If it were that easy, I'd make the call now and tell Morey later. Let's see....1-900-H-O-R-N-E-T-S..... EDIT: (There'd have to be some other considerations; Batum makes 15 million, we're hardcapped, but where there's a will....) EXTRA EDIT: Make that 13 million.
Charlotte is falling very hard but there will be many teams trying to get Batum by throwing him the max not sure if it's wise to waste assets to get him now. They will ask for a first and that's if Batum goes to the Fo and tells them I'm not resigning no way even if you can pay me the most money. And in my opinion, I am not comfortable paying such an incosistent player 25 million dollars. I think that Dragic may become available by the trade deadline but not sure with such a contract he even has significant positive value atm.
$2,442,746 is the difference between Batum's salary and Ariza/Jones' combined salary. I don't remember how much space we have below the hard cap, last I heard was we created slightly more space beneath it thanks to Lawson's suspensions, but i believe that number is a little over $2 million. We could do the trade with KJ instead of Jones, but I don't see how Charlotte would be interested in that. They have a better version of KJ in MKG.
Stop it! There is a reason why he played on 8 already.. He's play "small" like 5'9(as is 6'3), he's missed too much clutch shots(never trusted anyway).. I would take reincarnation of A.Brooks over Bayless any day of the week!
you can take a reincarnation of a prime Brooks when you find one available as would I. Small? I don't understand what you are saying because Bayless for the past two years I have had the ...pleasure.. of watching him has been guarding pgs with no problem and at the Cavs- Bucks game we put him on Lebron and from some weird way it worked. He also won last year a jump ball against the much taller Beasly that led to a game winner shot that sent Miami to the lottery and his team secure in the playoffs and he was the one who made the game winning layup in the playoffs in game 3 vs the Bulls.
http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=zz54c4o the other 2 teams can add trade whoever among themselves, but this is what the rockets would get. loue and early are expiring and only have to pay half their contract, so waive them. bucks need to gut their team. trading for a superstar is a really good start. get a decent piece with it rockets get to retool with two starters and some bench depth and have plenty of trade pieces for the offseason. ty gets a good chance to get back into form and boost his trade value for the offseason ty / bev / terry middleton / thornton / vasquez ariza / giannis / dekker dmo / capella / harrel / derrick dwight / capella / plumlee
Those of you that want Batum, are you willing to pay him MAX salary in the off-season? Because that is what the MARKET will value him at. Same with Harrison Barnes. They are looking at Parsons' and Heyward's deals.
wonder how faried would fare here. ship out a 1st and TJones? He's struggled this year, but I wouldn't mind adding him.
In this new jacked-up spend-like-a-sailor-on-shore-leave/liberty market, I could envision the 18 million or so a year he might get. I can't sneeze at 16-6-6 numbers. Hell, even Morey (Moneyball, "players that everyone devalues, like an island of misfit toys" Morey) will have to overpay players. Unless he can nab that third star (which means keeping one he has) and surround them all with bargain-basement deals. I wouldn't put it past him. But it isn't getting any easier.
He is pretty much already making Parsons and Heyward salary. Parsons: 15,361,500 Heyward: 15,409,570 Batum: 13,125,306
He is, but when Parsons and Heyward got their deals, they were near max level. So Batum will look to max/near max and the new cap projections has that level rising.
Also, remember last year the Rockets made a run at Goran Dragic, who was also going to be a FA and want a HUGE deal. The Rockets were ready to trade for him knowing this, so they clearly were willing to pay. Could that be the same with Batum? who knows?
The difference with Batum and Ariza is that if we sign Durant or another max level free agent this summer, we can still keep Ariza if we unload Lawson, Brewer, Jones, and Dwight signs for less than max (~$19 mil). Batum's cap hold would be way, way more than Ariza's $8 million.
