After reading this thread and other threads here I have come to the conclusion that folks here are so filled with anxiety about the Rockets' situation that they have come to the point where they believe that if they just close their eyes and keep saying over and over and over and over that the Rockets will get Howard, that D Williams will automatically follow him here, and that other teams will willingly trade for players on their roster who cannot get the job done here - all of this will somehow magically come to pass. After all, when you wish upon a star... Other the other hand, considering just how clueless this organization has been over the past 15 years, perhaps magic IS their last, best chance at turning things around in my lifetime.
Would you mind giving us a rundown of teams that could sign DWill outright after trading for Dwight?? It's a pretty short list.
I agree with the other posters who are against the Howard signing, first of all DHoward is a diva, and unlike other divas like say KG or LBJ or even Kobe, he's a diva who thinks he knows better than the GM and the coach and throws his weight around trying to get his homies some PT. He lobbied for Nelson to get some PT during their playoff run, and then he blamed SVG when they didn't win anything. At least LBJ and Kobe just tried to get other players to come to the team, this dude wants PT decided on his whim. Secondly, he's coming of back surgery. BACK SURGERY. Sure it might be temporary, but as we saw with Amare injuries take their toll no matter how superhuman you are. Not only that DHoward is not Pau Gasol, his game is 99% athleticism and 1% skill, will he be able to adjust his game like Amare? It remains to be seen but I'm certainly doubtful. Finally he's in the last year of his contract. Dhoward and D-will is just a pipedream, and even if you somehow managed to get the 2 of them, one is damaged goods and the other just quit on his team, and you'll be extending those 2 guys to max contracts? The fact is, the Rox could have probably been in a much better place if the FO didn't spend all this time star chasing. Rather trying to get flawed stars and paying them full price, why not buiild on what you have? The WEST is wide open and will only get wider the next 2-3 years, let's develop the guys we have like Dragic and DMO instead of getting these two players instead.
Hard to say, considering that teams can always trade away more salary to open more cap room or can amnesty players. New Jersey is obviously the best positioned for this AND can offer Williams more money than any other team. There are several other teams that can clear the room with a move or two. Still others can do so with some fancy maneuvering. Seriously, jopatmc, I know how obsessed you are with this subject. Please save yourself the time and effort and don't bother trying to figure it all out. There are countless possibilities that neither you nor I could possibly factor in. Trying to nail all this down without any inside information is a fool's errand.
There's may be teams that can create capspace. But when you look at it realistically, there is not very many teams that have the ability to create cap space to sign DWill outright and offer a competitive package of assets for Dwight along with cap relief. There's just not that many teams. What is not known is who is going to be willing to step up and offer blockbuster talent for Dwight. Is there a Clippers that is going to come out of the woodwork? Can't figure it all out. And the other big unknown is Orlando and their new front office. But.....I still maintain if it comes down to them trading Dwight, we are one of the frontrunners. And I also maintain that if they are going to trade Dwight and maximize value, they have to trade him before July 1. Once Dwill becomes a free agent, if a team locks him down, the trade value that Orlando can get for Dwight goes much lower as teams that were willing to rent him before will no longer be interested in renting him. They will want a commitment to extend before trading for him.
I don't know how to do the table form, but looking at shamsports.com, I'm accurate in what I say. http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/blazers.jsp Now u can expand on the cap because maybe I'm missing something. If and that's a big if, wanted to do what miami did, they're more than capable. Shawne williams and crawford have player options totaling around 8.8m. Elliot williams,nolan smith,and kurt thomas,and babbit combined salaries of 6.7m. Batum has a 5.3 and hickson has a 3.5 cap hold. La is 14 and matthews is 6.5. The 2 picks are 2.5 and 1.7. I haven't read if the blazers have extended a qo for batum yet and I know they haven't did it for hickson. If crawford opt out like he says, they will have a payroll of 37m with the cap hold of batum, jc opting out. They could offer 6,11,shawne williams(1yr 3.5m) and babbitt ( 1.8m) for howard @19m. That would give blazers howard-19m,La-14,Wm-6.5,nb-5.3 cap hold,kt,smith,and elliot williams =3.9m. Add all that up and their payroll is 48m of a 55m cap. Not offering batum or amnesting wm drops their payroll to 41.5 which gives them right at 13.5m to offer williams. Now with all that said, no one knows if orlando would take that package for howard. We don't know if williams would take a lebron type deal to play with one of his closest friends since high school and in a small market. We also don't know if howard would want to be in a small market again. What we do know is great players like playing with other great plyers. Williams ? Batum LA Howard Is a championship team right now. The starting 5 are all the same age and have complinentary talents. Howard/La/Batum would be the best frontline in hoops bar none. What we don't know is how big are the blazers thinking. Even if howard leaves, williams-LA-batum is still a very good start,plus the 19 in cap room they would get. Just saying.
I would doubt moves like that are possible without a long time GM with tons of cred in place. The owner would obviously have to sign on, and if the owner-GM relationship was not already rock solid I cannot see that happening. The Howard risk factor is immense. There are infinite possibilities. I try to focus on the most likely.
The above post is wrong is the following ways: 1. The Blazers cannot amnesty Wesley Matthews or anyone else. They already used their amnesty rights on Brandon Roy. 2. The maximum 2012-13 salary that Deron Williams can receive from any team, given the cap room, is roughly $17.2 million (105% of his 2011-12 salary). Having him accept anything less than $17.2 million would mean a pay cut on top of whatever he already loses for leaving the Nets and signing for less years/lower % incresae. It is highly unlikely for Williams to agree to a $13.5 million starting salary, which, over the life of a 4-year contract, would amount to a $15.7 million pay cut over what he would have made if he were to sign a 4 year deal starting at $17.2 million. 3. When teams have less than 12 players on the roster, they are charged with a "roster charge" of $473,604 for each empty roster spot. In the scenarios set forth by you (excluding the amnestying Matthews part, which cannot happen), the Blazers would be charged for between 4 and 6 empty roster spots. In any case, the actual math looks like the following: <style type="text/css"> table.tableizer-table {border: 1px solid #CCC; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;} .tableizer-table td {padding: 4px; margin: 3px; border: 1px solid #ccc;} .tableizer-table th {background-color: #104E8B; color: #FFF; font-weight: bold;} </style> <table class="tableizer-table"> <tr class="tableizer-firstrow"><th> Name </th><th> Notes </th><th> Baseline </th><th> Renounce Hickson </th><th> Renounce Hickson+Batum </th></tr> <tr><td>Dwight Howard</td><td>Acquired by Trade</td><td>$19,536,360 </td><td>$19,536,360 </td><td>$19,536,360 </td></tr> <tr><td>LaMarcus Aldridge</td><td> </td><td>$14,000,000 </td><td>$14,000,000 </td><td>$14,000,000 </td></tr> <tr><td>Mehmet Okur**</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Raymond Felton</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Wesley Matthews</td><td> </td><td>$6,505,320 </td><td>$6,505,320 </td><td>$6,505,320 </td></tr> <tr><td>Hasheem Thabeet</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jamal Crawford</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Jonny Flynn</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Shawne Williams</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>J.J. Hickson</td><td>Cap Hold</td><td>$5,886,343 </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Nicolas Batum</td><td>Cap Hold</td><td>$5,388,412 </td><td>$5,388,412 </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Luke Babbitt</td><td>Traded</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Greg Oden**</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Kurt Thomas</td><td> </td><td>$1,352,181 </td><td>$1,352,181 </td><td>$1,352,181 </td></tr> <tr><td>Elliot Williams</td><td> </td><td>$1,442,880 </td><td>$1,442,880 </td><td>$1,442,880 </td></tr> <tr><td>Nolan Smith</td><td> </td><td>$1,365,720 </td><td>$1,365,720 </td><td>$1,365,720 </td></tr> <tr><td>Craig Smith</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Armon Johnson**</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Joel Przybilla</td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td><td> </td></tr> <tr><td>Base Salary</td><td> </td><td>$55,477,216 </td><td>$49,590,873 </td><td>$44,202,461 </td></tr> <tr><td># of Players</td><td> </td><td>8</td><td>7</td><td>6</td></tr> <tr><td># of Empt Roster Spots</td><td> </td><td>4</td><td>5</td><td>6</td></tr> <tr><td>Total Roster Charge</td><td> </td><td> $1,894,416.00 </td><td> $2,368,020.00 </td><td> $2,841,624.00 </td></tr> <tr><td>Salary for Cap Purpose</td><td> </td><td>$57,371,632 </td><td>$51,958,893 </td><td>$47,044,085 </td></tr> <tr><td>Cap Room</td><td> </td><td>$668,368 </td><td>$6,081,107 </td><td>$10,995,915 </td></tr></table> I set out 3 different scenarios: (1) the baseline, with the cap holds on both Batum and Hickson maintained (Portland says they would like to keep both), (2) where they renounce Hickson (more expendable than Batum, I believe), and (3) where they renounce both Hickosn and Batum. Under none of these scenarios would they have anywhere close to the $17.2 million cap room that it takes to make Deron Williams a max offer. In fact, they would not even have room to offer him $13.5 million. Hope this helps. P.S.- durvasa introduce me to the following webpage for easily posting tables from spreadsheets in case you are interested: http://tableizer.journalistopia.com/
Your figures are still off. I'm also using Shamsports. Even if you trade away Shawne Williams, if you're keeping Batum's cap hold, you're looking at a team salary closer to $52 million after your (revised) Howard trade. You must be forgetting about roster charges, which are added to team salary if you have fewer than 12 players plus cap holds. Williams may want to play with Howard and Aldridge, but he ain't doing it for $6-7 million per! Please stick to being a hater, and leave the cap figures to those of us who know what we're talking about. (Seriously, though, still love your takes, even if I don't agree with most of them.)
The bottom line is there are precious few teams that can offer Orlando a good trade for Dwight and still have the capspace left to sign DWill. DWill/Goran/Parsons/Dwight/whoever(one of a plethora of options such as Motie, Patterson, Anthony Randolph, or someone else that can spread the floor, shoot it, run the floor and help defend from the weak side.) Git 'er done, Morey.
lol, thats cool, and thanks. I forgot about the brandon roy amnesty. In terms of roster penalty, is that up until the beginning of the season? You know, if the rockets want any chance at howard, i think they're going to have to force nj to match a deal for lopez. If they match a deal lopez, they cant trade him unless its to a team he agrees to for a yr. This strategy may not get them howard, but it will at least they get a good young center in Lopez.
Appreciate the info. I don't think it will take 17m for williams to go to portland if they get the chance to get howard along with it.
I just don't think the Magic will get their 'organization' together in enough time to trade Howard before the draft. I'd be surprised if they aren't still trying to keep him happy do he'll stay.
Got any more useless, stupid, pie-in-the-sky, condescending and dimwitted posts to make? Keep posting - there simply is not enough comedy on this BBS.
Why are we wasting our time on Howard? His team hasn't done squat since 2009. He was a cancer last season. And he doesn't want to play here. This organization needs to stop with this "swinging for the fences" nonsense every year. They could get away with it when they had the foundation of Hakeem and Clyde(or Chuck) back in the mid-to-late 90's. But when your best player is either Kyle Lowry or Goran Dragic, you need to do some serious work on your roster. The prescription is very simple. Trade away good but overpaid players who serve no purpose long-term like Scola and Martin. Let the young guys get some playing time in their absence. Settle on a point guard to build around. My preference is Dragic as I feel that Lowry is worth a lot in trade value. Stockpile draft picks. And then stink for a year or two while you let those young players get some experience out on the court instead of riding the pine in favor of the aforementioned Scola and Martin. You'll be rewarded with a core of young, developing players, high draft picks, and a buttload of cap space. It's this short-term fix mentality that Les has had since he bought the team that has gotten us into this mess. We're not a trade away from contender status. We've been a lotto team for 8 out of the last 13 seasons. Bottom line is we suck. We're about 3 or 4 major steps away from even thinking about being a top tier team in the Western Conference.
Hmmm... Let's trade the franchise to Orlando for a prima dona star player who doesn't put in the necessary work to capitalize on his god-given talent... with BACK PROBLEMS?!?!? What could go wrong?
