Dwight has played for a team for years that he didn't want too. He wants to play with superstars. He wants to win and play with other great players. He's gonna pull a Lebron James next summer.
In total agreement. The Clippers have tanked for a decade, they just finally master a winning plan. The Bobcats, they freaking lost 85% of the game this past season and they ended up with a #2, not a consensus must-have. Even with a #1 draft pick, your not guarantee to make the playoffs like K.Irving and J.Wall. With Dwight, or Bynum, it is easier to build around them, then build around smaller players. Whatever path we take, at least the Rockets attempted to go big.
Great post, as always, CH. Looking at this chart, here are some hopes I have regarding the potential deal: 1. We take on JRich, Duhon and QRich instead of JRich, Duhon and Turk. The $6 million guaranteed portion of Turk's salary is a killer for next summer's cap space. 2. In addition to Martin, we send Patterson and Morris to Orlando instead of the rookies. Patterson and Morris are on the books for a little over $5 million next year, so we gain close to $2 million in flexibility next summer sending them out over sending out two of the rookies. 3. We wait until next summer to amnesty Scola, if and only if a max player such as CP3 or Josh Smith indicates he will sign with us (along with a resigned Dwight, of course). According to Bima's tweets, there is no need to amnesty Scola this summer if we sign Lin, NY matches, then we sign Asik, Chicago matches, and THEN we trade for Dwight. Plus, having Scola around for 2012-13 will make Dwight's Rocket experience and frame of mind this year more enjoyable.
WTF? Carl did a fabulous job laying out the possibilities of a trade for Howard. Or did you not bother to read the first page of this post?
I don't think Dwight is top 5 best player in the league. He may be the best center, but not the top 5 player. People tend to overrate him because of his highlight reels and dunks but he is limited on the offensive end still. Okay, lets say he's top 5. Even if he's really that great, he won't be able to carry this team anywhere. Plus, with his antics and drama going on right now, he will bring the team down. He will most likely do whatever he can to get traded out of Houston. The Rockets can try to sign a star caliber free agent but most star caliber free agents are taken up anyway. If Howard comes here, he won't have anyone to play with except some of his old teammates. So he definitely would not resign here. So when he bolts out of Houston at the end of the year, Orlando would have the last laugh because they have a high lottery pick, young talent while Houston is stuck with bad contracts, no high lottery picks, and stuck with another crappy year of nothing to look forward to.
6-years of 'luck'? Durant as the booby prize v Oden? They made some good calls and got some great luck and were dealing with an exiting scenario and a relocating one. 6 years from now for the Rox to be Thunder good? Fuggedabouddit.
BTW - thanks #7, good work. At the finale of this great soap opera I expect Kupchak to ride off with Howard, DM the Gm with Bynum and the total cost to be (at least somewhat) mitigated as a result. Of course just trade for Noah today and I'll be happy.
Unless we retain the ability to add a near-max level contract next year, there's no point in trading for Dwight this year. I'm thinking Josh Smith.
The Hedo contract is actually the best of the bench. After next season he's a $12.2 million expiring contract with a $6 million buyout. That's a contract that could be traded very easily for a good player either next offseason or at the trade deadline of 2013-14. When I was actually looking at the possibility of a Dwight trade several months ago, I was actually hoping that we would take Hedo with Dwight instead of JRich/Duhon. I have felt for a while that the JRich/Duhon contracts are the real contracts that Orlando would like to be rid of the most since they have no trade value and are the longest and more guaranteed money combined than Hedo. So, I have been assuming for a while that JRich/Duhon would come with Dwight. In my original projections, I thought Morey was going to try to get both Dwight and DWill and I still think that is what he would have liked to do but we could never get to that point. In that scenario, we could have taken on JRich and Duhon and still created enough cap space to sign DWill outright. However, that is history now. So, we have to consider how Morey can best build out the team going forward and still put a good enough team around Dwight this season to make a serious run in the playoffs if indeed a trade does happen. I have to hand it to Hennigan. He has strung this thing out. I think he's going to get max value for this trade for Orlando. But he is walking a fine line. If Morey walks away from him and goes a different direction (which it does not appear he's going to at this point), Hennigan could be left holding the bag. And I wonder if that's not Hennigan's end game anyways. Keep holding out for more until all the big market teams destroy their cap for 2013 and then he's in a position to negotiate an agreement with Dwight to either extend or sign a 5-year birds rights deal. Remember, the best trade Orlando can get for Dwight is ...... Dwight. That's the best deal they can make. Morey knows this too. So, it's going to get interesting going forward if a deal is not forthcoming in the next few days. Morey has Les breathing down his neck to compete. And he's staring at the unknown with Orlando, not knowing if or when they will deal Dwight. How long will he hold out before going another direction with our cap space? I dunno. The interesting thing here is we did not do the Asik and Lin offer sheets yesterday. Why? Correct me if I'm wrong CH or Bima, but I have to think it's because we are trying to get this trade done and agreed to so that we can execute it using the non-guaranteed contracts with the offer sheets simultaneously and turn it into an over-the-cap situation with more salary coming back than we sent out, which helps us create TPEs to use in the future. Does that make sense? If not, then what is the reason we delayed signing those offer sheets?
If you ever want to get off "Rookie" stautus you need to think before you post..... Kudos C-era !! Informative as usual.....
If we take on all or most of Orlando's bad contracts, we'll just become the Houston Magic. If Howard is not happy with the original Magic team and determined to leave, I don't see how we can convince him to stay on the new Houston Magic. Sure, we may still be able to add some insignificant pieces like Aaron Brooks. But I don't think for a second he's going to make any difference.
Woof. Losing White and Lamb would make me cringe. Considering what has been laid out here, I much prefer an extended Bynum. Just wait and see. Should see some chips fall sooner rather than later.
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Carl Herrera again. Thanks for the analysis CH!
Even in the best case scenario outlined We will have Howard and a bunch of 2nd tier players around him. We'll be a playoff bubble team and first round exit or maybe even miss them entirely. Howard will walk and we will be stuck with the contracts and a lack of draft picks. Rebuilding through the draft is the way to do it. Now is the time to take that painful step. Stop chasing these foolish dreams of trading our way back to a FA destination. You get your foundational star in the draft, not FA.
I know it hurt the $ money more but I'd rather see Parsons out than Lamb or White. "FL boy comes back home. Think of the ticket sales!" Edit: Scratch that - If we did get Howard, we should probably aim more for a little more experienced (but not old) players. I think even though Parsons has 1 year under his belt, he plays more like a fearless veteran. I just hope he doesn't have a sophmore slump.
I actually think doing this trade for Dwight is a win almost no matter what. There is only one bad outcome out of four possibilities in my mind. 1) We trade for Dwight and make the playoffs, and he signs an extension: ----Obvious win all around here. Our first rd pick conveys to Atlanta and we are now free of any pick obligations. Clean slate and we have Dwight. 2) We trade for Dwight and make the playoffs and he leaves: ----This is the worst care scenario to me. Making the playoffs conveys our pick to Atlanta, but with Dwight leaving we will be rebuilding and won't have a pick for a year. 3) We trade for Dwight, miss the playoffs and he stays: ----Some might think this is the best case scenario. Dwight stays but we miss the playoffs and get a lottery pick to add to the team. 4) We trade for Dwight, miss the playoffs and he leaves: ----This is the second worst outcome, but I don't think it's all that bad. Dwight leaves but we still have our own first round pick. (Can't trade it to Orlando as part of deal because of obligation to Atlanta by way of Brooklyn) Him leaving forces us into a rebuild and we'll have our first round pick until we are a playoff team again. So like I said, only one outcome is really a bad one to me. Add all the other ancillary factors like the salary he gets if he stays, etc. and I think it is easily a risk worth taking. Even if he leaves I don't feel like we lost all that much. It's worth it for the excitement he can bring to the franchise.
