Sam Amico: Rockets have a "keen eye" on Danny Granger

No cap room = no leverage = no sign and trade.

 

You don't do this for Howard you do it to move Lin and Asiks salaries off the books a year early to target your third star.

People here loved Brooks, Scola, Lowry, Patterson, Landry, etc but they all were moved. Don't get too attached to Asik and Lin. You scoff at moving them for Granger but when we resigned Scola the idea of cutting him for nothing would have been crazy. Things change.

If you're buying a jersey I suggest Harden only.

 

If deal goes down it's because Morey already knows he can move Granger later.

 

Is it me or is it hard to pull off a trade in the NBA these days, especially with a team like Indiana that is set at every position.

I can see something like:

Houston gets: Granger, Holiday
Pacers get: Parsons, Lin, Hinrich
Philly gets: Asik, Deng, Stephenson
Bulls get: Turner, Robinson, White

Holiday / Beverly
Harden
Granger
Motiejunas / Jones
Howard /Smith

 

This is doubtful on an extreme level. wat.

 

1. I agree with hooroo that a S&T with the Lakers would need to involve a great deal of leverage. Kupchak has to think that Dwight's not completely foreclosing the option of returning such that he'd bolt for Dallas or Atlanta just out of spite if the Lakers don't want to sign and trade him for Granger.

2. If the Rockets made your proposed TRob/Delfino/Brooks for Granger trade, then they could only trade Granger straight up for Dwight in a S&T, meaning that Dwight's "new max" with Houston would be just over $19 million (Granger's salary plus $5 million). The Granger trade would take the Rockets over the cap (the ESPN Trade Machine cap room figure is off), so he could only be traded by himself without waiting 60 days. I doubt Dwight would want to be without a contract for that long.

All this adds up to the fact that a pre-July 1 trade for Danny Granger for the purpose of flipping him for a signed and traded Dwight Howard is highly unlikely. Well, I think (1) above does the trick on its own.

 

They could wait 60 days and combine Granger.

Everyone keeps discounting a sign and trade. I will not discount it until I see what happens on June 30th. If Morey stacks up non-guaranteed deals by June 30th or if he makes some trade for a guy like Granger I think it points to a sign and trade in late August for Dwight.

 

As great as the flexibility might be, I don't think it's a good idea to give Dwight another two mo the to change his mind. I think the FO would take the bird in the hand on this.

 

Yeah, that makes sense. But in free agency it doesn't go down like that. These guys make their decisions and that's it. Remember Bosh and Lebron?? Give Dwight a little more credit than that he is so weak that he would make a public commitment in free agency and then back out of it.

Just watch what happens before, up to, and on June 30th. If Morey spends his cash and brings in non-guaranteeds and if one or both Brooks or Delfino is still on the roster after June 30th or Morey trades for guys with 1 year left on their contracts....then you can bet your bottom dollar he's already got trades lined up for all those guys and then some....whether or not he gets Dwight or not. And it's a pretty sure thing that him and Mitch have already worked on terms of a sign and trade. On the other hand, if nothing goes down or we simply move TRob and RWhite out for cash and second rounders than you can bet we're not signing and trading for Dwight, we're simply going for the outright signing.

I have learned in the Morey era to never count anything out until it's not possible. Right now a sign and trade for Dwight is still very possible.

 

Even if we still have Brooks and/or Delfino after June 30th, it most likely means we are trading them to a team for straight cap space, of which there will be more teams with cap space come that time, and future assets. Not everything is 8D chess...

 

Don't want

 

The bolded sentence is my biggest complaint about your posting style. That's a HUGE leap in logic, yet you discuss it as if it's a "sure thing" for some reason. You're like an old guy at the OTB, chain-smoking and holding his racing forms, telling people how he's got all the winning horses.

Still love you, though.

 

Bima,

you really don't think Mitch and Daryl have talked sign and trade?

 

That's not true. If we are trading them to a team for straight cap space and that's all, we will do that by June 30th. Now, if we are looking for a bigger sign and trade and trying to merge several smaller trades into one larger transaction then we will still possibly have them on the roster after June 30th.

 

It's possible, but the stakes are WAYYYYY too high for Kupchak to concede Dwight in a sign-and-trade (let alone an underwhelming S&T) until every possible attempt to re-sign him has failed. I imagine those attempts would include trying to get in the last word with Dwight (as Kobe even said).

 

I really don't. Wouldn't shock me if they did, but I'd say it's pretty unlikely.

 

In previous years, teams have done handshake deals for salary dumps on draft day that were completed after June 30th when the team receiving the salary had the required cap space. I wouldn't be surprised to see that happen again this summer.

 

Yeah, I'm not talking about conceding. You know that. I'm talking about they've discussed the parameters of a Dwight sign and trade IF Dwight decides he wants to go to Houston.

I think they've discussed it from that basis. It only makes sense. That's not conceding Dwight to Houston. It's just a GM keeping all options on the table to maximize the possibilities. Morey probably has a good idea on what kind of sign and trade deal Mitch would accept if it came to that. If Mitch wasn't a good GM, he'd not be discussing it with Morey or he'd turn Morey down cold and tell him no sign and trade. That would hurt his team if he did that though. And Mitch is a good GM. He's not going to lock himself of a potential sign and trade by being stubborn about it.

 

No. Not anymore. No reason Parsons hasn't earned the SF starting spot.

 

Careful now. Many posters don't like handshake and verbal deals. They think that is circumvention and illegal, etc. I guess they think these GMs just pick up the phone one time and talk to the other GM and cut the deal with no ongoing discussions beforehand.