Sources: Dwight and CP3 hope to team up

Thanks, that's better than your 'lol, what are you, stupid?' type of replies. I'm not too familiar with cap rules.

 

They can't team up anywhere and expect to compete for a championship unless they take less than the max like Lebron and Bosh did. Their new team would be gutted. Lebron's first year salary in Miami was $14.5 million, Dwight's will be $20.5 million, Paul's will be $18.7.

 

Yes, but this reminds me of Coon's first blog about our cap space like a month ago. Even though it might be VERY technically correct, do people here honestly believe CP3 and Dwight wouldn't take a paycut of a few hundred thousand each (like $300k) so that we can keep Bev and GSmith? I know people are greedy, but come on! $1M+ paycuts are guesses, but lower amounts like these can pretty much be assumed, right?

 

Doesn't matter as long as HOU is Dwight and Chris' agreed destination. Dwight tells LA "I'm gone". Either I will sign outright with HOU and you get nothing, or you can sign and trade me to HOU for Asik and some combination of Lin, TRob, TJones, DMO, draft picks and/or a small trade exception. I'd love to play with Chris Paul in HOU, but if you don't agree I'll play with Harden, Asik, Lin, and Parsons and you get nothing. This threat may not work as well for Chris Paul, I think. Most people already agree that HOU is a desirable city for Dwight so that threat is real. Parsons needs to stay out of the deal because keeping him convinces Chris and Dwight that HOU is better than ATL.

Alternatively, HOU would need to trade Asik, Lin, TRob and White into cap space. As many have said, White and Lin would be the harder ones to move, but I could see White being added to Asik's contract, and Lin going to a place like Salt Lake City or the Bobcats, who both need point guards. Not quite sure that's enough though. We may need to move more so a sign and trade with LA is probably the only feasible way (with the alternative threat being Dwight walking to HOU outright).

As for ATL, they do worry me. ATL would just need to trade Lou Williams (who I understand to be a pretty decent player) + a 1st round draft pick into cap space. However, they would then have Paul/Howard/Horford (no Smith, no Teague, no Williams) and basically nothing else but the room exception and minimum exceptions. They would also be in the same conference as LeBron James.

I think HOU is more desirable for them because you're looking at a big three of Dwight, Chris and Harden plus Parsons. You'd in theory have one of DMO or TJones, and Beverly and Greg Smith with the room exception and mins to fill out the roster. The Rockets front office is considered better than ATL, the HOU market is considered better than ATL, and ATL has a 6% state income tax...

 

Why is everyone assuming that Lin and Asik are a package deal?

Will any of the teams picking in the top 4 of this year's draft interested in trading that pick for Asik + unprotected future picks? I think Charlotte or Orlando might be tempted to do that since this is a "weak" draft year.

 

This teaming up thing basically tells that Howard does not want to play for the Rockets. He was just trying to make things hard for Rockets. A bad start if it is legit.

 

There's an espn quote on one of the earlier pages saying most of this interest is not coming from Dwight's camp but CP3's. That makes a lot of sense if they legitimately think Dwight is coming to team up w/ Harden in Houston. That would suck hard for CP3 left in LAC.

 

You seem to be confusing the Lakers with the Bobcats or something. If this were to happen the Lakers would give Dwight the middle finger and tell him to get out. The Lakers would have enough cap to sign a max player next year WITH Dwight, and even MORE WITHOUT Dwight. They're not going to ruined that for Lin and Asik.

 

CP3 does not want to play with Harden, he runs the backcourt in every team he's been on. Harden conversely won't play to his max deal if he takes a backseat to a superior player like CP3. Houston is not getting nobody.

 

Nash + Bledsoe + Blake = est. $33 million of cap room in 2014

Nash + Lin + Asik = est. $32 million of cap room in 2014

 

What about this scenario... If Howard and Paul both say they want to come to Houston, then one will have to sign and the other come via sign n trade. Then the Lakers and Clippers would know that they will lose their player for nothing if they don't do a sign n trade, thus forcing them to take whatever deal Houston will offer so they aren't left holding the bag.

It could be a bidding (selling) war of sorts...

 

Yeah, but only after his existing contract runs out. So he can't reduce his salary so this summer his 22.7M cap hit stays on the books. Read the ESPN insider article someone posted above.

 

With two superstars being free-agents, of course there's going to be a story about them wanting to play together whether it's true or not.

It's not only interesting, but safe as well. If it isn't true, neither of them would deny it publicly.

 

Great point, it's not like Harden played alongside another elite PG as recently as last October.

Oh, wait...

 

Hawks do not have to trade Williams.


Total salary is = 24,523,845



This give tehm 33,976,155 to spend on CP3 and Dwight which would be nearly 17 million dollars a piece to spend on both players.



In other words, it would be best you use one of our draft picks on an Euro but not both because we need to add more talent and depth since we will have rookies and vet min guys. The best thing we have is a MLE and a LLE where we can use to sign players who can help.



In all likeliness,

CP3

Jenkins

MLE

Horf

Dwight

6th: Lou

Mike Scott

Shelvin Mack

Draft pick

LLE

2nd rounder

2nd rounder

Is most likely.

 

I wonder why Harden didn't start with Westbrook in OKC?

 

Because they had so much talent that it made sense to have Harden anchor the second unit. When it mattered, though, Harden and Westbrook were each on the floor. And they co-existed extremely well.

 

The Lakers have to be behind this. I wouldn't be surprised if the Lakers paid to leak this info so that GMs' hands would be forced to make a trade with them. Come on, that's the only real way the Lakers can improve because their "assets" aren't appealing, including Kobe.

 

But you do think we're getting somebody?

 

You're logic is based on the idea that the teams would feel that it's "better to get something than to get nothing". That isn't neccessarily true for LA.

LA is in the situation where they could have only Nash under contract next offseason. If they truely believe that they can lure Lebron to LA then they'll want to have as much cap space as possible to be able to afford another max player and another near max player to team with LBJ. Guys like Wade, Bosh, Granger, Carmello, Garnett and Nowitski could all be unrestricted FAs that off season.

I don't think LA would give up $20M of that cap space for Asik, Lin and Robinson. If they lost Howard they they'll be all in for LBJ and they'll want as much cap space as possible in order to tailor the team to Lebron's likings.

Will it work? Maybe, maybe not (ask the Knicks) but it's their best chance to get back to being a title contender.