NEGATIVE!!!!!!!! Horrible trade for the Rockets, no matter how you break it down. The Rockets lose a potential All-Defensive Center in Asik who could be that quality of player, plus improve his offense, over the next 5-7 years. Plus giving up Lin who is himself still very young and will be coming into the season healthy and with the best set of surrounding teammates he has had in his young career. Getting an over the hill Randolph who shoots too much and guards too little does nothing to address our defensive shortcomings and little to improve our offensive gap at the 4. It only stands in the way of our rapidly developing young 4's, while also ruining our cap flexibility for this and the next year. Horrible trade idea. No current improvement and hamstringing the team's financial flexibility for the famed 2014 Free Agent Class???? And all the Rockets would have to show for it is no cap space and a decaying, slow, overpaid PF with no D and ball-hogging tendencies. Did none of this occur to you before posting such a lame-ass proposal?
MIL out: Ilyasova, Udoh, I.Smith MIL in: Lin, G.Smith, 2015 HOU 2nd - Lin brings fans. PF spot opens up for Henson. Udoh's contract is shed. Smith is cheap and young. POR out: Aldridge POR in: Asik, Ilyasova, D-Mo, 2014 HOU 1st - Disgruntled LA is let go. Get two legit bigs, one a defensive C, one an offensive PF. Motie is a high level future prospect. Late 2014 pick is still valuable. HOU out: Asik, Lin, D-Mo, G.Smith, 2014 1st, 2015 2nd HOU in: Aldridge, Udoh, I.Smith Some might say this is too much, but I think this is about as good of a deal as we can get (keeping Parsons). Udoh provides backup PT for the season. The PG position gets thin, but we could probably acquire a cheap veteran backup on the trade market. Dwight - Udoh Aldridge - Jones Parsons - Garcia - Casspi Harden - R.Williams Beverley - I.Smith
http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=kexv2x5 Hou Trades Asik, Lin, TJones Houston Gets Al Horford, Jameer Nelson Atlanta Trades Al Horford, John Jenkins Atlanta Gets Asik, A. Afflalo Orlando Trades A. Afflalo, J. Nelson Orlando Gets Lin, TJones, John Jenkins Add picks where you see fit Houston gets horford who is a good defender, actually plays the PF, and has a nice jumper. J.nelson is just another body at pg, incase beverly, brooks, or canaan dont cut it. Plus nelson has a team option for next year so he will be off the books Atlanta (who for some reason didnt go into all out tank mode) gets better by adding afflalo to there weak perimeter players, and replacing horford who plays similiarly to milsap, with asik will beef up there d. Also asik and milsaps contracts expire at same time so in two years if experiment fails they can start over again. Magic have been wanting a upgrade a pg for a while now, nelson was gone after this year anyways so why not replace him with lin who is still young and full of potential to go with there young up and coming team. They wanted to get rid of afflalo this summer so this saves them 8 mill per year for the next 3 years.
I'd love to see Horford and Howard pair up, I just don't know how well a Horford-Howard frontcourt exists with Harden. Plus, I feel like the Hawks can get more for Horford, and Orlando might not want Lin (it appears they're in total suck mode, with playing guys out of position).
http://hoopdata.com/player.aspx?name=Al Horford 3-9 ft. - 46% 10-15 ft. - 45% 16-23ft. - 43% So still not good enough
Getting Horford would fit perfectly with the Rockets new "H"-Town marketing campaign! That said..I really don't see Atlanta making that trade.
Horford paint- 63.5% 2's outide paint- 43.1% 3's- 50% (small sample size) Aldridge Paint-57% 2's outside paint- 43.5 3's- 14.3 (small sample size) On raw numbers its fairly similar
Also taking loves most productive year the 2011-2012 where he averaged 26ppg Paint- 53.6 2's outside paint- 37% 3's-37%
Aldridge is not a good enough shooter either. 37% from 3 on a load of 3's is like being over 55% from long 2's. Horford doesn't possess that kind of shooting range and neither him nor LaMarcus nor KLove is good enough from 18 feet for them to be shooting that shot as a significant part of the offense. Problem with LaMarcus and Horford is if you take away the 18 footer from them....then you might as well keep Asik. Love, on the other hand, if you take away his 18 footer...he simply becomes more efficient.
If these deals were possible we would be better off to simply trade for Ilyasova and keep Asik. Asik and Ilyasova is far superior to having LaMarcus.
The better questions should be, would the Blazers be in the market to trade for a starting calliber center, and are they confident enough in their younger bigs like Thomas Robinson to start thinking about moving Aldridge?? If that's the case, Portland would probably be happy enough trading for Asik straight up with another young PF like Motiejunas or Jones coming back in the deal to make salaries work. I highly doubt the Blazers view Pekovic as a better center and asset as Asik. Also Pekovic is obviously asking for much more than the salary that Asik is currently making... which is why he isn't already signed by Minnesota. Still, I think the Blazers are wanting to give the first half of the season a try with the unit they have. They significantly improved their bench play from last year, and they do have a shot at making a playoff run. If they fall short in the first half of the season, they might make the call to Morey. However, I think they are keeing Aldridge in the hopes that they can make a playoff run this year.