One of the prime are for the Rockets is to upgrade the PG. There are no Steve Nash and Tony Parker and Jason Kidds available in our prize range. Last year Rockets tried real hard for Derek Fisher but could not match/beat Warrior's offer. Now with the Baron Davis trade, GS would definitely like to move him and will have to sweeten the deal for anyone to pick up on Fisher's contract. I propose two possible scenarios for Rockets/Warrior trade: 1) Expiring Contracts of Wesley+Ward for Fisher+Pietrus or 2) Wesley+our 24th Pick for Fisher+Warrior's # 9 pick. In both the trades Warriors get cap relief and we get a true (although over prized) PG and either Pietrus who has a great upside or #9 pick. If we end up getting the #9 pick we can either trade it with an expiring contract to portland for Darius Miles or to Lakers for Caron Butler or to Memphis for Mike Miller+#19 or we can hold on to it, draft the best player available and add him to sweeten the potential trade for SAR/Swift. Now if we can sign A Daniels for the MLE (or by a sign and trade) we will have a nice combo of legitimate PGs and having Pietrus/#9 pick would improve our 2/3/4 needs one way or the other. Makes sense?
I'd do it but why would they? They have less cap problems than we do and are a team on the rise. Next year they might be under the cap, especially if the new CBA raises the cap to 53mil. They don't want another western conference team to get stronger right when they're about to compete.
This is a reasonable trade idea. Doesn't belong in the "Idiotic trade ideas" thread. I was never a fan of the Fish and his stats from last year have not changed my mind. From his PER numbers is not an upgrade to Bobby Sura. If we're going to take on that kind of salary we might as well get a younger & better PG like Daniels.
Derek Fisher will be 31 in August and is signed through the 2009-10 season. At his very best, he was just an average player who benefited a lot from playing with Shaq and Kobe. His career shooting is under 40%. No way we want him.
I live in LA and saw Fisher play a lot. He's not worth his contract. GS was starting Speedy Claxton over him. He made Mike Bibby into a max-contract type of guy. He did make that great shot with .4 left to beat the Spurs and had a great playoff run in 2001 but that's about it.
No they won't. For 2006-2007, the Warriors have Davis- 15.07 Richardson- 10.13 Murphy-8.25 Foyle- 8.1 Fisher- 5.88 Biedrins- 1.99 All figures millions Already 49.4 million for a depth chart of: Davis/Fisher Richardson ---- Murphy Foyle/Biedrins The qualifying offer on Dunleavy is 5.9 million. They have team options on on Pietrus and Zarko for 2.54 and 2.16 mill respectively. Plus, throw in a couple first round picks in the next couple years- I'm not sure how many they have any more, they should have their own plus a few from Dallas via the Dampier trade. If they maintain their status quo (exercise options on Pietrus and Zarko, sign Dunleavy to a deal starting around the 5.9 mill, plus a couple picks). they're going to be around 65 mill easily. (Translation for others: The Warriors cap situation is jacked up due to signing career role players to starter contracts and starters to all-star contracts). That is why I think this post is a pretty good example of the type of potential deals the Rockets can make- take on an unsavory contract (Fisher), and get rewarded for doing so (Pietrus or the #9 pick). Personally, I have no interest in Fisher because I don't think he's better than Sura or James, and especially at his contract- I think there are better deals out there for us. I also don't see us supplementing this by signing Daniels, and having 4 guys who are used to getting their minutes at the 1 (plus potentially Spanoulis). There have been a couple threads detailing the types of teams to target. Portland- My top target. They want to rebuild and have a ton of contracts. Guys like Derek Anderson, Darius Miles, Ruben Patterson, Theo Ratliff, and maybe even Zach Randolph can all probably be had. They also have a trio of free agents the Rockets may be interested in with SAR, NVE, and Stoudamire. A free agent plus a bad contract was a sign and trade model last summer (Jamal Crawford plus Jerome Williams). I would be giddy with a SAR+Darius Miles for expiring contracts and a maybe a pick type deal. Sacramento- KT could probably be had pretty cheap, question is does he fit. Memphis- Primarily Jason Williams. I can't see them getting much better offers for JWill than something like Wesley and Ward straight up. Question is, would we want to do it? Philadelphia- One of the ugliest cap situations in the league, behind NY. They have so much money tied to Iverson and CWebb, but then a ton tied into guys who are barely average bench players or even retired at this point- Mashburn, Maculloch, McKie, Ollie, Jackson, etc. They don't really have many tradeable assets that they'd actually be willing to move. Indiana- 74 million committed next year, over 60 the year after. We'll see what they want to do with Artest. They'd probably love to get rid of Croshere and/or Bender at this point. Fred Jones and Jeff Foster are reasonably priced assets. Washington- A little deceptive. Only around 40 mill committed next year, but that's before paying for Hughes and possibly Kwame. Could possibly get Etan Thomas. Lakers are an interesting case. They need to rebuild- they've got 51 mill committed in 2006-2007, but over half of that is to Odom and Grant. Suppose you could take the Odom+Grant package for our expiring contracts and Howard. If you want to dreamcast, there's your scenario.
That was a very nice post NIKE. Let me ask you a question. It might be obvious to most people, but if we don't dump these expiring contracts ($21 mil) by the trade deadline, plus our TE, they all become basically worthless because of our oncoming Cap situation? In other words, if we don't use 'em, we lose 'em. They have little or no potential value to us. Is this correct?
Great points Nike. GS would probably consider it for cap relief and not for the talent. As far as Fisher is concerned, yes he is too pricey at 5+miil/year, but if you consider Fisher+Pietrus for a combined salary of 7mil/yr, that is not bad. Pietrus appears to have tremendous upside. And if they trade 9th pick with Fisher, well lottery pick does not come for free. Considering the fact it could land us a potential stud via trade it is worth it. As far as having multiple so called PGs, well with Fusher and AD on board they will have to be moved to fill the other holes. This deal may not go down, but I will not be surprized if something similar may go down before the free agency opens up.
Thats right. We need to trade them before they are gone. GS deal sounds good and the Portland deal sounds Awesome. We are in good situation and we need to find teams that are in bad situation. I just hope we have a good offseason just like last offseason. If we can just trade these expiring contracts out for a decent 1 or 4 or i will be happy.
I'd take Fisher's bad contract if we got Troy Murphy. Golden State might think about it if they draft a pf. I'd also take on Jason Williams in a combo deal. The guy can play. In spite of the those options, I'd have to think the number 1 target is Portland. If we got two good guys in SAR/DA, that'd make coaching easier. Add an Antonio Daniels, and we're done.
NIKE, great stuff! Your post does a really good job of detailing the teams that are probably looking to trim payroll. The Warriors are a mess and clearly they have to do something with some of their higher priced "role" players. Like you said "The Warriors cap situation is jacked up due to signing career role players to starter contracts and starters to all-star contracts". I think Pietrus would be dynamite on the Rockets as our defensive stopper (Bowen) paired up with Tmac. But I am not sure I would take on Fisher in that one. Ugly contract! In general, if I am going to be over paying someone, I want to be overpaying a Big and not s small. So Bigs like Foyle and Murphy that are ridiculously overpaid, I would be more interested in them if I had to swallow a bad contract. But I like Pietrus! Portland was also brought up and they look to be starting over. They might even take less value back if they can get rid of some of their headache players. So clearly they are a target as well. As for Memphis, they want to get rid of Jason Williams as NIKE mentioned. But I want no part of him. I think JVG would explode if he had to coach Williams at the PG.
Odom & Grant .. wow that would be interesting Starters BSura TMac LOdom JHoward Yao Reserves MJames JBarry BGrant Deke who else would we have left? J
If done after July 1st... Odom+Grant- 25.923938 mill Wesley+Howard+Weatherspoon+Baker+Moochie - 25.28485 mill In my scenario, we wouldn't even have Howard. I'd imagine playing Odom at the 4. I think you'd run a roster of: Sura/James/Ward ???/Barry McGrady/Bowen Odom/Grant Yao/Deke Assuming you resign Barry, Deke, and Bowen. You'd still have all your exceptions plus a first round pick. After looking at the numbers, because of the 15% allowances, the Lakers could include also include any number of players from Medvedenko, Butler, Vujacic, Jones or Cook. If we include Ward, they could also add Divac, George, Atkins, Mihm. Butler, Mihm, and probably Atkins would be out of the question from the Lakers perspective, but any of the others would help alleviate depth concerns for us. Vujacic or Cook fit under the exception we still will have left from trading Reece Gaines. Deuce- I think Pietrus may be overrated on this board because everyone remembers him lighting us up from beyond the arc and making Francis his personal caddy. His D is for real and so is his athleticism, but he's never shown to be anything more than a consistently streaky shooter, which would get frustrating with all the open looks he'd get. krocket- Yes and no. Explicitly, those expiring contracts aren't going to create cap room because we've got $40+mill committed past them to 5 players (Sura, James, Tmac, Howard, Yao), around 70% of which is earmarked for TMac and Yao. Throw in a couple more first rounders for a couple mill, and you're already within probably 10 mill of the cap and have half a roster to fill out- if Deke or Barry sign 2 year deals, that cuts directly from that amount, as would any other multi-year signing. Once you get to within 5 mill you're no better off than having exceptions Basically, to have any sort of meaningful cap space next offseason would require us to throw away this season. Of course, the whole game changes if for some reason Yao wants to leave. We can talk about that if Yao doesn't sign his extension in October. I'd bank on it happening, though. Indirectly though, letting those contracts expire rather than trading them gives you greater flexibility. We're not going to make a monster move like I showed above (Odom/Grant for all our expiring contracts+Howard) and then hand out full MLE contracts this year and next. Les doesn't spend like that. If you work within real confines, you realize if we "waste" the expiring contracts, we do gain flexibility. For example, if we're able to land a guy like SAR or whomever via sign and trade, while we technically could go out and offer the whole MLE to Antonio Daniels, I'd expect us to sit on it, and then be willing to use the MLE next year.
I think Pietrus is overrated on the offensive end right now but he is underrated defensively. I can only salivate at the thought of him and AD and TMac going 1 2 3 at the perimeter spots. All 3 long, athletic, quick, fast hands. They would drive opponents crazy. I could care less about his streaky shooting. We've already got that. I want to be able to slow down guys like Stackhouse, Ginobilli, etc.
Thanks NIKE: Maybe Yao will sign a 7 yr deal for significantly less than the Max. Just because he realizes how difficult it is to put together a championship team with two MAX contract players on it (ala Lakers). That will enable us to have a 3rd superstar on the roster and enable pigs to fly.
Now wouldn't that be something if Yao would take less than the max? I don't see that happening. But I do see Les going over the salary cap if the salary cap stays about where it is with the new CBA. I think we are going to package our expirings for some major talent upgrades, and take a chance on players with either some attitude or personal problems such as Miles, Bonzi, etc. I think that Les is probably willing to exceed the cap for several years because of the winning potential that we have here. Realistically if we bring in major talent upgrades at the other 3 positions with out expirings and make a decent MLE signing, we will be competing for 60+ wins and home court advantage throughout the playoffs next year..................barring injury to Yao and TMac.
The players union and Yao's agents would have a fit if he took less than the max. And I've never heard it as a possiblity except from pipe-dream posts on this board.
