With the uncertainty of whether or not he's going to come back, the recent signing of Jones, & the pending Jackson signing, I thought that I'd run this trade idea by everyone to get your input. Oeilpere recently posted a thread that stated GS & NY were talking about a trade involving Ward/Fortson/Dampier as the main principals, with the end result being that GS would match our offer to Jackson & keep him. This got me to thinking that if GS is still open to the idea of trading Fortson, then how could we get him, fill their desire for a PG & reduce salary, & still get Jackson? One thing that I've heard & read repeatedly, is that GS wants to reduce salary to avoid the possibility of paying the luxury tax (assuming there is one) & make room to resign Hughes to a long term contract. That means they need to dump some long term contracts. Sura has been mentioned most often. Now, obviously we can't discuss any compensation for GS not matching our offer sheet to Jackson, but you know that it happens anyway, behind the scenes. Because Moochie will be a BYC player, it definitely complicates any trades, but here's the trade that I worked up on RealGM & it does work. Houston sends KT/Walt/Moochie(@$4.25 mill) to Golden State. Golden State sends Fortson/Sura to Houston. The lowest I could go on Moochie's contract was $4.25 mill to make the deal work. It's high for a backup PG, but who would've thought that Shandon would get what he got? Here's what might help GS swallow Moochie being paid so much. The trade would reduce GS's salary next year by a little over $4.1 mill & KT's contract is small & will only have 2 more years left. If they pick up the team options on Cummings & Arenas, they'll have a total of 10 players under contract for $40,211,338, not counting Hughes's contract. That'll leave them with Blount/Porter/Oliver/Mookie as FA's. I'm not sure what Hughes's contract will be, but I'm assuming that it's 300% of his last years contract, which would put it around $7-8 mill. That would give them a total payroll of $47-48 mill, with their 4 FA's & any rookies to resign, which should be well under any threat of a luxury tax. I included KT to replace the loss of Fortson at PF (albeit, a less talented PF), so that GS wouldn't need to match Jackson's contract to fill out their roster. If GS is still willing to trade Fortson, as Oeilpere has reported, I would definitely consider them to be extremely incompetent, but stranger things have happened. If the trade were to be realized, it would give us a team of: C: Jackson/Collier/Cato PF: Fortson/Griffin/MO SF: Rice/Langhi/T-Mo SG: Mobley/Sura/Torres PG: Francis/Jones WOW! I can sure dream, can't I?
This "all I can get mentality" tells me that Mooch does not have the confidence to realize his ability beyond 3 or 4 years....So he is looking to max out a contract as a pure, unadulterated business decision so I say he should be gone!
As far as S&T-ing Mooch...Im all for it... However, as far as loading up on players from one of the most pathetic teams in the league as a result of doing a S&T, I'm not all for it.
I think something more realistic would be trading Mooch for Sura as compensation for not matching. They got Arenas and Richardson in the draft so that Ward trade didn't make any sense to me. Those two could be a very potent combo in the league which would make Sura expendable, hence the trade for Mooch to get some breathing room salarywise. Plus, Sura brings in some experience which would be invalueable in the playoffs. CD could very well be working on this.
As stupid as the warriors have been in the past, I don't believe they are stupid enough to part with Fortson, who is really looking good right now. Dampier or Foyle on the other hand, might be on the block.
Doesn't Golden State have too many players under contract already? I don't think they would be interested in a 3 players for 2 deal at this point.
I don't think there is any way to get Fortson and Jackson for a bunch of backups. Fortson is a stud and a rebounding fool and Jackson is better than any player we could trade. If they really want a PG could we trade Jones in order for them not to match on Jackson?
Raven, I think you're missing my point. The 3 for 2 trade would allow them to drop $4.1 mill off the books at the end of the season & KT would only have 2 more years left & be very cheap for a solid backup, that could become a solid starter, especially with Foyle/Dampier's injuries. One thing that I didn't add to my post is that Moochie might accept a 3 year or 5 year deal with a team option on the fourth year, since he'd be getting more than he was asking for.That'd give GS the ability to have all 3 off the books within 3 years if they wanted to. Fortson has 6 years remaining (Dampier has 5 years left) & Sura has 3 years left. They could waive Walt, if they wanted to, because he comes off the books at the end of the year & they wouldn't be stuck with a Matt Maloney situation (paying him for years while he plays for someone else). Now, as far as them being willing to trade Fortson. I have a hard time thinking they would be that foolish or motivated to reduce salary, but Oeilpere stated that NY listed him as one of the principal players in their trade discussions & GS didn't say no. In fact, OP said that GS was listening to their offer. While we don't know what other players were involved, I would've expected GS to immediately make it known that Fortson wasn't available, but they didn't. That tells me that he is available for the right deal. The question is, what is their main motivation, to reduce salary, get a veteran PG or what?
Jones can't be traded until December 28th, which would be well after GS would've had to make a decision. Any trade that we make would have to be able to be justified as a deal we would've made, even if we hadn't made an offer to Jackson. Otherwise, the league might interpret it as circumventing the CBA & the last thing we need now, is to get spanked like Minnesota did.
DP, As I stated in my last post, any trade that we might make with GS has to be perceived as a deal that we would've made with them, even if we weren't waiting on their decision about Jackson. Otherwise, it's highly illegal & can you imagine how hard the league will slap the next team that intentionly violates the CBA?
one thing that continues to be missed in all this "Jackson is cheaper than Dampier so GS will purge salary" is that GS will have to spend their middle class exception to get Jackson. That is more money on the books. Trading Dampier must then successfully purge what got added by using that exception on Jackson, in *any* calculation of less team salary. Dampier's entire contract must be eaten by another team to realize a significant drop. And then, it is only about $2.5m....oh, that really is a significant drop in salary. Further, as I see, there are only 3 teams who can help GS drop salary....(1) Miami with their Tim Hardaway trade exception, (2) the Clippers with their cap room, and (3) the Rockets with our exception and Walt's expiring contract. We can eat nearly $9m in salary. However, we no longer can do this with GS...it is illegal with the Offer Sheet is still out. Thus, GS turned us down, and, I say, they obviously are standing pat with their hand. There surely was talk as oeilpere said, but any GS trade now is not about salary purging...can we drop it already. <b>As for Moochie</b> In SnT's remember 2 things: (1) Fegan is going to require $3.5-4m, otherwise he'd just have Moochie sign with us; and (2) Moochie will be a Base Year Compensation Player who causes trading complications. Basically, we could only trade him if one of the teams with at least a $1.75m trade exception is involved. GS is not one of them.
NJ, In GS's defense, they had a tremendous number of injuries last year to key personnel. Fortson is a rebounding machine(similar to Rodman, but without the dyed hair) & pretty good scorer. Sura is a solid veteran backup SG. Both players were injured last year. My only concern with Fortson is that he hasn't played more than 55 games in any of the last 3 years, so there might be a risk on our part in taking his contract. Sura, could also be a risk, depending on the condition of his back injury.
Thanks for the info. I didn't know for sure that we had to wait to trade Jones, But it does make sence.
