Bulls focused in on Rockets in efforts deal Mutumbo

I know this has nothing to do with this Deke thread but Cleveland cut Steven Hunter today. I think if he can be picked up cheap and with a short deal along with Deke we would be set for the season.

 

P-Ew worked with him in orlando. If he liked him, felt he had some upside then he would be a pick up...wouldn't he?

 

The only thing is "if Cleveland cut him, how good is he?"

 

This is the point that some keep missing. Orlando would have to be under the cap by 10.96 or have 10.96 in TE. Otherwise the only way they take on Francis' salary is if they give 10.96 in players salaries back. The BYC only applies to what we can accept back for francis. So if they were under the cap by 5.48 mil and gave us a player worth 5.48 then they could take on francis' salary. Maybe?

 

OK...I'm wrong...definitely not the first time. But why on earth would we want to use up $4.5m of a $6.99m TE on Mutombo? Cutting that much out of it basically makes it worthless. But by adding AGriffin and/or Wilks, we keep the whole thing.

Not that I'm convinced we'll use it after acquiring McGrady, Howard, Sura, Lue, Ward and Gaines...but to nearly totally obviscate it for Mutombo? Argh...

 

obviscate? obviate + evicerate?

 

I seriously doubt we would use all of it, and have less than 2 more months before it expires. If we can get Mutumbo and only add the difference between Pike and him (about 2 mil) for next year via the TE even I would be OK with Les's spending on players this offseason since we already used our MLE. That would be far the cheapest way to acquire a usefull back-up C.

 

i'm going with obfuscate.

 

So basically,

Wilks+Griffin+Pike+1M in cash

for

Mutombo+Jeffries

Works without using the TE?

That would be perfect for both teams. Chicago uses our cash to cut Wilks' guaranteed first year. So they are adding no players in this trade. They let Griffin and Linton Johnsen battle it out in training camp for the final roster spot.

We get a 3-for-2, we put Jeffries on the IR. He's useful, especially if JJ or Boki go down, we're pretty thin at the 3.

Mutombo is our backup C for a year, and it cost us very little. In fact, we save around 2.9M in this deal. Pike has 5.6M remaining and Griffin 800K. That's around 6.4M. However, Mutombo plus 1M in cash is 5.49M, which means we save a million. Not much, but when you cmoe near luxury tax territory, look how teams start to act for a couple of million dollars(reivac/Kings).

Good deal IMO, I think that's best for both teams.

 

The TE is still valuable because, in a 3-way we could probably get a draft pick just for some other team to use our TE right? BYC complications n all?

 

DS -
You didn't follow along very well. I was reminded by aelliott and NIKE that even though Pike for Mutombo doesn't work cap wise the Rockets can use their TE on Mutombo creating a TE for the Bulls who take Pike with their TE. IOW, if we trade Pike for Mutombo swapping TE's we've basically depleted our $6.99m TE.

UPDATE: "obviate"...to render ineffective...not obviscate....sorry....

 

i think he was just saying he didn't expect us to use the TE anyway w/ only two months left on it and 3 new contracts already added (and no desire to pass even a possible LT limit) so the depletion of the TE wasn't really detrimental at this point since we were just going to let it expire anyway.

 

Bingo. Use the TE for Mutumbo (4.5), they take Pike (like 2.7 back). Or they can take nothing back if they really don't want to and we don't mind adding the full 4.7 to our total salary (doubtfull after spending our full MLE). Probably having Pike in there makes more sense from our financial perspective, and their roster perspective, though.

Since we have at most a 1.7 exemption left we can use every other year (pittance for a C), the TE is the only reasonable way to get much of a defensive presence C. I really doubt we will see a better deal than getting Mutumbo for like 1.8 mil in total salary increase, we also knock off Pike salary for next year (like 3 mil).

If we don't use the TE for something like this it will probably just expire in 7 weeks. Let's do it and call it an offseason.

 

What about Steven Hunter who has been waived by Cleavland? Is it worthwhile to pick him up on the cheap?

 

I'd rather have Jahidi White. better than Mutumbo at this point plus 10yrs younger, can play 4 or 5. White's contract last 1 season only so just trade the T.E. for him.

 

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nypost/20040811/sp_nypost/dikemberefusestodiscussisiah

DIKEMBE REFUSES TO DISCUSS ISIAH
By MARC BERMAN

Former Knicks center Dikembe Mutombo couldn't say enough nice things about owner James Dolan and Garden prez Steve Mills as they supported his attempts to build more hospitals in Africa.

But when the subject turned to Isiah Thomas (news - web sites), Mutombo stopped in his tracks.

"I have nothing to say about Isiah," Mutombo told The Post in a telephone interview yesterday. "I don't want to discuss him. What am I going to say? We haven't even had a conversation."

Last Thursday's finalized Jamal Crawford trade ended a cool relationship between Mutombo and Thomas, who began shopping the 7-2 shotblocker soon after taking over for Scott Layden Dec. 23.

Thomas was unable to move the Layden acquisition at the trading deadline but instead dealt for center Nazr Mohammed to supplant Mutombo as the Knicks' starting pivot. Thomas felt Mutombo was too old and slow to be a big part of his retooled Knicks.

"It's very sad. I'm very sad to leave the city of New York," Mutombo said. "I built a personal relationship with Steve Mills and James Dolan, not just on the basketball court but off it."

Mutombo, who returned from a family vacation to the south of France Tuesday, is unsure he wants to play for the rebuilding Bulls but won't retire. He planned to speak to his agent David Falk last night about their strategy. Falk likely will try to force a trade to the Rockets.

"I still feel I have three, four years left in me," said Mutombo, 38. "A lot of GMs want me on their team. It's not like Mutombo's done. My age has nothing to do with what I want to accomplish. I know what it takes to win and that's one of the things left is winning a championship."

 

I find it funny how these clowns like to speak about themselves in 3rd person view.

 

It could be the Rockets or Lakers.

They can offer Devean George as well, which is not a bad deal. Maybe they'll use caron Butler. Brian Grant, Mutombo, DIvac and Mihm is SOLID up front.

Indiana is interesting - they want some cap relief and help at C. Maybe they'll fork over a draft pick or some talent?


I hope he comes here, then we'll be a contender.

 

With Leng and that Italian signee, why would Chi want an expensive and so-so 3?

Would Bulls want to deal inside their division?

 

Chill out Tigerknee. Blame Tarzan.