I would give up Mike James for Jason Williams. It's not that I love Jason Williams but he is a very good point guard and the Rockets don't have one.
Although Lopez talks about Williams as "Plan B", it wouldn't surprise me if this were related to Plan A, meaning that this in the context of sign and trade talks around Stromile Swift.
I think this deal would make a lot of sense for both teams: James/Wesley/Spoon for Swift/JWill The Grizz get 3 expiring contracts and a good PG in James. Both Watson and JWill would be gone so a PG would be needed.
That should give him an increased incentive to deal Swift to NJ. Not only would he get something for him, but he'd deny the Rockets from their #1 target.
With Swift talking to Seattle (which is under the cap and can offer more than the MLE), the Rockets might have talk S & T to have any hope. But the good thing is that this might bring Memphis to the table to talk with us, or face losing Swift to Seattle for nothing.
James still has 2 years left on his contract, therefore, memphis would only be saving 4 million dollars or so. The point of Memphis trading Williams is to get his salary off the books, and by taking James' contract, they offset that ability since he'll have another year on this contract after the 05-06 season. In any sign and trade with Memphis, the rockets will probably have to throw in a draft pick.
SJC, do you know the Rockets would be in Luxury tax hell if we did those deals? The Rox need to have about 7M expire next year just to absorb Yao's contract extension and they are butting up against the Lux tax this year after they use the MLE.
Man, you gotta be kiddin'. Bust A Move is a classic. "girls are fakin', goodness sakin' they want the man who brings home the bacon, got no money and you got no car, then you got no woman, and there you are."
I agree with the idea the simpler the better. However, I would say substitute Baker or Moochie for Spoon - anything over the 7.5 mill JWill makes is adding onto the Grizzlies salary. Substituting Baker for Spoon still gives us the same basic range of salary for Swift (we're not going to break into BYC range, so starting at 7.2 mill is basically the limit), but it's 2.5 mill cheaper for the Grizzlies. The other option I could potentially see would be doing something similar to what the Magic/Cavs did last summer, or what we did with Wilks. Get Padgett or Bowen's agent in on it, and make them a part of the sign and trade. Only one year of their contract has to be guaranteed. In that case Wesley/James/Ward/(Padgett or Bowen) for Swift/JWill If (Padgett or Bowen) is signed and traded at 1 mill starting salary, Swift could then sign a deal starting at 6.575 mill. That deal would net him 49.3 mill over 6 seasons. If you bump up (Padgett or Bowen)'s salary in year 1 to 1.4 mill, you could give Swift a deal starting at 7.075 mill- that would come to 53.06 mill over 6 years. From the Grizz perspective, taking Ward and a resigned Padgett would be a good 3 mill cheaper than Weatherspoon, and 500K cheaper than Baker. For the Rockets, it'd be more ideal to use Baker instead - Padgett's not affecting our salary this year, so Baker would run more money off our bottom line. In fact, if it comes down to it, it'd be more cost effective to pay the 500K or so difference between Baker vs. Ward+Padgett. All these scenarios leave our roster in basically the same shape: Yao/Deke Swift/Howard TMac/----- Sura/(Head) Williams/(Head) And some groups of Weatherspoon, Ward, Baker, and Norris. We'd still have our MLE, and then maybe DStoud would make some sense rounding out the guard rotation. Barry could be brought back. We could probably use a bigger defensive 2/3 type backing up TMac.
Yea, this is the type of deal I would imagine would go down. Spoon would have to be included just to simply offset what we will probably have to pay Swift and they get a couple of VERY servicable players as well. I still think a 1st will be thrown in there as well just for the fact of how badly it seems they want Swift. EDIT: Forget about Spoon then. Nike great job laying it all out for us. In your scenario, I could really see the Swift/Stoudemire additoins TMac was hinting at.
Lopez usually comes out w/ pretty decent articles, but this is a little too much. Somebody should tell him that nothing can be done until the 22nd, because he's obviously thinking that hell is freezing over right now while CD is getting pedicures.
This is a pre-emptive strike article. Lopez is heading off potential posturing that may occur if we don't get any of our targets-which could happen. If Lopez really wanted to bust CD's chops, he'd mention the origin of our cap space dilema - care to take a guess?
Actually this just happened in the S&T for Kwame Brown but it was a non-guaranteed contract. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071502082.html "For salary cap purposes, the trade that sent Kwame Brown to the Lakers in exchange for Chucky Atkins and Caron Butler also included former Maryland guard Laron Profit. Profit, who started 17 games while playing parts of three seasons with the Wizards, was an unrestricted free agent and signed a one-year, non-guaranteed contract to be included in the deal."
Cool, hadn't heard that. I'm pretty sure under old CBA rules at least year 1 in sign and trades had to be guaranteed (and it also had to be for 3 years). Perhaps this is a new change that just didn't receive any press because it's so minor?
Actually if you think about it, it doesn't make sence. We could just sign Padgett to a 5M- 1 year non guarenteed deal and give them even more cap space. There has to be some limits we don't know about yet. You would think the player has to get something out of the deal?
Mike Miller ain't comin. West is probably holding out to dump Cardinal along with JWill and/or Jake in a S&T deal with Swift or just Cardinal with Swift. CD is probably holding out to get JWill and either Posey or Bonzi in a S&T deal with Swift or just JWill or Bonzi/Posey with Swift. If West could dump Cardinal and Jake along with Swift for our expirings and a pick, then he could peddle off JWill to somebody like Minny for Cassell's expiring, let Bonzi loose, and then he would be sitting at about $20 million in payroll next season to do some major damage with and rebuild on the fly. Really, West should blow his roster up and tank this season, get all the expirings and draft picks and rebuild around Pao and Miller or just Pao. West could probably get somebody to take Miller from him for more expirings and picks. The owner is losing money. It all adds up to major salary dump coming. It may not happen until midseason when the team has some games behind them and there is no chance for them to really compete for a title but it's gonna happen. Frankly, I hope CD doesn't go for the S&T with Memphis if we have to take on Cardinal and Jake. It forces us to use up most if not all of our trading chips, and then we have to go hustle up somebody in free agency. I doubt if we could get good perimeter help this late in the game especially with AD looking more and more like he's going to the Lakers or Blazers. That leaves us fooling around with bit players like Demarr or trying to get Bonzi for the MLE. A lot of you guys don't want anything to do with Bonzi. But I'd rather see us do a S&T including Bonzi or Posey with JWill, and still have our MLE to add a piece/pieces then to take on Cardinal's albatross contract along with Tsakalidas, and then have no bargaining power and just our MLE left. West would probably then exercise Bonzi's option and just keep him on the roster or look to dump him to a contender for a future pick and expiring. With all the money he'd be saving by taking our expirings on, he wouldn't have to dump Bonzi and let us pick him up through free agency. Then we are left stacked up at the big man positions and we have to get perimeter help with our MLE and it minimizes our chances of signing Deke back.
NIKE, great analysis. Makes sense to me. I am not a JWill fan by any means. But if the Rockets are forced to make a S&T to get Swift where JWill has to be involved then I think I would still do it....and then try to offload Williams somewhere. I already mentioned in another thread we could try to move him for Sam Cassell who is in the last year of his contract.
from Deuce: It would be great to see Cassell in this offense, but it might be interesting to see what JVG could do with JWill (kill him, perhaps?). Doesn't it seem strange Lopez rites this editorial a day after T-Mac's remarks about how grateful he is to have a team willing to do whatever was necessary to win? This almost seems like a direct rebuttal.
I had to write a pointless e-mail to Lopez. For what it's (not) worth: ------------------- Dear Sir: I wonder if you were just trying to stir things up? Either you know the fine points of the NBA and want to stir up the hornet's nest and see if you can make CD bust that move; or you wrote the article in a huff to fill column space without checking your facts too closely. Either way, let me clarify a couple of things: You must know perfectly well that CD is not going to tip his hat on whatever trades he has working, lest Mark Cuban or some other owner/GM step in and screw things up. Most likely scenario, Swift is gauging his market value right now so that we can determine just what we need to give up in a sign and trade. New Jersey won't give up a first rounder to land Shareef Abdur-Rahim with the trade exception, so Jerry West would have to badly want second rounders if he deals with Jersey. And it would seem by not just going for the team option on Bonzi Wells' contract, saving $8 million outright, that he's seeing what he can get for players on his roster (first rounders, that is). He can stockpile first rounders and have cap space next year and be a real player in the market. Shareef Abdur-Rahim will not sign with the Clippers. Elton Brand is already entrenched at power forward, with solid backups already in place. SAR already insists on starting at power forward, wherever he plays. Not that I have any insider information, but your article seemed pretty pessimistic. I would think CD is not sitting at home watching soaps and ESPN Classic, waiting for Swift's agent to call. Will we have to take on Jason Williams' contract with Stromile and give up a #1 pick and etc etc in order to deal with division rival Memphis? Will we have to involve a third team to make such a trade? Those are scenarios to look at, rather than acting like the silence surrounding the Rockets' organization---apart from McGrady's public "I want Stro, I want Damon"---means that there's no buzz INSIDE the compound. Maybe the asylum's about to explode? Thanks for reading. EDIT: (Of course, I wrote THIS in a huff, too, I guess.)
