[David Aldridge] NBA TV: Houston trying to trade for Ron Artest

Bring on Ron Ron - I'm sure any deal would presume him signing another contract.

If the deal is square then you have to say Bye Bye to AB.

 

Kill Bonzi? Please elaborate, lol.

 

^^^

Nevermind.

 

Why not just wait for Artest to opt out?

I dont think the Kings are exactly in the shot caller seat. They could potentially lose Artest for nothing. Take Battier or Bonzi and fillers...otherwise take nothing, and we'll sign him next year

 

I have a bad feeling that we'll have to take on Kenny Thomas' contract....

 

ok, what was exactly said? and when ? dont think any of the rookies are going anywhere? i just wanna know what exactly aldridge said?

 

The Rockets probably let the word to out to Aldridge to increase Brooks trade value. I wouldn't start dreaming about Artest or getting angry that Brooks would be a deal breaker... the target could be someone else. And they could be using the Artest trade talks as an avenue to make Brooks more desirable.

 

its not rocket science. Battier,brooks and snyder. Give artest a 4yr 40m deal and its ok. If he turns it down, deng,childress,smith will or can be signed for about 8m per.

 

deng and josh smith will get the max from some team. childress isn't worth 8m.

 

Too bad the Rockets wont be under the cap to offer the players that kind of money..

 

I'd like for the Rockets to pick up Ron and I'm the farthest from a Rafer hater but the 1 thing that makes me go hmmm is losing Brooks means more Rafer. I like Rafer in his current role. I don't want him to go back to last years role by playing too many minutes. What other options as a backup pg do we have? I don't want to see James on the court period (and I used to like Mike). Francis? I don't think so. Head? Not a pg. That leaves us 48 minutes of Rafer.

Now if somehow we could trade Battier for a decent pg too - then I'd say yes to Ron.

 

Ron Artest was joking about killing Bonzi if he left him in Sacramento (Bonzi was a free agent), but he was clearly joking. Bonzi and Artest are friends but, for whatever reason, people lbew it up and took it seriously.

 

i really like brooks, but man how can we not do the deal ?

we get a LEGIT all-star !!! brooks is just a backup PG. sure he has lots of potential but will ever even be good enough to be a starter in the NBA ? hes so small.

id hate to see him go, but we have to do it. the west is just too packed with talent not to.

 

This thread is hilarious. Aaron Brooks is untouchable, but Shane Battier is easy to give up? Typical GARM, I guess, but still ridiculous.

 

what were aldridge exact words?

 

If you're trading for Ron Artest, giving up Battier wouldn't take much away. You can replace Battier with Artest. But if you lose Brooks, who's your backup PG? Mike James?

Brooks is not untouchable, but in a deal for Artest, I would much rather give up Battier than the potential of Brooks. It's not that ridiculous

 

You have Ron to replace Shane - and I'd take Ron over Shane any game. But who do you have for Rafer's backup? Would the team be better off with 48 minutes of Rafer and Ron on the team? I'm not sure they would. Now - get another backup or better pg in another deal - then I think we are a better team.

 

I'm surprised that no CBA expert has came out and dispell some of the misunderstanding of the CAP issues in this thread yet...

I'll try to clarify a couple of points related to the trade. -- anyone knows the details of the CBA please feel free to correct me if I made any mistakes


1. We will NOT be able to sign Artest this summer if he opts out as a Non-rockets. With Yao and tmac taking a about 2/3 of our CAP figure, we will not be able to offer anything more than the MLE (ie. 5-6 Million a year). Artest is NOT opting out of his 8 mil/year contract to accept our 6 mil offers

2. If we trade for Artest (I'm too lazy to check, but I think we'll have the bird rights), we can THEORETICALLY offer a competitive contract to Artest this summer. However, as we are already a bit over the luxury tax threshold, any such contract will definitely push us deep into the lux. tax. Assume we re-sign him at the 10-12 Mil range, taking into account of the luxury tax as well as the loss of the revenue sharing (because we are in luxury tax land), Artest will probably cost us anywhere between 20-25 million a year.

I seriously doubt Morey (and Les) is gonna pay for that kind of money, and personally think Artest would be a half year rental unless some kind of miracle happens.

3. NBA teams are not allowed to discuss contract extensions during the season IIRC. In other words, we will NOT be able to talk to artest about whether he would re-sign with us until the end of playoffs. We will NOT be able to struck the deal knowing whether he would re-sign or not. The best Morey can do is to make a wink wink agreement (like stackhouse and mavs just caught of doing) about resigning and hope artest honors that.

Any trade involving artest will have to be based on the assumption that we DON'T have a pre-arranged contract extension with him.



I'm excited about the possibility of seeing tmac, yao, ron ron playing together, and really am tempted to give up AB if that's what holds the trade back.

However, as currently stands, the possibility of resigning ron ron next year is really less than unlikely. Is AB worth the half year rental? I'm not quite convinced either way, and would trust Morey to make a better decision than mine.

 

Depending on who else is involved, I'll be pissed if we don't land him because of Brooks. And for the record, trading Shane would be more hurtful than trading Brooks - if Artest walks we're left with nothing in the SF/defense department.