Expiring Contracts: Who are the possible trade targets?

Gerald Wallace and Darius Miles are essentially the same player. Only Wallace would probably cost less.

 

I'm not opposed to getting Wallace at the right price. But what is that price? Is he worth more than about $2.5 mill /year??? I don't think so. And then we've got to send Charlotte back a contract and a future draft pick to get that deal done, don't we? They gonna take Ward or Baker? I guess they may take some salary to get to league minimums. But anything over $3 mill per and we are once again overpaying. Can we get GW for $3 mill or less for a couple years? And is he worth giving up a future pick and cash plus whatever expiring we have to throw at Charlotte to get them to do it?

 

Okay. If we only end up one or two million over then I would probably consider Miles. But let's talk worst case. Is he worth 16-20 million a year from 2007 to 2010? Then it becomes like a max deal for a non-max player.

 

How can Miles' contract (average of about $8 million per) fit what we are trying to do, and Wallace isn't even worth $3+ million. That doesn't make any sense. I'd say that Wallace's value is at least equal to a guy like Marquis Daniels. GW probably wouldn't get a six year deal, but a 3 year 15 million dollar contract sounds about right.

We could trade Wesley for him, and throw in the 2nd rounder from the knicks which could turn out to be decent. That gives them a veteran SG and preserves their cap room for next year.

GW could backup the 2 and 3, providing depth, versatility, and athleticism off the bench. And if he can improve his shooting in three years he could be in line for a much bigger contract.

 

He's already signed for roughly $8.5 mill/year average. He has the possibility of turning into Mo Taylor's contract on the downside. On the upside, he has the possibility of being a mix between Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman. There you have it, the possibilities and the risks. Personally, I think he is the ideal candidate for career turnaround under a coach like Van Gundy and playing on a championship calibur team here in Houston. Of course, he could turn out like Rodman in San Antonio too. But I'd take the risk.

 

OK, I tried to post this here but it won't fit. These are some of my thoughts on what can be done - some numbers are rough estimates as they are unknown. If you want to point out a mistake please do.

http://www.geocities.com/micah1j/

 

I'm not saying Miles is worth $8+ mil per year either. But in terms of Wallace, I personally have not seen anything in him that would make me want to risk more than about $3 mill per year on him. I don't see anything he has done in the league besides run the floor and throw down some monster jams. To pay a player more dollars, in my opinion, they have to at least show that they are capable of being more than that. Harold Minor and Kenny Walker could run the floor and throw down dunks. I don't see that GW has shown any other ability other than athleticism by itself. He hasn't shown me anything defensively and he hasn't shown me anything offensively. Miles, on the other hand, has shown glimpses of his defensive capabilities, and he has had some monster offensive games, showing evidence that he can be an effective player in the half court and actually cause offensive mismatches with his combination of size and quickness. Most of Miles devaluation is because he has been in Portland, under poor management, and running with a whole pack of immature brats. It has been a bad combination and detrimental to his development. Wallace on the other hand was in Sacramento, a pass happy, offensively talented team, and he couldn't crack the rotation there, even with all his athleticism and dunking ability.

Now Wallace could indeed break out at some point and become a star in this league. I just prefer the risk that Miles is as opposed to the risk of handing Wallace $5 million a year+ with raises for the next 4-6 years and hoping that he finally breaks out. Wallace at $2.5 mill or so for 3 years? Now that's a different story and may be worth the risk to me. JMO

 

If the Clip show goes into the tank (but what are the odds of that happening? ) then we should target Cat for our expiring. No way does Sterling want to pay people AND lose.

 

Wallace hasn't show anything defensively, jopatmc?

I beg to differ.

Ranks #9 in the NBA in Steals Per Game(1.67)

1.30 blocks per game.

Stats may not tell the whole story, but according to them, he is nearly twice the defensive player that desmond mason is, and in fewer minutes!

Wallace:

PPG 11.1
RPG 5.5
APG 2.0
SPG 1.67
BPG 1.30
FG% .449
FT% .661
3P% .274
MPG 30.7


Mason:

PPG 17.2
RPG 3.9
APG 2.7
SPG .73
BPG .34
FG% .443
FT% .802
3P% .125
MPG 36.2

 

Oh, and he beats Miles in nearly every single category, except for his 3pt shooting:

Let's look at miles:

PPG 12.8
RPG 4.7
APG 2.0
SPG 1.19
BPG 1.24
FG% .482
FT% .600
3P% .348
MPG 27.0

 

1st I want to say excellent job today organizing this information.

I am pretty sure it is a team option in 06-07 for Ward, thus he can be considered expiring. I think Hoopshype has this information correct on Ward.

Overall I would NOT be included to make a lot of discussed options. I see know reason we should consider Christie (unless waived), Rose (ditto), Miles, Fisher, Foyle, etc. The Rockets in terms of salaries committed-value are better than they have ever been. Only JH's contract in the long-medium term is not so great, and even his contract right now at least isn't bad.

I think it is much smarter to look for lux tax cuts to sign for the cheap (Finley, Houston, maybe Rose, Chrsite) than consider trading for a guy like that. The Rockets are a tremendously desirable FA location now, we should look for bargains, relatively low risk-medium reward type moves. Further I think we are better waiving Spoon for the lux tax measure, and maybe Ward too, and then signing Deke two a 2 year deal and 1 year deals for Barry. If we can get a decent player/prospect for the LLE like Wallace, Buckner or Demarr on top, terrific. But if not, fill out the roster with 1 year deals for min FAs (Glover, Baxter, or Jay Will) who don't count toward the lux tax.

 

Check the numbers. GW can rebound, gets steals and blocks (last year 5.5 rpg, 1.67 spg, 1.3 bpg). Not a whole lot of guards in the league that are that active on the defensive end. And like you said, he can run the floor and throw down monster jams. As a package that is pretty good. I don't see Miles doing a whole lot more than that.

And whatever you may think, Miles is in fact a malcontent. He had some run-ins with Cheeks that really soured me on acquiring him. I haven't heard one peep about Wallace giving any trouble.

 

Aha. You're the guy I wanted to speak with. You keep mentioning that minimum signings don't count towards the LT. But I don't think that's true. I know that it doesn't count towards the salary cap, but everything I've read says that LT is dollar for dollar over the threshold. I haven't come across anything that says that minimum salary guys are exempt.

 

I've been saying this too. I've read it somewhere that Minimum contracts do NOT count toward the Lux Tax. I'll try and find it.

 

I'm not an advocate of Mason either. To me, Mason and Wallace are essentially the same player, athletic, with otherwise mediocre to poor skills. The only other thing that Mason does even decent is shoot FTs. He's overpaid for what he brings and is not worth bringing in and paying the luxury tax for. I'd rather have GW for less money than Mason.

Still, Miles is a better defender and a better ball handler, a better passer, and a better shooter than Wallace. And he has the ability to cause more mismatches with TMac on the court.

 

This is what Dan Rosenbaum said in his July 6th blog:

"Luxury tax exceptions will be added in some as-yet-undisclosed fashion for minimum salary players."

Still not certain until the details of the CBA are revealed.

 

Agreed, Wallace is a better risk from a non-basketball standpoint. Miles has the record and Wallace so far has been clean. But we heard the same stuff about Rasheed Wallace the year before last when Portland was trading him. We kept hearing about what a malcontent he was. Yeah, he is/was a screwball. But he isn't nearly as bad as he was made out to be. And tell me who else plays Duncan better? ANd who put Detroit over the top on their championship run? You have to be able to see talent and you have to be able to harness that talent into productivity. I personally see a lot more talent, pure basketball talent, in Miles game than I do in Wallace's. I think Miles has much more upside. It's just my opinion. Obviously, others see it differently. I see in Wallace the propensity to rely on being able to run and dunk and the rest of his game hasn't developed. I see in Wallace a player who couldn't crack the 8 man rotation in Sacramento, a team with a high powered, passing offense, designed to get a lot of layups, alleyoops, reverse cuts, and dunks. I see a player who threw numbers on the board for an expansion team, where he got minutes, but the team is still basically brand new and they haven't shown substantial interest in signing him to a longer term deal. And I see a player who has been sitting on the sidelines this whole offseason, waiting for the big deals to go down so that teams would eventually get around to him. I see the potential for Wallace to be out of the NBA and in Europe in a couple years.......unless he can develop other skills besides dunking.

Miles has already shown those other skills, the ability to defend, the ability to be a force in the half court. Yes, Portland may have overpaid for him, but they overpaid for him because there was a demand for him, teams were wanting him. And Portland was pulling the Kelvin Cato trick of signing him up to a mediocre contract right away instead of running the risk of him escaping or having to pay him the max later on. They did the opposite of what Phoenix did with JJ. They took the early flyer on him. Right now his value is at an all time low because of being a "malcontent". But he is young, and he has tremendous upside.....still.

Like I say, I could be wrong. I've been wrong before. But if I had to put money on which of the 2 players will have the better NBA career, I'd put it all on Miles. If Miles gets with the right team, in the right role, with the right coach........look out.

 

Granted this is not definitive, sure sounds like league min guys are not factored in lux tax caluclations.

http://www.nba.com/news/cba_050621.html

The effect of the existing luxury tax on teams will be reduced and there will be no additional taxes. The tax level will be set at 61percent of league revenues (the same level as in the 2001-02 – 2003-04 seasons). Tax treatment for injured players and minimum salary players will be liberalized.


http://www.realgm.com/src_feature_article/63/20050709/tipping_the_cap/

- It explains why minimum salary players are expected to be exempted from adding to a team’s tax liability, since in some situations a team may be forced to add on players to fill up the roster (and thus increase their payroll) even if close to the tax threshold.