http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=insidedishwagnersstintin&prov=tsn&type=lgns Inside Dish: Wagner's stint in summer school goes well By Sean Deveney - SportingNews The Cavaliers are encouraged by G Dajuan Wagner's performance in the Orlando summer league. Wagner led the league in scoring entering the week, at 18.6 points per game. The team hopes the 6-2 Wagner, who is too short to be a shooting guard, can handle point guard duties, though not necessarily for Cleveland. The Cavs, already struggling to find big men, received a devastating blow when PF Carlos Boozer signed an offer sheet with the Jazz. Without Boozer, the Cavs will have no true power forward on the roster. The team will have to attempt to trade for one, and a league source says Wagner is Cleveland's best bait, especially if another team is convinced he can be a point guard. . . . Also in the article... It shouldn't take long for SG Tracy McGrady to recognize that his decision to force a trade to the Rockets will present a challenge. With realignment, McGrady will play in the Southwest Division, which features Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Memphis and New Orleans. He has done well in his career against the Grizzlies, but the other teams have given McGrady some of his toughest matchups. In the past two seasons, he has shot a miserable 38.2 percent against the Spurs, 42.1 percent against the Hornets and 37.9 percent against the Mavericks, a team not known for its defensive prowess. . . . Personally, I have always like Wagner. When healthy, he can be a very good player and could be the 3rd scorer for the Rockets. He has mostly been playing the 2 for Cleveland, hence the low assist numbers. He is young enought that he could be molded into JVG's system. He isn't very tall (6'2") and has been injury prone in his first 2 years. I know nothing of his defensive abilities. I do know that he is athletic, young, and a good scorer. I am no cap-.ologist. I would assume that at Mo-T deal could be worked out. Maybe Mo-T and Pike for Wagner and Ollie?
I think so. He was a point in college at Memphis. Granted, that was only one year. This could be a "Taylor" made deal for the Rockets.
I don't think he's capable of running the point. However I think he can do it Cleveland, since Lebron can take over PG duties on offense. Can a similar thing be worked out in Houston.
Pike and TE for Wagner and Battie works cap-wise I believe. Personally I'd arther not do it. I want a PG who's the 4th or 5th scorer, someone who can distribute and defend while only taking smart shots.
If there was a way to get Wagner and Battie out of it, I'd do it in a heartbeat. Wagner has the size, ball-handling, and talent to be a tremendous PG. The question is, can he be molded. I think if anyone can do that, it would be Van Gundy. Dejuan has amazing scoring ability, after all he did drop 100 in a high school game, but it does make me wonder would he be willing to let his scoring ability take a backseat to distributing and defense. Maybe. That being said, that maybe alone would make me do the deal. The sky is the limit for him, and if it doesnt work out, at worst he can be instant offense off of the bench. It's a risk I'd be willing to take just because of the potential.
Why's that? The whole point of the trade would be for them to re-sign their own PF, Boozer. I'm not going to argue if they want him back or not, but the assumption Imade is that they want to match the Boozer offer. In which case Boozer is the 4, and they can either sign a backup or trade for one. They have a backup 5 (Diop) full time. So they'd only need someone to scoop up the 9 or 10 minutes behind Boozer - anyone can do that.
Boozer is gone. They couldn't make up enough money to match his offer from Utah w/o cutting half of the team. They didn't have anything under the cap to start with. The most they could've offered was the MLE at about 5 mil a season. I believe he is getting in the neighboor hood of 6 yrs, $68 mil from Utah. I also heard somewhere that it was heavily front loaded so that Cleveland could not match.
Dajuan Wagner on the Rockets is an interesting thought..... There are many pro's and con's, however if the opportunity came along to get Wagner cheap I would do it unquestionably based on talent alone. Wagner is obviously a tremendously talented player. However, I have many worries about him: 1) Towards the end of the season he made it clear he would refuse to play the point in Cleveland 2) Word on the street is his handle is overrated and he has difficulty doing anything with his left hand. 3) His size -- decent for a PG, terrible if he plans on being a SG 4) His defense isn't anything great and his effort has been questioned before --- I realize the same could be said for T-Mac, but Wagner isn't on the same level as T-Mac so the "risk" factor may not reap the rewards T-Mac can. But when push comes to shove, aside from Taylor our bench was a complete joke last year. If we could acquire him and Battie in a trade centered around receiving the two players and us giving up Taylor, that instantly upgrades our bench and gives us another young player with superstar potential. I wouldn't do it if I was Cleveland but stranger things have happened. If Wagner could blossum like we all know he's capable of.....LOOK OUT
Cleveland might need a PF, but I'm not so sure that they would take the Rockets trash. A lot of the trade proposals I've seen to Cleveland are pretty lopsided, especially if they really have burned their bridges with Boozer. In any case, after the Francis experiment, I'm wary of trying to convert a SG into a PG again.
Yes, Boozer is as good as gone IMO. That opens up the way for us to make a big splash using MoT as bait. Not only would we clear away a bloated contract while gaining the backup F/C (Battie, Williams, etc.) that we so deparately need, we would land an explosive, young (21, #6 overall pick, 2002), however oft-injured guard in Wagner that could hopefully be groomed to run the point at 6' 2". Taylor would make the all-star game in the east (maybe throw in pike to sweeten the deal) and would be the best case scenario trade for the now boozered Cavs. Does the full MLE and/or TE work into this hypothetical trade somehow? Let me know...
I wouldn't mind sending them Maurice Taylor and a future pick for Battie and Wagner. Someone tell me that isn't a complete homer trade? Whether we keep Wagner is another question. He might be good bait for another player.
This is BBS Dream Casting...IMHO, you don't take a guy that scored 100 pts in high school, is known as a scorer, and it seems not much else, and ask him to be a pass-first defensive-minded point guard. That is near the equivalent of asking Maurice Taylor to run the point forward (in fact, now that I think about it, I would think it very much like Big MO as point forward) "Some men you just can't reach..."
I heard on the radio that the Cavs were talking to the Knicks about "Z" for Kurt Thomas. That would obviously fill their PF needs and therefore render this thread meaningless.
Heard this also, but the salaries of the two are not even close to matching. Still alot of work to be done.
