There is a flaw in your dream scenario in that both Asik and Lin require an out of pocket cost of 8M each, or 15M for the both of them. IIRC Rockets are only allowed up to 4M for each trade in cash, why will the Wolves shoulder 11M in payouts when they aren't getting lottery picks in return? There's no point in the swap right from 2015-2019 because unless something goes horribly wrong, a trio of Love, Howard and Harden (with Parsons in your scenario) will be among the top in the league thus rendering the swap worthless. Even the 2016 and 2018 picks will likely be low first rounders, again rendering the protection of the picks useless. If we look at the history of the NBA, a low first rounder goes anywhere from 2-4M, so the reality is if they accept this deal they could've just bought 3-4 first rounders instead of paying 15M extra to Asik and Lin. So what're we left with? Just Asik, Lin, Jones and the 25th in a decent draft for Love. To be honest if I were the Wolves I'd rather just send Love to LA for the pick and try to get somebody like Pau Gasol to play with Rubio. Hell maybe they can do a sign and trade and get more picks from LA that way. Minny gets Pau as the replacement, then they have two lottery picks along with Rubio and Shabazz. Then if they really want to they can buy 2-3 picks for 15M.
Asik is an asset. Minny could flip him for a pick(s) or keep him and move Pek for other assets. Lin becomes an asset at the trade deadline for a contender. He'll only be owed roughly $6 million at that point. Minny can flip him to a contender for another pick or some young baller, etc. Asik may be able to be traded to a 3rd team for a pick in the 2014 draft as part of a 3-way deal simultaneously to the Love trade. Or Minny could do the smart thing. Move Pek to Atlanta for whatever young assets they can get for him and keep Asik as their center and re-sign Asik to 5/60 deal after next season. (This is what Minnesota really should do with Asik.) Same sort of possibilities with Lin as well. I've been thinking about a possible sign-and-trade of Greg Monroe. Don't know if SVG would do it. But he needs point guard play in the worst way. Lin and perhaps Daniels or Covington and/or one of those future firsts traded to Detroit for a freshly signed Greg Monroe to Minny. Then Minny would have Asik/Monroe at the 5/4. That's a good combination with Monroe's ability to high post. Defensively they'd be great together. Detroit gets a playmaker/shooter in Lin plus another young prospect or two. Now the same scenario could unfold with Paul Gasol later in the off season after the Lakers figure out what they want to do. Just another thing we need to be realistic about: Greg Monroe's trade value. Oh..........and I almost forgot. But......we could absorb the contracts of Barea, Mbah A Moute, and Shved along with Love. So if it were just a straight up deal.....Asik/Lin/25/Jones/$3.3 million going to Minny (remember Powell and Casspi are not guaranteed so they could simply be waived at no cost to Minny) and Love/Barea/Mbah A Moute, and Shved exiting Minny.....let's see here.........that's $29,309,680 of salary incoming to Minny and $27,903,195 of salary leaving Minny for a net of $1,406,485 additional salary going to Minny. And that's 2 expiring contracts in Asik and Lin that can most likely be flipped at the deadline for less salary. Minny can very easily turn the salary dump that is Asik and Lin into a salary dump for themselves if they want to do that. Options.......options........options
You're right. I couldn't find/access any play-by-play data. The best I could do was nba.com's Player Opponent database via SportsVU but it didn't report play-by-play stats for each player on either side of the court. I also searched my usual databases for player "points scored against", "opponents shooting %", and "points allowed per possession". Data is available, as you said, for both the team and each player but not in play-by-play format. I reckon if I could access Synergy, I would get the information since that's what they do; track and isolate every play with descriptive text and video. IIRC, I think I saw Synergy play-by-play data in one of Torocan's post a couple months ago, so some CF members have full access. I too remember Morey saying that the Rockets have their own player tracking system and team of statisticians. But even if its not available to me, play-by-play databases must be available at nba.com. Otherwise, they couldn't even compute a simple Adjusted Plus Minus since that stat is just a series of simultaneous equations for every player on the court at the time. Even though I don't watch Henson (you'd have to pay me to do that), I appreciate your input; it was very informative and cogentanalysis.
