If we use the trade exception, great. If we don't, it's not so bad. If Les saves some money now, he will have some to spend later ... for FA or Yao ... Those draft picks are valuable but not so valuable ... There are plenty mid 1st rounders that never amount to anything. What more, you can always go after FA if you don't have picks. These days, money ... real and cap space ... are Kings.
because the #1 pick was the main reason they were interested. They don't want Glen Rice. Their two best players are young small forwards. It's the only position they aren't weak at. It looks like they're going to cut Rice. It's a slight benifit as they were too far under the salary cap, but mostly, this deal is about us wanting the trade exception and them wanting a 1st round pick. they need first round picks desperately as they're having a ridiculously difficult time signing free agents. (nobody wants to go live in Salt Lake City and nobody wants to play on that crap squad that is expected to be the worst in basketball this year) Also, Crisco, the reason I named Aelliot, DaDakota and Codell as voices of reasons is because they've made calm, well thought out posts and seem to be well informed on the topic with a good understanding of what the trade exception is worth to us. The majority of this entire thread is negativity for the sake of being negative. Also, most of these posters have admitted they'd prefer not lose a 1st round pick but have chalked it up as the price to pay. It seems to me very few of the negative posters are willing to acknowledge there was a single positive aspect about this trade. They're even refusing to acknowledge we wouldn't have signed Jim Jackson had the trade not been made for gods sake. That's flat out unreasonable.
The voice of reason... the one thing i don't get about the signing of JJ is don't he, AG, and EP essentially play the same position? do we really need three 'tweeners?
Over all I like the trade, but I do question why we picked up a player for additional picks. If we wanted a trade exception, why did we take Amechi in the trade? The exception would be greater without him.
A point the "we got screwed" pessimists are missing... Whatever value Glen Rice's expiring contract had, it was only valuable to teams with a low 2004-05 committed payroll. Why? Because the whole point of having Rice expire is to be a player in the 2004 FA market. Hence, if you had $55m committed for 04-05 and traded for Rice your payroll would not be low enough to pursue top tier FA's. The expiring Rice only took you to $46.5m. So here are the teams (along with their 04-05 committed) who would have had no or marginal interest in Rice: Celtics - $54.8m NJN - $59.7m NJK - $57.7m Sixers - $55.2m Raptors - $48.1m Dallas - $77.3m LAL - $66.2m SAC - $53.1m Suns - $47.6m Minn - $44.8 + re-signing KG Mem - $36.9m + $ to re-sign or SnT - Swift, Mike Miller & Tskakalides LAC - no way in hell Sterling pays Rice $9.6m So of 28 possible teams, you are now down to 17. There are other situations were teams like Denver already have substantial cap room even w/o an additional deduction. On the other hand... The trade exception can be used by any of the NBA's 28 teams (plus Charlotte). And the Rox can ask for a 1st rounder for brokering a deal. And the Rox can split the exception into multiple pieces...Two brokered $3.5m deals, each capable of netting future 1sts. Besides, as has been pointed out many times in this thread...we are/were young enough..."No more excuses".
IMO, I think Amaechi is worthless to Utah in term of his history with Sloan so Utah wanted to get rid of him. They probably would not agree to the trade without. For us, Amaechi has more value. He is not great but serviceable. He played 20 mins/ game for Orlando and did ok. At worse he is our 3rd string center. At best he can be our 2nd string (at least for a while) so we can use Cato as trade bait.
Some comments to why I don't like the trade: If we use the exception then ok - but I suspect - given past history - we will let it expire. Then it's Rice + 1 + 2 + 2 for Amaechi + 2 which is a bad trade. Jim Jackson was signed with the remainder of the MLE. This trade had nothing to do with it unless you want to factor in that Les would have had to pay 2.6 million for his 1.3 million salary if we were over the LT. Amaechi's "best" year was 1999 - 43% shooter 7 rebounds per 48 minute average He's worse now. He'll hurt the team more than any current Rocket when he steps on the floor. Jason Collier (47% - 13.2 per 48) has FAR better game than Amaechi. Please don't paint Amaechi for more than he is - IR fodder and Gatorade getter.
When one mentions "flexibility," I like aelliott's succint phrasing. If you need examples of how that trade exception might work, think of players like Artest or R. Lewis, who are BYC (and their respective teams also have trade exceptions). If you want to think big---TOO big, maybe---then I know that the Rockets have had a major jones for KG for some time (who hasn't?) But that's in the realm of stunning trade, i.e., 3-way trade territory, which would also involve Steve Francis (hence, our own trade exception). But I also stress what everyone knows....that's a near-pipe-dream. Just throwing it out there as a possibility. I'm thinking more in the realm of Artest or Rashard. We did inquire after Jermaine O'Neal once, and as I mentioned, Indy has an exception as well, but that would involve, say, Steve/EG for Jermaine/Jamaal; and those sorts of trades are few and far between.
when you make a trade you are not going to just pull the wool over the other guys eyes and have them give you whatever you want. GM's get paid big bucks to run their teams- they are not idiots. we didn't want rice or his salary and the jazz didn't want amaechi and are rebuilding and looking for picks. so what! i don't want any picks now. i am ready to win. JJ is a good pick up and a veteran who will provide depth and experience. we improved our team, this is what matters.
ArtV- If the Rox let the exception expire, then I agree wih you. But they won't. The Trade Exception concept is new to the current CBA and it took awhile for it to be uncerstood. Page down half-way and read NIKEstrad's explanation of the TE... http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65360 There is no way in h*** they will let it expire 12 monthds from now.
This thread is a mess, because the issue(s) involved are very complex. Let me get some of the things straight. 1. Did this trade enable us to pick up Jim Jackson or would have we got him regardless? It looks to me that the amount we signed JJ would have been their without unloading Rice's contract. So Getting JJ seems to be irrelevant to the discussion of this trade. 2. How valuable is a 9.5 mil. expiring contract? Apparently not very valuable. Utah seems to be prepared to get rid of Rice either by cutting him now or letting him walk after this season. That's why we have to throw in the 1st rounder. While I'm no cappologist like Nike and aelliot, I believe that an expiring contract is good only to teams that don't want to improve THIS YEAR. It is useful only if you want to lay low this year and do some serious FA signing next year. There were teams like that out there, of course. But how many? And how many of those had the things we wanted? Only Utah had enough cap room to give us the subtantial trade exception now. All other teams who actually wanted Rice's expiring contract could only give players with compatible contracts. Do we want to take on those contracts? We would have got back either better talents but worse contracts or equal talents (which is not much with Rice now) and equally bad contract. As of this trade, we are getting worse talents but better contract. So it's seems to be a fair deal. 3. Why would we want Amaechi? I don't think Amaechi was just a throw-in. I think there are things that we liked about him and asked for him. A 2.5 mil. a year for a backup center is not too expensive in the NBA. He seemed to be quite decent when he was with Orlando. He didn't do well with Utah. He is not that old, so the cause of the performance drop off couldn't be age. It had to be the system, or chemistry. CD and JVG might want to gamble that he could return to the old form by changing of scenary. So, just my 2 cents.
"Jim Jackson was signed with the remainder of the MLE. This trade had nothing to do with it unless you want to factor in that Les would have had to pay 2.6 million for his 1.3 million salary if we were over the LT." ArtV You can't view the Jim Jackson transaction as mutually exclusive from the trade. Without the trade Jim Jackson is not here, period! Also, you can't view it as Les Alexander refusing to pay 2.6 million as oppose to 1.3 million for Jackson. As soon as you hit the luxury tax threshold, you have to pay a dollar for every dollar you are over the salary cap, which is my understanding of the luxury tax. So you are looking at a tax hit of over 10 million dollars.
Easy, Good points as always. CD made it sound like that this deal allowed us to sign JJ without being in LT territory. Others in this thread have disagreed, yet, its not a coincidence that the JJ signing was announced immediately after the trade. I like having Amaechi at the end of the bench. Not a stud rebounder or defender, but is good at getting garbage points around the basket (funny how no one remembers the career game he had a against us a few seasons ago). All in all, at worst, he is 6 fouls to use against Shaq.
Can Amaechi really play the 4? If he can really play both the 4 and 5, he will certainly log minutes in both spots when MoTay and Cato are on the IR next season. The Rockets were in need of a backup 4/5 and Amaechi appears to be it. Signing Jackson is also a plus, since the Rocks only had role players at that position. Rice also certainly would have been on the IR next season, leaving the 3 by committee woefully lacking on the O. Jackson should now be the starter and would not surprise me if he averaged double digits in scoring. The trade details are still a bit conflicting. As far as I can tell the trade looks like: Houston gives: - Rice - Houston's 2004 first round draft (lottery protected) - Chicago draft pick obligation, likely Chicago's 2005 and 2006 second round picks - additional consideration (cash???) Houston gets: - Amaechi - $6.5 million trade exception - Sacramento second round pick (year???) - conditional second-round pick (year, team, conditon???) Can Houston really trade away its first round pick in two consecutive years? I guess we will have to wait to see how the trade exception is used before we can evaluate the trade.
And people finding the trade haven't put out well thought out posts? I myself posted the benefits of the exception before aelliot chimed in with his more elaborate response. The majority of this entire thread is negativity for the sake of being negative. Disagree. I find a majority of the thread is people trying to convince themselves its a good deal. Also, most of these posters have admitted they'd prefer not lose a 1st round pick but have chalked it up as the price to pay. It seems to me very few of the negative posters are willing to acknowledge there was a single positive aspect about this trade. They're even refusing to acknowledge we wouldn't have signed Jim Jackson had the trade not been made for gods sake. That's flat out unreasonable. Once again, selective reasoning. Just about everyone who bash the trade think the exception is a positive. And whether the rox would have signed JJ IS debateable, whether you want to admit it or not.
please don't lecture me as to the benefits of the trade exception when it seems you don't understand it yourself. The only difference between the exception and GR's expiring contract is that 1. the trade exception lasts longer 2. the trade exception can be broken up into different, smaller deals 3. and least importantly, it's slightly smaller in size
Scuse me if I forgot a 2nd rounder which would probably be another Kings pick or some such nonsense. You seemed to forget mentioning the Drew obligation, and emphasize the fact that we would get 2 2nd rounders, maybe one of which would be decent, so whatever. But I guess you were trying to be a realist.
One more hit- I can't speak for the posters who think this trade sucks, but for me, the difference between my rationale and what seems to be the rationale of the pro-trade posters is quite simply: I think this trade sucks unless they use the exception for something good. Others think this trade is good unless we don't use the exception. Sort of a glass half-full, half-empty kind of thing. You can SAY the rox will for sure use it and wont let it expire, but I'll believe it when I see it.
