Whatever complicated trade scenario you want to come up with, you ask Seattle if they'd rather have Mo or KT. They will say Mo every time. We can argue here who's better. Seattle would rather have Mo. I'd love to do KT + Rice for Lewis (even though I'd hate to give up KT... but you gotta give up something), but Seattle wouldn't go for it. Only trade I'd go for here is Mo, Rice for Lewis, Barry. (Or, if you can sell it, replace KT for Mo in this trade. p.s. You can't sell it.) And I doubt it'd happen cause I doubt Seattle'd go for it. But if they won't go for that, they definitely won't go for a similar situation where KT replaces Mo. They would rather have Mo, no matter what all you armchair "he doesn't rebound enough" GM's might think.
I don't know about MoT's trade value right now, he's just off an season ending injury. He's damaged goods before he redeems his value. The Seattle GMs probably want to watch him play first then decide. KT and Rice for Lewis seems like an OK deal.
panda, I'd take that trade too. But I maintain, as I said above, Seattle would rather have Mo than KT. Frankly, any team would. And I doubt they'd do the deal either way. All depends how serious Rashard is. If he might go to Dallas for the MLE, I promise you they'd rather have Mo than nothing. I also, again, promise you they'd rather have Mo than KT. That's all.
That Lewis in November trade is about as likely as Wilt Chamberlain returning from the dead and signing with the Cavs for the veteran minimum...
I think I have this right, basically it came from the RealGM article. If Rashard is signed and traded, he becomes a base year contract. He becomes BYC if his new salary is at least 20% greater than his previous salary. As a BYC, Seattle can only take back half of his salary. Let's assume the worst and say Lewis signs for $10,000,000 (oh God, please no). That means we can only give back $5 mil in salary. Cato, MoT and Rice are all over that. If he signs for a more realistic $7 mil, we can only trade back $3.5. Short of dramatically altering the team, KT and drat choices are all I see.That is why a multi player trade, or perhaps a third team would be needed. I like Lewis, but am not willing to "break up" (can't really find the right phrase) this team beore we see what it looks like. Maybe KT and a pick will do it for Seattle, but I suspect not.
I saw an analysis on the Hoopsworld site, and actually agree with it, for once. The article essentially said that Rashard has instructed his agent to look for acceptable sign and trade situations, so that he could get his money now. The article said that, from Seattle's perspective, that's what they had wanted him to do all along, so that they could reject all offers as being insufficient (thus making the other team, not the Sonics, look like the bad guy), and try to force Rashard to take their initial offer. However, I wonder if, as a twist, Rashard might actually take someone's (ours, or the Mavs') MCE for a short term contract just to stick it to the Sonics for playing hardball.
In a dream world, Rice would retire and Lewis would sign for the mid-level exeption and we don't lose any players thru sign and trade.
