In this era, the stars dictate where they want to go. It doesn't matter what our assets our, if Howard doesn't want to play in Houston there's nothing we can do. Simple as that.
http://www.wesh.com/r/30036115/detail.html Same source, but Orlando outlet reporting it may lend further credence.
Average fans aren't the ones making the trades. GMs have plenty of scouts - they know exactly how good players are thanks to them playing 82 times a season every year.
Actually, I'm pretty sure even GMs are influenced by playoff performance, even if it's a small sample. Jerome James got a full mid-level contract largely due to his playoff performance one year against the Kings. Trevor Ariza got a full mid-level from Houston after some hot playoff shooting and nice defensive play for the Lakers. 32-year-old James Posey got a full mid-level out of his playoff run with the Celtics. Robert Horry made an whole career out of playoff heroics. It may or may not be rational, but playoff performance, even if it is often flukey (small sample size) does seem to have an impact on how teams value a player.
Undoubtedly recent playoff performances sometimes inflate a player's market value. I remember Jerome James against the Kings a while back and it was pure insanity those 5-6 games got him $30-40 million from the Knicks. GM's and scouts make plenty of mistakes evaluating players despite having extensive information.
The reason is they can't evaluate the "quit" button inside of a guy. Some guys quit once they get the contract. Others quit when they get dinged. Others quit when they reach a certain level of productivity. Still others quit after they play so many minutes. And still others quit when they are traded or the coach is fired or their teammate is traded. There's only a few that don't quit, that the fire of competing at a high level continues until they cannot physically do it anymore. Every GM is always gambling on the "quit" button when they sign players to contracts.
NJ is about to sign Humphries to a one year, $7 - $8 million contract: http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-wojnarowski_kris_humphries_nears_nets_deal_122011 But by losing this cap space, they don't have the room to take back both Dwight and Turkoglu's contracts, meaning the rumored offer is no longer possible: http://www.nypost.com/p/sports/knicks/garden_smarties_NUgbdrFmy17ZT9sTLyGaJP Of course, once the Nets re-sign Kris Humphries for one year at roughly $7 million — decision time is down to the short strokes — the Magic can’t dump as much toxic waste in New Jersey; Turkoglu is owed $23 million, including $1 million in year three of the $12 million on the books. Meaning, the remainder of Chris Duhon’s three-year obligation ($10.75 million) probably would be substituted.
We need to offer Orlando a quick rebuild for Dwight. Take him and all their trash and give them anything off our roster they want, excluding Lowry. They would rather trade him to the West, not to New Jersey, and they would rather not trade him to the Lakers. It should come down to us or Dallas with us having more assets and cap room to be able to take on Hedo and Duhon and whoever else they want to move. It doesn't matter if Dwight won't re-sign. We will make a deep playoff run. And if he wants to move on, he'll have to take a paycut or we can re-up him and ship him to the Lakers for Bynum/Gasol.
How do you plan to make a deep playoff run if you just offered the Magic anything from the roster they want? Howard, Lowry, and a bunch of scrubs does not make for a deep playoff run.
We have repetitive players at every position. If Orlando deals with us, they are wanting, ending contracts (Thabeet, Flynn, Hill, Chase, Dragic), plus young talent, Patterson, plus picks, plus possibly Martin to make up the salary dollars (since Martin is an expiring next season 12-13). We could conceivably give them Martin, Dragic, Patterson, Hill, Thabeet, TWill, plus 2 future picks for Dwight plus Hedo plus JRich plus Duhon. This deal shaves massive salary off Orlando and allows them to rebuild faster with the picks and young talent we gave them. NJ can't match that. The Lakers can't match it. Dallas can't match it. At the same time, Howard gets to plug in to our lineup with Lowry, Lee, Hedo, Dwight, Scola as your starting 5 plus whoever is left over behind them, Duhon backing up the point, JRich backing up the wings, Marcus Morris and Parsons still around to man the backup forward positions. Jeremy Lin as your 3rd point. Smith signed to a minimum deal. Because of our duplicity at practically every position but the 5, we can make a deal like this and still have a decent enough bench. What about Dwight?? Well, he plays out the year here and sees what happens. That team surrounding him after the trade is much better than the team he is on now. They've got a real good chance to do major damage in the playoffs. They have everything, defense, offense, 3 point shooting, inside outside. It's a complete team. Perchance we win a championship or at least get to the Conference Finals. Perchance Dwight likes it and re-signs long term. Worst case scenario, Dwight decides to walk at the end of the year. Where's he going to go? Probably New Jersey. So, he walks away and loses millions of dollars on his contract. Do you really think he'll do that. No. They'll work a S&T sending us basically the same package they are willing to send Orlando, Lopez and picks and junk. But what if we win? And all of a sudden Dwight and DWill are both free agents???? We may be able to entice DWill to walk away from NJ and the trade becomes us sending Lowry, Scola, a pick or two, and possibly Morris to NJ for DWill. Or what if Dwight wants to get to Lakertown? Gotta be a S&T because the Lakers are way over the cap. Hold them hostage for Bynum/Gasol. That's okay with me too. I don't see how we can lose throwing the kitchen sink at Orlando for Dwight. He's not going to walk away from millions of dollars. We will at least be able to flip him after playing out the season. It's simply a matter of if Morey wants to do the deal and if Orlando would value our combination of assets over NJ's and the Lakers. I think we can top the Lakers deal because of our ability to take on so much more salary. I think we can top the Nets deal for basically the same reasons. I don't see any team out there that can really give Orlando as much as we can in young talent, picks, and clearing their cap up.
I think both the Lakers and Nets have figured out that if they and Dwight keep pushing for a trade now that Morey could step in and offer Orlando a better deal, therefore they are both happy to play out the season and wait for Dwight to be in a better bargaining position with Orlando to get to where he wants to go. So, the thing is if Morey waits until the end of the season, he is probably going to be locked out. I fully expect Morey to make a big run at Dwight, if not now, then at the trading deadline, and Orlando a deal that they won't be able to get after the season is over. The other thing in our favor is Orlando doesn't really want to send Dwight to the Lakers after losing Shaq to the Lakers. I think this will play into their thinking as well as sending him to New Jersey being in the East. And bottom line is if Jordan Hill looks good starting for us and our other young guys look good, and McHale can run our newbies out there and they look good, then perhaps Orlando will see more value in unloading all their long term contracts on us and rebuilding with our youngsters and a couple picks.
I don't either. But, I do feel we can offer more to Orlando.....and more to Dwight than going to NJ or the Lakers. The Lakers have to clean out their bigs and Dwight gets to play with an aging Kobe. NJ, sure there's an attraction for Dwight but Lopez, trash, and a couple picks (lower first round picks) for Dwight? We can do better. We have way more talent. And we can swallow more salary and be an instant contender.....this season.
Orlando is all in till at least the trade deadline at the earliest. Otherwise they wouldnt have resigned JRich and made the trade for Big Baby. The New Jersey offer will be on the table till then, so whats the rush???... might as well sell out their new arena for a couple months and try to spark up other trades that might try to convince another team to trade their star to Orlando to play with Dwight. New Jersey has no leverage to make a trade before March, so you better get used to hearing nothing but "Where's Dwight going" talk until then.
