If Morey unloads Asik, Lin, T-Rob, D-Mo, Royce, Delfino, Garcia, and Brooks... the Rockets will have enough to offer both CP3 and Dwight identical contracts worth about $80M. For CP3, that would be considered his max. For Dwight, that would be about $8M short of his max.
Once July 1st comes and Dwight together with CP3 commits to Morey about signing with the Rockets, do you guys think no team would trade future late 1st rounders or 2nd round picks for Asik, Lin, T-Rob, and White? Packages: Asik and White for a future 1st round pick Lin and T-Rob for future 1st round pick or multiple 2nd round picks
You can give both the guys the max if you clear everyone but Harden and Parsons. You can keep Beverley and DMO if both Dwight and Paul take a paycut of around $616,000. That's probably about the most you could expect them to cut to team up with Harden. I think there's a better way than simply clearing out cap. I think you trade your way into at least one of these guys and possibly even both. I actually think if we move TRob and Royce and sign Dwight outright that the Clippers might accept a S&T involving Lin. Especially if they see we're gonna unwind salary and sign him outright anyways. Just the threat of these guys teaming up and agreeing to take a slight paycut to make things work would probably be enough onus to get the Clippers to the table. On a side note: What would be hilarious to me is if somehow the Paul transaction evolved into a multiple team trade involving Eric Gordon going back to the Clippers.
How is trading out assets for other, cheaper assets and then signing Paul not better than trading our assets straight up for him?
Before this most recent Paul/Clippers overture for D12, I was pretty sure he was going to sign with us. Obviously, there is a huge monkey wrench in our way to becoming a contender now. The Lakers can posture whatever they want, but if D12 does not re-sign with them, I just do not see any way they refuse a Griffin/Bledsoe package for D12. I am pretty sure Morey has his plan B and C just in case we don't catch the big fish (D12, Paul or both), which is to improve the PF position and wait for the 2014 free agency.
bandwagon is suggesting a straight salary dump. trading out everybody and offering straight free agent signings. His scenario has us keeping Harden, Parsons, Beverley, TJones...and I assume...GSmith and Ohlbrecht. Presumably we would be dumping Brooks, Garcia, and Delfino by not picking up their options which means we could bring one of them back (most likely Garcia) at the room MLE. The other cheaper assets he is referring to is future draft picks. So you've got a team of Paul, Harden, Parsons, Dwight, TJones, Beverley, Smith, Garcia, our 2nd rounder...and minimum salary guys. Not bad. However, there is more to be gained with flexibility and putting the pressure on the Clippers to execute a sign and trade so that we can preserve more assets currently and get back more value. Too many options to list at this point.
Griffin and Bledsoe won't win them a ring and they will cost 60 million in luxury tax this coming year. If Howard walks, it is better for the Lakers to do nothing, amnesty someone or trade Gasol for a trade exemption so they get under the luxury tax threshold. That way they do not have to deal with the crazy repeater tax in the near future and go into 2014 FA market with tons of cap room and a lottery pick.
Link When word began to circulate Saturday that the Clippers have weighed offering Blake Griffin and Eric Bledsoe to their Staples Center co-tenants for Dwight Howard in a potential sign-and-trade swap after July 1, that naturally made folks wonder where the Lakers stand in their quest to re-sign Howard when he becomes an unrestricted free agent. Here's the latest: • The Lakers have had several discussions with Howard's representatives over the past few weeks and remain confident that they will ultimately keep him with the franchise, even as he's made it clear he will entertain other suitors. • Yet the Lakers also, according to sources, have not completely ruled out the idea of a sign-and-trade if they come to find next month that Howard is determined to leave. Sources say they are indeed leaning against sign-and-trade scenarios because they'd rather bank the resultant cap space from Howard's departure for the summer of 2014. But sources say they've adopted a keep-all-options-open approach. So they'll at least listen to just about anything. • One source with knowledge of the Lakers' thinking said Saturday that any suggestion they could not philosophically allow themselves to make a major trade with the Clippers was "overblown." If the Clippers do indeed decide to formally offer Griffin and Bledsoe in a sign-and-trade package for Howard, indications are that it's a proposal the Lakers will certainly not dismiss outright. • The threat of the James Harden-led Rockets signing Howard away from L.A. is very real to the Lakers, sources said, which means the Lakers will eventually be getting a sign-and-trade pitch from Houston as well. The Rockets will have the cap space to sign Howard outright after the expected shedding of Thomas Robinson's contract, but sources say that the Rockets will certainly attempt to convince the Lakers to take in return Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin in a sign-and-trade deal for Howard, thus theoretically keeping alive the possibility that Houston could preserve its cap space to pursue Chris Paul and possibly pair Howard with Paul. • Asik is a quality defensive anchor at roughly half Howard's price. And Lin had the greatest success of his career under Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni. But sources maintain that the Lakers' main priority this offseason -- besides re-signing Howard -- is getting their financial house in order. Which is why the overriding expectation persists that L.A. will rebuff sign-and-trade proposals to simply bank the cap space for the summer of 2014 if Howard bolts. • Should Howard decide to leave the Lakers, sources said, several options have been discussed internally in Lakerland. Among them: The Lakers could simply let him walk, go into the season with Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol and Steve Nash as their centerpieces -- as they had planned in July 2012 before the trade for Howard materialized -- and focus on slicing into their luxury-tax bill.
I hope these reports are accurate. The idea that the Lakers are likely to balk at any sign and trade possibilities means the Rockets are still the front runners. If the Lakers are open to sign and trade possibilities, I would think teams like the Nets, Spurs, and Clippers could all be in the mix. I don't know that Asik + Lin beats Griffin + Bledsoe.
Why would the Clippers offer Griffin to the Lakers anyway? They don't have to offer Griffin if Howard is demanding a sign and trade to the Clippers. Jordan + Bledsoe + filler for Howard.
The article says they are keeping all options open. Would be hard to imagine LAL turning down Griffin for Howard over a desire for 2014 cap space. They have only Nash under contract that year (http://data.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/lakers.jsp) so they'll still have plenty of space for 2014 even with Griffin. It is certainly better to have one star on hand than trying to convince multiple elite guys to gather up on an empty vessel team.
I don't see the Lakers ever agreeing to that trade, solely because of the potential backlash they would receive if the Clippers were to win a championship in their building. They would get crucified.
• The threat of the James Harden-led Rockets signing Howard away from L.A. is very real to the Lakers, sources said, which means the Lakers will eventually be getting a sign-and-trade pitch from Houston as well. The Rockets will have the cap space to sign Howard outright after the expected shedding of Thomas Robinson's contract, but sources say that the Rockets will certainly attempt to convince the Lakers to take in return Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin in a sign-and-trade deal for Howard, thus theoretically keeping alive the possibility that Houston could preserve its cap space to pursue Chris Paul and possibly pair Howard with Paul. • Asik is a quality defensive anchor at roughly half Howard's price. And Lin had the greatest success of his career under Lakers coach Mike D'Antoni. But sources maintain that the Lakers' main priority this offseason -- besides re-signing Howard -- is getting their financial house in order. Which is why the overriding expectation persists that L.A. will rebuff sign-and-trade proposals to simply bank the cap space for the summer of 2014 if Howard bolts. These two points are why I think the best shot the Rockets have of landing both Paul and Howard is with a straight free-agent signing of Howard and a sign-and-trade for Paul. The Lakers will most likely want to preserve cap space for the following year. The Clippers might be willing to take on the salaries we need to dump. However, knowing that we need to clear salaries (and that the Rockets probably couldn't otherwise dump Lin's salary without taking on some salary back), they will ask for Parsons in addition to Lin and Asik. They would then be likely to trade some of those pieces themselves before the summer is over. Now I'm not saying this will happen. I don't think it's likely that the Rockets will end up with both Howard and Paul. But the above is the most likely scenario I could envision for it to happen. One point to remember: If the Rockets sign Howard and Paul, they probably wouldn't be able to resign Parsons anyway the following year.
All just mind games (or as Ziggy would say pee-pee games). Clippers: No way, no how are we trading Blake Griffin Lakers: No way, no how are we signing and trading Dwight to the Clippers or anywhere else. July 11th-ish... Hey Busschak, you're about to lose Dwight in free agency. We'll give you Bledsoe & Griffin for Howard. Lakers are gonna say no? As Carl said, you'll have the one star on hand vs. hoping or wishing LeBron or Carmelo or whoever opts out and decides to join you. (But but but we're the Lakers and we get anyone we want!)
Yes they would. They have Bird's Rights on Parsons. They have the right to match any offer. Even if they end up paying him in the $8M to $10M range, they would still have enough cap room to sign another player to the full MLE.
