Deuce, we hear the market stuff all the time. Look at 2 years ago when the lux tax concern was at its peak. Look at KT and JP salary and many other players that year. Young big men who are decent (servicable already), with their head on strait, with good health, and with a little P--will always command more than the MLE IMO.
In my opinion the Nets had the BEST "prospect" when they still had the 10M Trade Exception. They could offer that and a #1 to the Grizz and the Grizz would get a free #1, get the 10M T.E., not have to take back salary and send Swift East. Swift would be an excellant substitute for Kenyon Martin on the NEts. They REALLY blew it when they expired their TE for Robinson. A LOT of Nets fans are unhappy about that. They were dreaming of using that T.E. to get Swift of SAR this summer. Now they are in the same boat as everyone else is with the MLE. This was the whole point of this thread anyway, that a PRIME team like the Nets are somewhat taken out of the running.
Bird Rights aren't that big of a deal because Memphis doesn't want to take back salary. That's a huge factor. Normally, if you have Bird Rights, then you have the ability to accept a package of player(s) in return. Memphis can't neccessarily do that. So, when you start looking at teams that can offer deals that isn't going to cost Memphis to spend more money than they want to, there's a very small number of teams that can offer those type of deals. If Memphis is already spending too much money, then an offer of younger players and expiring contracts doesn't help. Let's say LA offers Carron Butler , Divacs and some other expiring contracts for a starting salary of around $6.5M for Swift, along with a first round pick. Is that a good deal for Memphis? Assuming that the luxury tax remains, that $6.5M in expiring contracts would end up costing them $13M next year, once you include the tax hit. You can acquire a first round pick for a heck of lot less than $13M.
http://espn.go.com/nba/news/2001/0724/1230547.html The relevant parts... Anderson was traded to the Blazers on Wednesday for Steve Smith in an exchange of shooting guards, a deal brought on when Anderson rejected a six-year, $42 million offer from the Spurs last week and immediately committed to Portland..... Before the sign-and-trade deal was struck Wednesday, Anderson was prepared to accept the Blazers' mid-level salary-cap exception, which would have paid him $33.8 million over six years -- far less than what he stood to earn with the Spurs. Unrestricted free agency is still unrestricted free agency. Like aelliott said, I think you think way too highly of Bird Rights, especially for a guy whose market price starting salary is within a mill or two of the MLE. If the MLE is $5.2 mill,ion, that would translate into a 6 year, $39 million dollar contract. How much do you think Memphis would be willing to pay for him? I think it's fairly undisputed that sign and trades don't net full return value. In this case, Memphis is not going to net as much for Swift talent wise in a sign and trade as they would in a neutral situation. In addition, Deuce's point is the Rockets now hold the largest exception in the NBA (or just about), and it's not much bigger than the MLE will be. The argument here is there is a dearth of teams that are under the cap, none of which appear to be particularly good fits for Stromile, and there are no teams that could absorb his salary via sign and trade. And I would argue the Cardinal signing, considering Gasol is locked up long term at the 4, with Battier and Posey manning the 3 was Swift insurance. The Grizzlies have about 53 million committed next season, and that's assuming they opt out of Bonzi Wells, and before resigning Earl Watson- both Watson and Wells are playing more minutes than Swift this season.
