The "Random Rocket Trade Proposals" Thread - 2007 Offseason

This is how I would like The Off-Season to end...

- Trade Rafer Alston & Justin Reed to the Denver Nuggets for Eduardo Najera.

- Trade John Lucas III to the New Orleans Hornets for a Trade Exception.

- Send Carl Landry to play in Europe.

- Release Bob Sura to free agency.

- Cut Mike Harris.

2007-08 Depth Chart
PG Steve Francis / Mike James / Aaron Brooks
SG Tracy McGrady / Luther Head / Kirk Snyder
SF Shane Battier / Bonzi Wells / Steve Novak
PF Luis Scola / Chuck Hayes / Eduardo Najera
C Yao Ming / Dikembe Mutombo / Jackie Butler

 

I want it to end with Rafer, Sura, Reed, and Novak to Denver for Camby and Kleiza. Throw in draft picks if we have to.

Send JLIII to Hornets.

Sign Deke.

Or.......Rafer and Sura to Clips for Maggette.

Snyder, Butler to Denver for Najera or ballgripper.

Lucas to Hornets.

Sign Deke.

 

Overall I like the plan.

-But we should get an extra 1st (maybe the option to swap 1st in 08) or their 09 2nd rounder in that deal (Alston is a better player than Najera). I would also take Donyell Marshall for Alston and Reed strait up.

-James is going to start over Francis. He is a better fit as a PG. Francis will be the 6th man and play most of his minutes at back-up SG IMO.

-You guys thinking we can add a Camby or Maggette or Artest or Josh Smith or Gooden, etc, upgrade a starting position, I think are way, way overreaching. Assumign Deke resigns I think all we need is another vet, 2nd/3rd team PF. If we don't sign Deke we need a vet 5/4 type player.

 

If you look back at my post in saying either we need to get Camby to complete this team or Artest -- specifically in the case of Denver, they now have 3 power forwards and have huge current and future cap problems -- with Kenyon Martin and his injury-prone, thuggish bad self responsible for the death of the Bronco DB and terrible contract (no NBA team is going to rescue the Nuggests on that one), Nene whom is only 23 and the Nuggs just spent $80MM on last summer and Camby. Camby has a house in Houston and lives here in the offseason, watched the draft with Rox management a couple of months ago, is a totally class vet, can't stand the Iverson/Melo direction of the team and would like to play for us and win a championship. I disagree with you -- we can give the Nuggets cap relief with expiring contracts and point guard and three-point shooting help which is want they want -- they give us Camby.

Real GM Trade ID 4171928 With Camby and no injuries we can win the NBA championship this year!

 

1. Sign Deke
2. Get rid of Lucas
3. Trade Rafer/Reed/Sura for 1 player
4. Send Harris and Landry to another continent
5. Start season

 

I think its fairly obvious at this point that making a play for Camby is our best option. If we could pull off some sort of 3/4/5-for-1 trade for Camby that would be absolutely fantastic.

Why does Denver help us though? Since when is trading the reigning Defensive Player of the Year thats already on a near ideal contract for a player of his role/caliber to a conference rival a good idea? I realize that Denver has a wealth of money invested into three different PF's and that nobody in their right mind would be stupid enough to trade for K-Mart's albatross contract, but why is Camby the one that needs to go? Camby is a unique and valuable player. Nene is the one they should be concentrating on trying to deal. Players like Nene are a dime a dozen.

All that being said though, if they insist on trying to deal Camby i'd be more than happy to negogiate a deal. What would it take to get it done, though? I'm guessing the cost would have to be pretty high because of the aforementioned reasons. For fun I was playing around on RealGM and proposed Rafer, Sura, Reed and Snyder for Camby. I guess that be just a little too ideal, right?

 

Get real people, the Rockets are over the luxury tax by about 5 million. They will re-sign Mutombo, but don't expect the Rockets to make anymore trades other than to trade players away for draft picks to dump some salaries to get under the tax.

 

Interesting. Who is the Rox management that Camby watched the draft with?

 

I agree. But we could save a few mil (and more long term) and add depth in 2-1 Reed/Aston in picking up someone like Marshall, Najera, SAR (could add a 3rd player like JL3 or Novak). This are realistic and viable deals that would help our PF depth, save a little cash, and then out our roster.

Think about the Camby thing this way. Don't you think lots of other teams would offer more than Rafer + other sucky players, some of which whose contracts continue next year as well? At worst truly expiring contracts plus good draft picks or valuable players would be offered. Also, Camby is paid about 8mil year, even a little less in his last year. He is an excellent big with a good contract. Think of it this way, if I were Cuban and I saw Camby was available I'd offer Diop (expirings this year), George (expires), Buckner and 2 1sts OR substitute Harris for Buckner (and maybe get a pick from Denver). The Lakers could offer Brown (off the books after this year) + Farmar + couple of 1st. In short if Camby was on the market their would be expirings and serious assets offered. If we were going to be serious we could try Alston + Head + Sura (which they take the relief) + Brooks or a couple of 1sts. That might get in the picture if there were a public sale of Camby, not deals with Alston + Reed or Snyder included.

 

You don't pay a player 8 million a year to play backup, and if you think you could put Camby in the same lineup with Yao, then forget about it.

Don't forget, whatever the figure is over the luxury tax, the organization must pay an equal amount of tax. So if they are 5 million over the luxury limit, they pay 10 million. Les is a shrewd businessman, he is not going to do that.

 

looking at the current roster,
PG-Rafer/Steve/AB/James/JL3
SG-Tmac/Synder/Head
SF-Battier/Bonzi
PF-Scola/Hayes/Novak/Reed/Landry
C -Yao/Deke/Butler

We got 2 definite starters in any team, Yao and Tmac.
From what i can see, there is no available upgrade for the PG, as we do not need a PG that take away scoring from our top duo, the only PGs that can do that is Kidd, billups, CP. Those trade would be impossible.

At center, no one will be better than yao. there is not one center in the nba that can provide his defense and offense.

At PF, scola is a good fit when we need offense, and hayes a good fit beside yao when we need defense. The only PFs that i can providing what these 2 can do is Rasheed wallace, dirk, KG, duncan. Again those trades would be impossible. Haslem looks nice, but what can he provide that scola and hayes do not already gives, which is mid range shooting, hustle play on both ends, and very very mobile.

Hence, the only upgrade will can do is at SG/SF, with Tmac taking up 1 place, we need defense which battier and bonzi already gives. So the only non-superstars that we could trade for is AK47,matt barns, gerald wallace,artest and marion.

AK47 would not be possible as utah's roster is already complete, barns and wallace having just resign a new contract. Between artest and marion, marion is more likely as suns have luxary tax problem, and rox can offer what they need. A trade scenario of marion for battier,sura, james/synder, butler.
Battier will gives def and 3p, sura thier contract relieve, butler is a 6'10 big that they sorely need, while james gives def and 3p, and synder gives athleticism.

Camby is a C, he is never a PF, having him and yao at the court at the same time would be like seeing yao and cato again, 2 big centers going into each other place. Same goes with nene.

Speaking of which, the more i think of marion the better i like the idea,
playing a half court offense of Yao, scola, marion, tmac, alston
while resting yao, go small and fast, scola, marion, tmac, steve, ab,
while resting tmac, yao,scola, marion, bonzi, steve
needing def, yao, hayes, marion, tmac, james.

All looks better than what battier can do in place of marion.

 

I was posting this to suggest the kind of value needed to fetch Camby. I don't think for a second it is remotely realistic.

More realistic is a 2-1 or 3-1 with Alston and filler where we pick up an extra vet PF (Marshall, Najera, SAR) and save a couple of mil.

Let me reorganize:
PG-James/Rafer/Steve/AB/Head
SG-Tmac/Steve/Head/Synder
SF-Battier/Bonzi/Snyder
PF-Scola/Hayes
C -Yao/Deke

I am not even messing with guys that have a remote chance of being in the rotation even if they do I really don't want them in my rotation--Butler, Reed, Landry, Harris, JL3.

What is clear when I look at it is the fragility of our bigs. No veteran/quality depth, we can't really afford an injury to a non-star--Scola, Hayes or Deke--that is troubling.

We should take the best deal for some combination of Rafer, Head, Snyder and Reed in our effort to add another vet PF or PF/C (as a back-up). Unless we really want to try playing Battier again in some 4 filler minutes, and that didn't go well last year.

 

I know you listed the players who are currently with the team, so I won't knock you for putting Rafer, Lucas, and Reed on your list - they will be gone by at least the start of the season.

Adelman will more than like interchange Tracy at the SG and SF positions, with Bonzi as the backup SG. Novak is too thin to play PF so he will be the 3rd option SF.

PG: Steve, Mike, AB
SG: Tracy, Bonzi, Head, Snyder
SF: Battier, Tracy will interchange, Novak
PF: Hayes, Scola, Landry (D-League)
C: Yao, Deke, Butler

 

I have no idea why you rather have mike instead of alston.
Alston is the only pass first PG, and that is what we need, not a 15 points 15 attempt PG with 3-4 turnover with only 2-3 assist.

Steve gives size def, along with penetration, thats why he will play more SG instead of PG.
Mike give hustle def, but with his old age, his workrate have slowly decline, and his 3p is the only advantage over steve and rafer.
AB looks to have a better 3p then mike, a quicker first step then steve and nice passing skills, but he is still young and he needs seasoning, before he will actually play more than 15 mins.

Head is just like mike, but with even less PG skills, and no def whatsoever.

Synder will look at a long season maybe playing with an average of 2 minutes as Tmac, battier looks lock for 30 mins with bonzi and steve getting the remaining time.

I rather package synder and head along with reed, then alston. Who still looks like his going to the starter again. Unless proven otherwise, i'm willing to bet that james will have less min compare to rafer this season.

Talking of which, i do not see we want to have a 5-6m contracted big man who is expected to come in after Yao, scola, hayes, deke. Talking of big man, i rather have Big jake then butler. Butler cant even dominate the summer league.

 

Yeah, I don't think the Rockets would have traded for James had they looked in the crystal ball and saw that New York/Portland was going to buy out Francis at 30 million. But they wanted to dump Juwan Howard.

 

Private, are you also 'The Real Private' who posts in the Feigan and Blinebury blogs?

 

found this at hoopshype, couldn't find a Spanoulis specific thread so I posted it here.

The deal with San Antonio gets better by the minute.



Panathinaikos brings back Spanoulis


Euroleague champion Panathinaikos has announced the return of Vassilis Spanoulis, a former all-Euroleague point guard with the Greens. Spanoulis, (193, 25) arrives after one season with Houston of the NBA. Spanoulis is a reigning European champion with the Greek national team, with whom he also won a silver medal at last fall's World Championships. He and the Greens signed a three-year contract. Spanoulis was a sudden-impact performer in his one and only Euroleague season, 2005-06, when he averaged 14.5 points and 3.1 assists while making 61.7% of his two-point shots, helping Panathinaikos reach the last game before the Final Four. Spanoulis was named to the all-Euroleague second team for his efforts that season. Prior to Panathinaikos, Spanoulis had played two seasons for Larissa of the Greek League, from 1999 to 2001, and the next four with Maroussi. He helped Maroussi to make both the Greek League finals and the FIBA Europe League title game in 2004. The next season, his only one in the ULEB Cup, he averaged 15.2 points and 4.8 assists for Maroussi. In 2005-06 with Panathinaikos, he won both the Greek League and Greek Cup. Last season, Spanoulis tried his luck in the NBA, where he averaged 2.7 points and 8.8 minutes over 31 games.
Sunday, August 19, 2007

 

Francis' buy-out seemed preordained since last February. Francis (re-)upping with Rox was an unknown until ... it was known, late in the process.

 

I am not sure. But I think we still would have thought Mike James would have been the better starting PG over Alston (because of his scoring inefficiency) and Francis (because of his turnover issues).

Mike James is NOT turn over prone. Very similar rate to Alston's TO. He has much of the better qualities of Alston and Francis without their more glaring weaknesses as point guards. Further, Francis weaknesses won't be as bad as a 6th man combo guard with a lot of freedom to make plays with the 2nd unit.

I think had we known about the Francis, Scola and Wells events we probably wouldn't have bothered moving up to draft Landry and maybe tried to trade Rafer, Snyder and/or Head earlier, but those would have been the major strategic adjustments I think. I don't think landing Francis would have resulted in us passing on a James for Howard deal even taking on Reed for it--we did that move to upgrade our starting PG spot.

 

It was talked about, but Steve was not going to accept a buyout if he had to give back too much money. 30 million to walk away is not chump change.