As of right now, we won't have enough cap space to give Melo a max contract in the off-season, so if we wanted to sign him, we'd have to trade someone to make a little more room. Prime candidates would be Turiaf or Anthony Randolph, as we might be able to find a taker for one of them without giving up anything extra.
In addition, to create enough cap space, even after the trade, we'd have to:
-Waive the Bird rights to all free agents on our team, effectively cutting ties with Wilson Chandler and Kelenna Azubuike.
-Waive our MLE, which could cost us the ability to sign another piece to help the team.
-Trade our
first round pick (from the swap with the Rockets), to save the guaranteed money cap hold that the pick would create.
So in NOT trading for Melo, we're going to have to lose Chandler + Azubuike + Turiaf/Randolph + MLE player +
First round draft pick. That seems like a lot of assets to lose just to get someone without "giving up a lot of assets".
If we offered Curry + Chandler + Azubuike + Turiaf/Randolph + First round draft pick to Denver, they'd probably take it, and we'd get Melo before the offseason, and still get to keep our MLE, in effect giving up LESS than what we'd have to give up to sign him as a
free agent.
