* Offiical NBA Off-Season Thread: I'll give one of my damn kidney's for these Melo rumors to stop *

[licensed to ball]

Originally Posted by Bigmike23


whats this i hear about Tmac limping around durning his workout with the bulls?

if true Tracy just cost himself a contract.

(im not laughing at his injury, just his bad luck

)

 

[i nasmatic i]

Originally Posted by EDWeeNO

Originally Posted by Kiddin Like Jason

I knew something like that would come out later. That's why I said "Whatever." after I posted the transcript.

At this point, Chris is hurting the organization whether he's here or not. If he gets traded, the Hornets just traded the best point guard in the league. If he stays, the team can't trade Darren Collison for a piece that they need because they have no idea what will happen in the future with Paul, and it will always be lingering in the back of everyone's mind that this dude might not be here tomorrow. Even if they followed through on not giving in to Paul's demands and knew he would be here for the next two seasons, if you trade Collison, point guard is yet another need two summers from now.

That's far too risky. Move Chris and Okafor for either Greg Oden and Nicolas Batum or Danilo Gallinari and Anthony Randolph, and let's go.

OR, why not trade chris to orlando for jameer, VC, and either bass or gortat and trade okafor to a third team?? I believe it was you who stated to me that orlando has NO SHOT at getting paul, but c'mon even you would have to agree that oden and batum or gallo and randolph are not enough to pry paul out of NO. Besides if new orleans was smart they would not trade paul within the western conference. My guess as stated above is the hornets are looking only to move him east. Orlando already has a dominant big man (which is why he'd prefer the magic) and they are ready to contend for atleast another 2-3 years.
  

If they are content with first round exits and late lottery selections, then yes that's the perfect return for Chris Paul.

If they want to do a full scale rebuild New York and Portland offer better returns than Orlando would.

 

[Deleted member 38182]

Probably the best/most realistic trade scenario...

 

[japanair21]

So why exactly does Orlando get Paul AND an expiring?

That deal is absolutely ATROCIOUS for New Orleans.

 

[i nasmatic i]

Of course Minnesota gets T.J. Ford and A.J. Price.

 

[Deleted member 38182]

I got bored

 

[kiddin like jason]

Wait, wait, wait...

Vince has TWO years left on his deal? Obviously, I've been against Orlando being the trade partner from the beginning, but I was always under the impression that he was up after this season.

That's hilarious. Yes, I want that.

 

[japanair21]

Team Option after this upcoming year.

 

[Deleted member 38182]

Originally Posted by Kiddin Like Jason

Wait, wait, wait...

Vince has TWO years left on his deal? Obviously, I've been against Orlando being the trade partner from the beginning, but I was always under the impression that he was up after this season.

That's hilarious. Yes, I want that.

that last year has 4 mil guaranteed....

no matter what NO isn't gonna get equal value in return for CP3, I think thats the main thing I learned from messing with the trade machine

 

[i nasmatic i]

I got bored too.

Orlando: Gets Paul without gutting the team, leaving them still relatively deep and contending for a championship.
New Orleans: Gets expirings, two players and cut salary this year. Let's also throw in two first round picks and $3 million from Orlando and the rights to Xavier Henry from Memphis.
Detroit: Gets a center that can rebound and block shots to compliment all the scorers on the team. They're basically in win now mode thanks to the contracts of Hamilton, Gordon and Villanueva. Stuckey is more of a SG anyways so Conley can be the main PG.
Memphis: Gets their upgrade at PG with Nelson. Might have to get a protected first round pick from New Orleans for dealing Henry away.

 

[japanair21]

Decent, except I don't know why the Pistons would want Emeka, I don't know how he'd be in the Pistons system.

Will Bynum will re-sign, Conley doesn't have a role in Detroit, plus who would their starting SF be? If they're trying to win now, Tayshaun is their best option because Daye nor Jonas are ready to take over those minutes.

Get rid of Rip, and maybe, but I don't know what his contract is like.

 

[i nasmatic i]

Originally Posted by JapanAir21

Decent, except I don't know why the Pistons would want Emeka, I don't know how he'd be in the Pistons system.

Will Bynum will re-sign, Conley doesn't have a role in Detroit, plus who would their starting SF be? If they're trying to win now, Tayshaun is their best option because Daye nor Jonas are ready to take over those minutes.

Get rid of Rip, and maybe, but I don't know what his contract is like.

Okafor would play the Ben Wallace role of rebounding, blocking shots and not take shots away from all the perimeter scorers on the team. Right now the only centers on Detroit are a 35 year old Wallace and developing Greg Monroe.

Conley only has one year left, so he could be the back up PG for 20-25 MPG (he only gets 30-32 MPG to begin with). If he works out, they can re-sign him next summer. Starting SF could be Austin Daye or Jonas Jerebko.

No one is taking Rip and his horrible contract.

 

[noskey]

Originally Posted by rck2sactown

Probably the best/most realistic trade scenario...

Minnesota even getting %++@!* over in fantasy scenarios


But here's a more realistic and happy scenario

 

[lvjordan238]

^Please tell me you're not serious. NJ gives up basically their starting 5 and that's all they get in return?

 

[noskey]

You gotta be high to think I'd believe that something like that is possible.

I went even deeper though and eventually had Howard and Collison on the Blazers too

Then I tried to put Rudy on the Nets and I broke the page

edit: Went above and beyond anyone's expectations here

Paul
Roy
Batum
Aldridge
Howard

Championship

 

[nycknicks105]

these trades are getting out of hand now lol

 

[japanair21]

Yall just being dumb now.

And no use in taking on any contracts in Detroit if they can't contend.

Detroit can't.

The reason why they did a few years back is because they played defense, they rebounded as a team, and they had a few players in their prime, mainly Chauncey.

 

[edweeno]

Originally Posted by Noskey

You gotta be high to think I'd believe that something like that is possible.

I went even deeper though and eventually had Howard and Collison on the Blazers too

Then I tried to put Rudy on the Nets and I broke the page

edit: Went above and beyond anyone's expectations here

Paul
Roy
Batum
Aldridge
Howard

Championship

Howard to portland???????? STOP IT

 

[Master Zik]

@ these 4 team trades.

Why are the Nets taking 2 ridiculous contracts for overrated players who don't deserve all that money?

Blueprint to Ether.

 

[CP1708]

This dude just added Chris Paul and Brook Lopez for @#$%^&* Greg Oden, Joel Pryz and Jeff God Damn Pendergraph. 

Can't wait to read about that rumor in the paper tomorrow. 

 

[ldj]

Originally Posted by EDWeeNO

Originally Posted by Noskey

You gotta be high to think I'd believe that something like that is possible.

I went even deeper though and eventually had Howard and Collison on the Blazers too

Then I tried to put Rudy on the Nets and I broke the page

edit: Went above and beyond anyone's expectations here

Paul
Roy
Batum
Aldridge
Howard

Championship

Howard to portland???????? STOP IT

Lol at some of these proposals. I swear i would think some of yall are on the Dan Gilberts' payroll. Some of these trades are just ridiculous.

  

 

[pdouly33]

Can someone post the new Hollinger offseason losers column?

 

[CP1708]

Here you go Pro

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insi...y?columnist=hollinger_john&page=losers-100727


(so you don't have to go look for it)


He listed the Lakers already as one of the losers. 

 Maybe I should take the day off from Niketalk. 

 

[pdouly33]

That's why I wanted to read it. How did the Lakers lose this offseason? Only Hollinger knows.

 

[proshares]

Kobe Bryant's Lakers and Mikhail Prokhorov's Nets can thank LeBron for their disappointing summer.
In the NBA offseason, for every winner there must also be a loser.

I wrote Monday about the six teams that improved themselves the most so far this summer, but now it's time to look at the seamy underside: the teams that find themselves in a tougher position. In several cases, this isn't necessarily of their own doing, but rather from circumstances that were either somewhat or entirely out of their control.

Nonetheless, they're worse off for it, starting with our biggest loser from the summer:

[h3]http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=cleCleveland Cavaliers[/h3]

Does anyone else want to hug a Cleveland fan "Good Will Hunting" style and remind them that it's not their fault? LeBron James' impossibly painful exit was made worse by the Cavs' inability to give anyone their money. Houston matched a generous offer sheet to Kyle Lowry, Matt Barnes took half the money to play for the Lakers, and they can't even find a workable sign-and-trade for Shaquille O'Neal.

The only major change so far has been a swap of Delonte West for Ramon Sessions, which means the Cavs are basically the same team that won 61 games a year ago … albeit with one glaring omission. Cleveland still has a huge trade exception and may be able to get something done before opening day, but at best this looks like a borderline playoff team.

---

[h3]http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=lalLos Angeles Lakers[/h3]

What, you ask, did the Lakers do wrong? Nothing -- in fact, they shored up the point guard spot with Steve Blake and got a tough gamer for peanuts in Matt Barnes. And, of course, they coaxed Phil Jackson to stay on the bench for one more season.

All that would have made the Lakers overwhelming favorites to repeat as champions next season, except for a little thing that went down in Miami. With the Heat looking like a super team, the Lakers find themselves downgraded to co-favorites at best, through no fault of their own.

Had James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh aligned themselves in any other combination with any other team, that wouldn't be the case. Thus, L.A. lost ground this summer, even though, in narrower terms, it won with the additions of Barnes and Blake.

---

[h3]http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=lacLos Angeles Clippers[/h3]

Not a great summer for basketball teams in SoCal. While the Lakers' misfortunes were entirely external, in the case of the Clippers, the offseason has been a full-on disaster. L.A. created enough salary-cap room to sign a big-fish free agent to a maximum contract, and walked away with Ryan Gomes and Randy Foye.

Yeesh. While I appreciate the Clippers' efforts to reconstruct the 2008 Minnesota Timberwolves (they also re-signed Craig Smith; can Greg Buckner and Mark Madsen be far behind?), those two additions do little or nothing to improve their prospects for this season.

L.A. added to its woes with a puzzling coaching hire, selecting the barely adequate Vinny Del Negro over the vastly more qualified Dwane Casey. The Clips have some talent, and if Blake Griffin delivers, they might contend for a playoff spot anyway, but they missed out on a glorious opportunity to rise among the elite in the Western Conference.

---

[h3]http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=torToronto Raptors[/h3]

Losing Bosh was bad enough, but that wasn't the only thing in Toronto that left us scratching our heads. The whole Matt Barnes saga was jaw-dropping: It appears both Barnes' agent and the Raptors' front office leaked to the media that Barnes would sign a two-year, $9 million deal with the Raptors in a sign-and-trade -- in fact, every major outlet reported it.

Only one problem: The deal wasn't even remotely legal under the salary-cap rules, revealing a shocking ignorance of a very important piece of the business on the part of NBA professionals.

Look, this is pretty basic stuff. I've seen stories suggesting this was some inscrutable piece of salary-cap arcana, and it's just not true. For starters, a sign-and-trade deal has to be at least three years. Has to. That's not a difficult rule to understand. I'm pretty sure all of you got it immediately. That's why every single sign-and-trade deal that any of these guys has ever done has been for at least three years. You'd think they'd at least know from experience. But right there, much energy was spent negotiating a deal that couldn't happen.

Second, Orlando couldn't sign-and-trade Barnes under those terms. He had no Bird rights because he had played only one year on his current contract; the most he could be offered by the Magic this season was about $1.9 million. Again, this isn't some obscure footnote; it comes up every single year because so much of the league's rank and file are on one-year deals.

Finally, Orlando could have re-signed Barnes using its midlevel exception, except that (A) the Magic had already used it, and (B) you can't do a sign-and-trade using the midlevel exception. Toronto couldn't use its midlevel on Barnes either, since it had already been bestowed on Linas Kleiza.

In a nutshell, the deal had to be a sign-and-trade for at least three years, starting at no more than $1.9 million a year, or it couldn't happen. This was obvious to anyone with any knowledge of the salary-cap rules. That it wasn't to the two parties involved is disturbing.

When the Raptors weren't trying to use imaginary exceptions to sign players they couldn't get, they were giving Amir Johnson a five-year, $34 million deal that's among the summer's most questionable. They used their midlevel exception on Kleiza, adding another bad defender to the league's worst defensive team.

Toronto did salvage a Hedo Turkoglu-Leandro Barbosa trade that dumps last year's big mistake, albeit for another guy who can't guard anybody. Unfortunately, an offseason-saving steal of a deal with Charlotte fell through, and they're left with a star-less team that still is the worst defensive squad in basketball.

---

[h3]http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/clubhouse?team=njnNew Jersey Nets[/h3]

The Nets had all that cap space, and the new Russian oligarch owner, and they were coming to Brooklyn to make a big splash. Everybody was talking about them. Two months later, they have Billy King as their GM, Travis Outlaw as their big free-agent score and a lot of questions about whether new coach Avery Johnson is really the one calling the shots.

Outgoing GM Rod Thorn called it quits and almost immediately hinted he wouldn't mind working someplace else, a sure sign that Mikhail Prokhorov's regime isn't engendering great morale. It's equally puzzling why Prokhorov didn't push for a change; instead, he allowed the architect of a 12-win team to execute the Nets' draft and free-agent strategy before heading out.

New Jersey did one thing right: All its free-agent dollars went on players age 25 or younger, an admirable piece of restraint from a franchise that realistically is a couple of years away from doing anything noteworthy. In one case in particular (sharpshooter Anthony Morrow), the Nets got unbelievable value. Unfortunately, the deals for Outlaw ($35 million for five years) and Johan Petro (three years, $10 million) are ridiculous.

As a result, there will be no quick fix in New Jersey. The Nets have a decent foundation with Devin Harris, Brook Lopez and rookie Derrick Favors, and they'll at least double their win total, but Prokhorov's arrival as a power player appears to have been wildly overstated.

---

[h3]Minnesota Timberwolves[/h3]

KAAHHHHNNNN!!! OK, had to get that one out. No, nobody is quite sure what the strategy is under Timberwolves general manager David Kahn.

I'd say they're rebuilding, but their big free-agent pickup was a 30-year-old point guard, and they traded their first-round pick for Martell Webster.

I'd say they're focusing on value contracts, but they just gave Darko Milicic a four-year, $20 million deal.

I'd say they're trying to corner the market on point guards, but the league has about 70 of them and the Wolves can hoard only 15 at any one time.

I'd say they're acquiring players who can thrive in coach Kurt Rambis' triangle system, except they're not -- they keep acquiring small pick-and-roll point guards with iffy outside shots.

I'd say they're building around character and discipline, but they traded for Michael Beasley and Milicic.

I'd say they're focused on opportunistic trades, except that they unloaded their best player for 50 cents on the dollar and repeated the exercise with Ramon Sessions.

The only thing I can confidently say is that they'll be terrible again this year, and probably for several years afterward. The Wolves have a rising star in Kevin Love and a couple of other interesting pieces (keep an eye on Euro import Nikola Pekovic), but it's not clear whether they're coming or going right now. I'm not sure they know, either.