Tag: 2010 NBA free agency (Page 51 of 57)

      Butler to the Bulls?

      January 4, 2010 /

      That’s the rumor, according to the Chicago Sun-Times…

      Rumors were circulating Sunday that the Washington Wizards, in an attempt to shake things up, are shopping swingman Caron Butler, with the Bulls and the Miami Heat being the likely trading partners.

      From the Bulls, the Wizards reportedly would seek guard Kirk Hinrich to provide some stability. The rumors also had the expiring contracts of Jerome James and Mike James being included, although the contracts of Butler ($9.78 million) and Hinrich ($9.5 million) are close enough to do the deal straight up.

      Once thought untouchable due to his skill level and affordable contract, the Wizards are actually thinking about trading the 29-year-old Butler away. Next season, he is set to make $10.6 million in the final year of his contract. That’s not bad for a guy who has proven that he can score like Butler has. (He posted back-to-back 20+ point seasons with Gilbert Arenas sidelined.)

      While I like Kirk Hinrich’s defensive mentality and willingness to share the ball, a straight up trade would be a coup for the Bulls if they can retain enough cap space to sign a big-name free agent (Dwyane Wade?) next summer. Butler’s salary next season is $1.6 million more than Hinrich’s, so assuming a cap of $50 million in 2010-2011, that would trim the Bulls’ cap space from around $12.5 million to less than $11 million. Of course, these figures assume that John Salmons does not terminate the final year of his deal (~$5.8 million).

      With a core of Rose, Butler, Deng and Noah, the Bulls would be a very attractive place for Wade to land. The post mentioned that the Heat are also interested in Butler, which is interesting considering the Butler-to-Chicago rumors.

      NBA, Rumors & Gossip

      Chris Bosh to Miami makes too much sense

      December 28, 2009 /

      In his latest (6900-word?) column, Bill Simmons plays GM and suggests several “fake trade offers” for teams looking to save money this season.

      He made an interesting point about Chris Bosh.

      As I wrote in July, there’s nothing more dangerous than a GM worried about his job who dumps the team’s long-term interests to protect the short term. Everything Bryan Colangelo did this past summer screamed, “I need to keep my job!!!” Now the Raptors are hamstrung with an overpaid, below-.500 roster that doubles as the worst defensive team of this decade — seriously, what did they think would happen when Jose Calderon, Hedo Turkoglu and Andrea Bargnani were three of the team’s best four guys? — and Chris Bosh seems like a mortal lock to leave. You can’t do the Frank Drebin Memorial “Please disperse, nothing to see here, please disperse” routine. Raptors fans are too smart. They get it.

      By dealing Bosh, Colangelo would be effectively saying, “I made some mistakes, we need to press the RESET button and start over.” Translation: “Fire me, I deserve it.” Because nobody would ever sabotage his job like that, he probably will keep Bosh, make a smaller trade and pray things turn around. If they don’t, the Raptors will get nothing for him. Not fair to the Raptor Truthers. At all.

      If Colangelo is feeling the heat, then it is unlikely that he’ll move Bosh before the February deadline. He’s going to have a tough time getting equal value because the whole league knows that since the Raptors are losing, Bosh is likely to bolt. Why would other teams trade for a guy that they can sign in six months?

      Well, one reason to believe that Bosh may indeed be on the move is that a team out there (like, say, the Miami Heat, who have their own superstar to worry about) might want to acquire Bosh now and not wait until the summer to try to sign him. In the case of the Heat, it would be doubly important because trading for Bosh would almost certainly convince Wade to stay in sunny Miami next summer. (Unless, of course, he already has other plans.)

      Doesn’t a deal that would send Bosh and the bad contracts of Marcus Banks and Reggie Evans to Miami for Michael Beasley and Jermaine O’Neal’s expiring contract make a lot of sense for both teams? Yes, it’s not equal value for Bosh, but the Raptors would get a good young player (Beasley) and would save almost $10 million next season. In fact, they’d have $8 million of cap space to spend if they so choose. All of this for a guy they have almost no chance of re-signing anyway.

      I know Heat fans would want to do this. What about Raptor fans?


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      NBA, Rumors & Gossip

      Wade and LeBron plan to “sit down and talk about” playing together in 2010

      December 23, 2009 /

      This came straight from Dwyane Wade, via Peter Vecsey of the New York Post…

      “A lot of times in this league, players usually wind up going where they can get the most money. We’re both blessed within that area. We’ve made a lot of money. So we wanted to base our decision on two things, the organization and the ability to win a title. And that’s what we’ll do. When the season is over, we plan to sit down and talk about it.

      “I’m not saying it will happen. But I’m intrigued by the idea.

      “I probably couldn’t have handled playing with someone like LeBron earlier in my career, but I’m older now. You’re talking about two big egos and meshing them. That’d take a lot of sacrifice on LeBron’s part and it’d take a lot of sacrifice on my part to succeed. But we would succeed because we know winning takes care of everything.”

      The Heat will have the cap space to re-sign Wade and sign another max contract free agent, but other than that, there aren’t any teams out there with that kind of flexibility. If the Knicks can shed Jared Jeffries’ contract (which seems more likely than moving Eddy Curry at this point) they would also be able to sign two max players.

      If the Heat were able to sign both Wade and LeBron, I think they’d have to agree beforehand to take the same money, so the two are on equal footing. (The Heat can offer Wade an extra year since they hold his rights.) It’s not often that two swingmen of this caliber are paired together, but it worked pretty well in Chicago with Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen and I don’t see why it couldn’t work in Miami (or New York, for that matter). The Jordan/Pippen combo was a bit different as MJ was the clear alpha dog while Pippin was tasked with being the team’s defensive stopper, though with their Team USA experience, LeBron and Wade are going into next summer with open eyes. They know they can play together.

      Cavs fans shouldn’t hold out hope that Wade will land in Cleveland. The team doesn’t have the cap space necessary to sign a free agent of his caliber, so it would have to be done via sign-and-trade (i.e. the Heat would have to agree to trade him). The chances of that happening are slim to none.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      Great Quotes: Tracy McGrady

      December 17, 2009 /

      T-Mac speaks out about where he wants to be next season, via Fanhouse…

      “Money is not an issue for me…If it boiled down to it, I got a great, great adidas contract. So money is not an issue. I just want to win. That’s my main focus…At this stage of my career, it’s all about winning. I don’t care about a max contract or nothing like that. I want to play basketball, and I want to win. … There’s no question (about wanting to return to Houston). I don’t want to put all my eggs in one basket, but definitely this is where I’d love to be.”

      — Tracy McGrady

      McGrady is in the final year of his contract and is making $23 million per season, so he’s right to not expect a max contract — the market simply won’t bear it. Whether or not the Rockets want to bring him back will depend on how well he can fit into the team concept that Daryl Morey and Rick Adelman have created in Houston.

      McGrady played a few minutes the other night, but seems a long way away from competing at the level that he was at prior to his injury. The Rockets would be wise to ease him back into some minutes and see what his trade value is. If they can pry a first round pick or a good young prospect away from another team and not take on any additional long term salary in the process, they should pull the trigger.

      NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      Knicks trading for Tyrus Thomas?

      December 4, 2009 /

      According to Adrian Wojnarowski…

      Several sources believe the Bulls are agreeable to a package of Thomas and Jerome James(notes) for Knicks forward Al Harrington(notes). Thus far, Walsh has resisted parting with Harrington, but discussions are still active and the teams have explored different combinations in recent days that would ultimately deliver Thomas to the Knicks.

      Intuitively, this deal makes some sense. The Bulls are going to have to shed some salary in order to have enough cap space to offer a max contract to someone like Dwyane Wade, LeBron James or Chris Bosh, and Thomas’s name is the one that most often comes up since he’s nearing the end of his rookie contract. The Bulls would need to give up their rights to Thomas (or hope that John Salmons exercises an early termination on the final year of his contract) to have enough cap space to offer a max contract. Jerome James is only included to make the numbers work since both teams are over the cap.

      For the Knicks, Thomas would be another piece to the puzzle, though he would eat into the team’s projected cap space. Right now, assuming a cap of $50 million, the Knicks would have roughly $23 million to spend, which is enough for one max contract, but not two. A trade for Thomas would reduce that cap space to $16-$17 million, so they would add a talented up-and-comer (who looks to be a perfect fit at power forward in Mike D’Antoni’s up-tempo system) and still be able to sign LeBron or Wade (or some other big-name free agent). All at the expense of Al Harrington, whom the Knicks aren’t going to re-sign anyway.

      Another angle on this deal is that the Knicks are essentially assisting the Bulls in becoming a competitor for LeBron and Wade next summer. However, the Bulls could simply hold onto Thomas and let him become a free agent next summer, so the upside for the Knicks is that they get the rights to Thomas knowing that the Bulls are going to be a competitor anyway. By trading for Harrington, the Bulls’ prospects for this season would improve. So since they’re probably going to lose Thomas anyway, they might as well improve in the short-term.

      One the Knicks have to consider is the chances that they can move either Eddy Curry or Jared Jeffries. If they’re able to unload one of those players for expiring salary, they would have enough cap space to offer two max contracts next summer, so LeBron/Bosh or LeBron/Amare suddenly becomes a possibility. The likelihood of the Knicks moving either player seems slim, unless they are willing to give up David Lee or Danilo Gallinari in the deal.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      NBA, Rumors & Gossip

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑