Chad Ford: Trade Watch (Guards and Forwards)

Article here

Don't know if this was posted at all. I know the brief info about Salmons was posted in the Salmons thread, but I figure it might as well be brought up as a more global discussion of our interest at SF.

Ford lays out his thoughts on the most likely forwards to be traded by the deadline.

High profile players include Marion, J. Howard, M. Daniels, Salmons, Vince Carter and Tracy McGrady.

*also in a footnote - Travis Outlaw.

Absent: Gerald Wallace, R. Jefferson, M. Redd, Butler, Granger and Prince.

Assume Ford's article is 100% accurate and these players are the only available at the deadline, what looks attractive to you?

Personally, I wonder if Salmons IS a legit target, if not I noticed in the footnotes of Vince Carter's graf that there has been some interest from Houston and Carter would likely be dealt for cap space and picks.

Any chance you would bite on a 3 team deal with T-Mac going to Portland, Raef/Outlaw/sergio/?? to NJ and Vince to Houston?

 

T-Mac, even if we could get him, would not work well. His own teammates don't want him because he can't stay healthy. Look how much our team is affected when Blake, Roy or Oden go out. T-Mac would be out that much more. It makes it hard to build consistent chemistry when you can't keep your starters on the floor.

Personally, I would say no to every player on that list. Wallace would be an interesting add, but he isn't on there.

Side Note: Is AI really considered a wing?

 

Man I don't know about Tmac now. A few weeks back I thought differently, and then I took the time to watch a few of his games. He seemed to be having serious problems with elevation with the knee issues. Jumpshots were short, not even making rim. I don't know if it was just a bad night, if he was tired, or if it was the knees.

 

Yao ming bitching about T-Mac being hurt was absolutely ridiculous. Look who's hurt now? It's Yao, he is very injury prone himself, for him to say anything about T-Mac being hurt is laughable.

That being said, I wouldn't want T-Mac on the team. I would think about Salmons, Marion and Carter (If he could play SF), but nothing makes me jump out of my seat

 

Carter is kind of intriguing. He gets paid a lot, but I am betting his effort on the court would be a hell of a lot more motivated if he was playing for a team that he felt had a shot.

 

Marquis Daniels would be a nice compliment to this team. I'm just not sure that I'd give up that much for him, when we already have Outlaw doing a good job as the 6th man SF.

 

come on. that's a joke.

first off, that story wasn't even true. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/6213580.html

and then, had it been true, it would have been entirely understandable. yes, yao has had major injuries the last three seasons(all unrelated of course), but he also has consistently played through injuries as long as he was physically able and the team would allow him to. that actually was part of the problem as he played with his infected big toe until it was so bad it required surgery and then played with the stress fracture in his foot for something like 2 or 3 weeks. and then he came back a little early from his broken leg to be back in time for the playoffs.

yao might be injured right now(he just has a sore knee that they are being careful with and as far as i know will be back playing tonight), but let's not pretend that his situation is anything like tmac's. at one point this year tmac went to go see a specialist who agreed with the rockets doctors that there was no structural damage and that tmac could do no further damage to his knee by playing and that playing through the pain was actually part of the recovery process and tmac still chose to sit out games.

 

I stand corrected, I never got to read the follow up with Yao refuting those reports.

 

of course, i agree with you about not wanting tmac on the blazers. he'd be a horrible fit.

 

T-Mac is just a name these days. He is not a good player anymore. He gives up on his team all the time.

 

Vince Carter is the player that stands out to me. He's still a star-level player with no significant weaknesses. He's not the best defender, but he's about average. He can shoot and attack the rim, he creates for others. The difference between Carter and Batum this season and probably for the next couple of seasons would be gigantic.

Obviously, it boils down to cost...what New Jersey would want in return. I doubt they're willing to give him away. He's paid a lot, but still plays well enough to justify his salary.

 

Amazingly enough what did Chad Ford say they were looking for? Cap relief and draft picks. What do we have? Cap relief and picks. Maybe a body or two if you want it.

 

If T-Mac is really a shell of the player he used to be . . . makes me wonder are the Rockets all that good?

Yao alone is dominate, but injury prone. The supporting cast is better than average, but no one talks about tehRockets being the team to miss the playoffs. If Yao gets hurt for the stretch run (like the last couple years?) do they make the palyoffs?

 

Yeah, Ford says that's what they want. I'm sure they want cap space and draft picks, but I don't really believe that that's all they want.

But if Carter can be had for just LaFrentz and a pick or three, great. Adding Carter's scoring and play-making to this team could vault them to the San Antonio level...top of the tier below Cleveland/Boston/LAL.

 

The Rockets are extremely vulnerable. They challenged for the top seed last year, somehow. I really still can't figure it out, since McGrady wasn't that great (better than this year, but nowhere near his prime level) and Yao was hurt.

This year, McGrady isn't making an impact. Yao and Artest and a group of decent role-players aren't enough. Brent Barry collapsing utterly has also killed them.

Houston could easily miss the playoffs. They were contenders only on the off-chance that everyone stayed healthy and no one dropped off. They haven't stayed healthy and McGrady and Barry have dropped off cliffs.

 

McGrady really is an intriguing player.

He's not anywhere near as elite of a scorer (or player) as he used to be, but he's always been more than a scorer anyways. McGrady still has excellent court vision and passing skills. He's beat up (bad back, bad knees) but I wonder if he wouldn't fit on this team for 15-20 mpg at the 3, maybe even playing a little point forward.

His career is clearly on the downswing but I'm not convinced it's at the bottom yet. His TS% is up (helped by a career year from the FT line) but he's always stepped it up in the playoffs and IMO would be a nice veteran addition to this team.

Read that last line again... "always stepped it up in the playoffs." In order to trade for McGrady, the Rockets would need to understand that they're not trading "TRACY MCGRADY," the onetime top 3 player in the league but now just trading McGrady, a potentially washed-up savvy veteran who is probably not a top 2 or 3 player on his own team now. Shed the idea of McGrady being one of the best of his era, and then shed the idea that McGrady is a choker in the postseason. It's not true. He's just usually on a really bad team... not sure how many times he's been a higher seed in the first round, but I'd doubt it's many.

Anyways, assuming we could acquire McGrady for some package of Outlaw + Raef, then I'm 1000% on board. Outlaw is actually a similar player to McGrady right now, and McGrady would certainly play well in our slow-paced system.

 

I largely agree with everything you've said here. I'm just not sure I'd take on McGrady's enormous contract for a player who, these days, is basically Travis Outlaw with better decision-making, in terms of production. That would certainly be a useful player, but McGrady is being paid the max.

 

Well, neither you (I think) nor I am paying the bills, so I didn't really factor that in. T-Mac's a 2010 expiring deal anyways, so it's really only one more year anyways. I'm not sure what the rules are with the bird rights/extending roy and aldridge/being a FA player but I feel like any impact player we'd add (and McGrady is a 4th or 5th option is borderline impact) would have to come through trade, not free agency.

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=454~2015~532&teams=10~10~22&te=&cash=10:22

Give me McGrady, Monta Ellis, Josh Smith, or LeBron.

 

Well, it's not a question of who's paying for it. It's really saying that we're giving up on adding another player using the space that LaFrentz represents, to upgrade on Outlaw a little bit.

On the other hand, you're right that McGrady is a 2010 expiring contract. It's hard to use him to get a really good player, though. He could be traded at the 2010 deadline for a soon-to-be free agent (along with draft picks and/or a young player to try and make it worth the other team's while) like a Chris Bosh or something. But I doubt any of those big free agents will be moved...their teams will probably try to the end to get them to re-sign and they can always do a sign-and-trade in the off-season. Letting McGrady just expire probably won't take Portland much below the cap since Roy and Aldridge will ink new deals in the 2009 off-season.

So, I'm not sure his expiring contract can be used very effectively. I'd rather shoot for a better long-term player using RLEC.