http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...?slug=aw-sunstrades021109&prov=yhoo&type=lgns Interesting story from Yahoo, sorry if this angle has already been posted. The Suns owner is so desperate to cut payroll, he's initiating his own trade talks with teams, undermining Steve Kerr and his trade talks.
If they want to save money, we're the one's they should be looking at. KP MUST be taking advantage of this kind of desperation.
Sarver's on his way to becoming James Dolan, Al Davis, John Y. Brown, you name it. This guy's a retard. Sell the franchise if you need money.
Wow. The franchise seems to be a mess right now. This is bizarre. Maybe Amare can be had for not very much outside of expiring money...
my thoughts exactly. raef has the best contract as far as expiring deals go, and can put money in sarvers pocket alot sooner than anyone else. if we are willing to take any other salary they are eager to shed, we are sitting very pretty in these trade talks. this trade sheds them of barbosas salary as well, saves them 3 million in straight salary this year, puts a 10 million dollar insurance check in sarvers pocket, and saves him at least another 15 million next year, possibly 20 million if they dont pick up outlaws option. figuring out what to do with all these bigs can be for another day. as long as we max LMA anyways this summer, i doubt he gives two shits about sharing time for now. blake roy batum amare oden barbosa rudy martel lma pryz i know, crazy talk.
i think if we could get amare for cheap we should turn around and trade him for devin harris, or tayshaun prince.
Not just that, Portland can also throw in Frye and Diogu for an extra $8 million or so in expiring money. That would be around $20 million in expiring cash. That's a pretty huge chunk of change.
i would be willing to get rid of 2 of these 3 to get harris. batum, bayless, and rudy. prince i would likely just want to get rid of one(rudy)
Sarver sounds desperate, probably cold-calling everyone. Memphis has cap room, so could absorb Amare without Phoenix having to take salary back.
People need to understand, when considering a trade here, just how finance in the NBA works. A few points. 1. You still have to pay the salary of expiring contracts, so they don't constitute any real savings. 2. Raef's contract is 80% insured, but the season is like 60% over. That means if the Suns traded for Raef right this minute, his remaining salary would be $4.2M, of which insurance would pick up the tab for $3.4M or so. Still nice, but that's not the biggest way the Suns could realize savings. 3. The Suns stand to make a much bigger financial turnaround by getting under the luxury tax. They're currently something like $4.8M over the tax threshold. That means they are going to not only have to pay that salary, but pay $4.8M to the league on top of it. And finally, it means the team won't receive a share of the escrow and luxury tax distributions from the league. Last year these amounted to about $8.5M per team under the tax. It will probably be a bit less this year, but still substantial. To simplify, this means that if a team can fashion a trade with the Suns that shaves a little under $5M off the Suns' team salary, they stand to benefit by something like $13M. a. The Suns won't have to pay as much salary over the rest of the year. This figures to be about $3.3M in savings. b. The won't have to pay $5M in tax to the league. c. The Suns will get several million - probably on the order of $4-8M if history is a guide - in cash from the league. So that's a cash turnaround of something like $12-16M dollars. That's a pretty big turnaround. To put it in perspective, that's as much as a very good player costs, and more than the annual operating income of most of the league's teams. In short, it's an amount of money that even the wealthiest teams would consider carefully, and a an amount of money that could really make a big difference to a team facing a serious cash problem. It's my belief, after reading up on everything, that the winning bid for Amare is going to be one that gets the Suns under the luxury tax. I'm sure they'll require some talent back too, but in the grand scheme of things, that's the secondary consideration.
