Every year, it seems, there’s at least some talk of T-Mac to the Bulls. My first thought is that it might actually make sense this year. To get any trade, you have to have the conditions be right. I see the conditions for T-Mac to the Bulls as something like: 1. T-Mac is healthy approaching the deadline. Don’t think anyone would make this trade now, but suppose T-Mac gets on the court in December-January and show’s he’s not utterly useless. 2. The Rockets are respectable over the course of the season and want to push for playoff revenues while picking up a longer term piece. They’re loaded on the wings, but they needs a PG. A package centered around Brad Miller and Kirk Hinrich could help them. Kirk would fit as the longer-term PG, Miller as the replacement for Yao to get them through the year. 3. The Bulls are also pushing for a playoff berth but also need to gain 2010 flexibility. The problem for the Bulls this year is they’re gonna have a pretty hard time scoring points. TMac is a legitimate bailout option if he’s able to play. For next year, TMac is doubly beneficial. First, he clears Kirk’s $9.5M salary off the books. Second, if there’s some level of success this season with TMac, it might be possible to re-sign him for quite a bit less and still bring in another significant player. A playoff run boosted by the potential return of TMac, next year, might give this team a credibility boost to our hopes of getting a major free agent. So my basic trade would be Hinrich+Miller for TMac That leaves us with 1- Rose, Pargo, Hunter 2- McGrady, Salmons 3- Deng, Johnson 4- Thomas, Gibson 5- Noah, Gray The Rockets roll out 1- Hinrich, Lowry 2- Ariza, Brooks 3- Battier, Buddinger 4- Scola, Landry, Hayes 5- Miller, Andersen (and Yao next year)
I don't know why, but I just have a gut feeling TMac will be back to scoring 23-25 PPG this year. Maybe its the optimism on his health and how ahead of schedule he is, I don't know. What do you guys think about shipping Deng instead of Hinrich?
I like the idea of Kirk for expirings but can't see Rockets going there given they already have Lowery and Brooks.
Why not? With Gordon gone, TMac can fill the void of the 20+ point scorer who plays decent D. Also, if Deng is shipped, they keep the length with TMac coming in; all while, we unload Hinrich and Miller (whom i love, but can tell won't stay with the team long). It's a bit of a risk, but then again, the Bulls don;'t have much to lose since they'll most likely place 8th seed and get eliminated first round -- if they stay with this current lineup.
The bulls still won't be able to sign anybody with Tmac on the roster because his cap hold will be $21 million. They'd have to renounce him first and if they signed a max player, the bulls would only be able to sign Tmac to a little more than an exception. But it would be one way to clear more cap space. I wouldn't be against just letting tmac walk if the point was to get space. I don't see him morphing into some kind of cagey vet as he gets older. And I don't see him being worth $10 mil plus.
I'd be very happy to ship the Rockets Deng instead of Hinrich, though I'm not sure why the Rockets would find Deng more valuable since they've got Battier and Ariza. In contrast, I think Kirk is a step up over Lowry and Brooks. One of the big problems with those guys, in addition to just not being that great, is they're both pretty tiny. I think in the end, Kirk is both better than them, and could play alongside them for stretches. I'm not sure, by the way, that Ariza is really gonna work out as a 2.
Well, if the Bulls end up at something like $32M under the cap (if they really cleared the decks), they could spend $17M on a max FA and then offer TMac $8M or so to come back, even after renouncing him. If we wanted him, that is. If we traded away both Deng and Hinrich, we'd have the space to bring in more than just a max player.
Larry Coon in the NYT suggest Curry and Darko for tmac so maybe this one ain't so crazy. Coon has the deal saving Houston a lot of money due to the LuxTax. If we had the right owner, we could almostly certain come up with a deal that would save them about $10M and cost us $10M by them sending us $25M in contacts and we send $20M. Houston could figure out their PG position later.
I may be the minority but i think that Deng would it real well with Ariza and Battier. Battier can play SG/SF/PF (on D), while Ariza will bring the ball up and play SG/SF. I don't think size at the PG will matter all too much when you are strong and long at the 2 and 3 position. I guess it al depends on how Deng performs the first month (or two) to get a good evaluation, but if lightning does twice and he overachieves, I'd like to see him gone before Hinrich--who meshes well with Rose.
Except they'd have to pay Curry and Darko. Yuck. I'd have to think that if the Rockets wanted to make a big cash saving deal, they could find better than that. TMac's got some short-term star power and an expiring contract. If I were the rockets, I'd look for expiring contracts in addition to those savings (e.g. Larry Hughes+Darko). The Jazz might be interesting... they could offer Boozer and Matt Harpring's expiring contract. That'd get the Rockets under the cap and give them an actually useful player. Really, there are a lot of teams out there I could see working a deal like that. If they wanted a longer term deal (a la Curry), they could probably find a better player somewhere else too.
