Not sure I like Kevin Martin. He's like an oft-injured Ben Gordon. I like our own oft-injured Deng more. Deng can guard guys like LeBron and Melo. I don't see Martin doing the same against Wade or Kobe.
Why in the world would cleveland trade JJ Hickson --no matter how big a pain West is-- only to get Nocioni in return.
I sort of like the idea of Kevin Martin, but I don't know if trading Deng to get him makes us much different. He's rather less injury prone, but still pretty injury prone. I don't know if dollar for dollar he's much of a better risk than Deng. The best case scenario for that is we've recreated the devastating Salmons/K-Mart attack the Kings had going for them last year. Oh wait.... Alternatively, what we we ignored injury risk altogether and offered a Kirk+change (James Johnson... to balance out the 2010 ramifications) trade for K-Mart. That would make some sense for the Kings, since I'd speculate that Kirk would be a good fit as a not quite PG to pair with Tyreke as a bigger not quite PG. For us, we'd be be getting the better player at a more obvious need position. I think that'd help us be credible this year without really damaging our 2010 prospects next year (at least cap-wise).
I really like Hinrich, but I also like Miller. I like Hinrich for his defense, but Miller for his passing. How adept is Hinrich at feeding the post? If you had asked me two weeks ago, I would have jumped all over a trade with the Bulls. Now, I'm really interested in seeing if Webster can keep this up, if Rudy can continue to be our spark off the bench, and if Dante Cunningham can be our backup four. Maybe we can revisit this conversation in a month or so?
Honestly, Kirk is pretty meh as a distributor. He's NBA quality, but those aren't his strengths as a player.
He's a better distributor than the numbers show. Guys haven't exactly been knocking down shots from the open looks he's been getting them over the last couple of years. Nor has he played with a decent finisher in his career. Also, Kmart would be about my 7th choice of SG options in this upcoming offseason. I'd rather the bulls work on getting a top flight SG than any other position because I think the potential available quality is the best at that position. All of the PF's come with a lot of questions and/or baggage.
I just checked, and you're right, I didn't realize he was playing so well for the Cavs. That's still pretty easy to get around though. You could substitute guys like Jawad Williams and Coby Karl and still make the trade work, so the Cavs end up getting rid of nothing that they seem to need and get a useful player in return.
update: Look at the way Marc Gasol is playing. Acquiring him would really help out Noah by moving him to his natural position, giving us a needed boost at in the front.
Obviously we're very close to the luxury tax and we're finding our "depth" of Gray, Pargo and Hunter is (to everyone's complete shock) not very good. One way to acquire another player or two without going over the luxury tax threshold would be to find a team over the luxury tax that would like to save money by unloading an unneeded player onto us for James. Here's a couple examples of how it'd work. Bulls trade Jerome James ($6.6M, but insurance is covering his contract, so the true bill to the team is only $1.3M). Bucks trade Luke Ridnour ($6.5M) OR Bucks trade Joe Alexander, Fran Elson, Roko Ukic ($5.6M) In either trade, the salary cap ramifications are basically neutral, but the Bulls go from collecting insurance on James to actually paying that much salary. So the downside for the Bulls is they have to spend more money. But, they actually get players who may be useful. The Bucks, on the other hand, have little use for any of those players, as none of them but Ridnour play much. Ridnour is actually a useful player, but the Bucks have Jennings, Bell, Redd, and Delfino, as well as Jodie Meeks, to suck up most of the minutes. By trading Ridnour for James, the Bucks save about $5M. We'd have to spend about $5M A similar deal could be had with the Lakers. We trade James, and the Lakers trade Adam Morrison and Jordan Farmar. That'd save the Lakers something on the order of $6.5M when it comes to luxury tax bill. Of course, maybe the Lakers are more interested in winning and wouldn't give up Farmar for nothing. But it'd be worth exploring. Of course, from a Bulls perspective, any of these deals would increase our payroll, even though they wouldn't put us into the luxury tax.
It's not being removed from the salary cap. That's a separate issue from whether the disability insurance is picked up. Because he's hurt, insurance is covering 80% of his salary. In general, a team can remove a player from its cap when they waive him and when he incurred an injury with the team that ended his career. The Bulls wouldn't be able to get salary cap relief in this way however, because he suffered his career ending injury (if indeed, it is) when he played for the Knicks. Basically, the NBA closed this loophole a few years ago to prevent trading around guys whose careers were over for cap relief. You can still get financial relief in terms of salary being paid by insurance, but it doesn't help you with cap and tax issues.
Another TMac idea. Bulls trade Miller, Jerome James, Hinrich Rockets trade TMac, Brian Cook, Kyle Lowry I tend to think this would work well for everyone 1- Rose, Lowry, Hunter 2- McGrady, Salmons,, Rose, Pargo 3- Deng, Salmons, JJ 4- Tyrus, Deng, Cook, Gibson 5- Noah, Cook, Gray I wouldn't feel great about our depth up front, but I'd roll the dice with going small and playing more up-tempo. We'd at least be somewhat equipped to do it with Lowry and TMac in the fold. I tend to think this works well for the Rockets too. They seem to not want TMac, so they're effectively getting Hinrich and Miller, who would both be useful, for Lowry.
That's a pretty good trade. Salmons would be great off of the bench, and almost certain to opt out because he wants to be a starter. That would get the bulls a ton of cap space. They'd be thin at center, but they'd be more athletic and able to run more if McGrady has anything left in the tank. And Miller hasn't brought much so far this year.
