Trade idea on how to bring Joakim Noah to Portland

I really want Joakim Noah in Portland. He is a perfect for for this city and this franchise. Chicago is trying to blow it up and rebuild. He's only 28 but the other major pieces there are much younger. Rose is still only 25, Butler is 24 and Nikola Mirotić is 22. I think we could build a really attractive package around CJ, Thomas Robinson and Meyers Leonard. I have to include Freeland to make the salaries work.

CJ 2,316,720
Meyers 2,222,160
T-Rob 3,526,440
Mo Williams 2,652,000
Joel Freeland 2,897,976
Outgoing salary 13,615,296

Noah 11,100,000
Mike James 884,293
Nazr Mohammed 884,293
Marquis Teague 490,180
Erik Murphy 490,180
Incoming salary 13,848,946

After the trade our roster would look like
PG Lillard, Marquis Teague, Mike James, Eric Watson
SG Matthews, Crabbe, Barton
SF Batum, Wright, Claver
PF LMA, Murphy
C Noah, Lopez, Mohammed

I would cut James and Murphy and then would be very interested in trying to get Tyrus Thomas and Rodrigue Beaubois to come in on 1 year deals to even up the roster a bit. Thomas could be a nice reclamation project, if he worked out he would be a solid backup 4. Also would look at Booby Gibson or Jamaal Tinsley for the PG spot as a fill in guy. It definitely hurt to lose Mo and CJ in the same deal without getting a good backcourt player back but Noah would make our starting 5 the best in the league. I also think Crabbe could be a great SG off the bench with some more time. Even if we didn't win it all this year the roster would be in a very good place to contend for the next several years.

 

Id.

I.

Otic.

 

Wookee, you're a man of few words, but I have to agree with you on this one.

 

I agree with the Wookie

 

How is this idiotic? Honestly I don't see Chicago doing it. Noah is an all star caliber player. It's not idiotic if you're getting the best player (who is a great person too)

 

No thanks. Besides, I doubt Chicago would agree to anything close to that. They may want to blow it up, but I doubt that would mean trading Noah and the others for a group of backups.

 

It's idiotic because it's one of those trades that would make both teams worse. Chicago wouldn't do it because they need Noah as their second major piece in rebuilding around Rose. They aren't giving him up for some young guys with potential to be something in the future. Portland, OTOH, loses all of the chemistry that they've built to this point in the year, loses depth at 2G and PF, and all for the chance to add a center who pushes Lopez to the bench and makes him want to leave when his contract is up.

 

There is no need to involve that many players. They won't want Mo Williams as they are trying to tank. If we trade away CJ Mo is even more important to this Blazers team for bench scoring. Since we are under the luxury tax we can take back 150% of salary I believe? The Bulls are very interested in saving money so they would want salary, young assets, and picks. With Noah making $11 million I believe we only need to send back $7.5? If thats so then TRob, Meyers, CJ is enough. If we need to send them more salary they can have their pick of Barton/Claver/Watson type bench players.

The pick we owe to Charlotte prevents us from trading a number of first round picks, but we could send them completely unprotected picks in 2018 and 2020. Or one pick with protections. Those could be valuable assets. CJ is the player I have the most hesitance to trade, he could be a great backup on our squad. Also, trading young players on rookie contracts could hurt our salary cap in summer of 2015. I'd hate to lose one of our starters because we brought in Noah, and also lose a young asset. So there are reasons to not go through with this trade if you are Portland. But if you can bring in Noah the team needs to carefully explore those options.

I think the Bulls would rather keep a proven allstar and try to build around him and Rose plus bring in more assets in the summer. But if we start throwing in picks, salary relief and young players they will consider the offer.

 

Uh, no, it would just make Chicago worse. Any team that gets Noah without giving up an all-star wins the deal. Noah is a transformative player. Which is why Chicago would never do that trade. I say that as someone who this very day has been trying to work out a trade for Noah on TradeMachine.

Chicago has to be a little careful not to destroy the team too much and piss off Thibodeau and Rose. (Although at this point Rose may be their Oden.)

 

Having said that, I think Chicago would think seriously about a trade that brought them back Robin Lopez (along with CJ, Leonard [whose main appeal is that he went to college in Illinois - I really can't see Thibodeau liking his game] and Thomas Robinson, in part because Lopez is so much cheaper than Noah. But we shouldn't do that because Robin Lopez is my favorite Blazer now.

 

When I was making the post I thought the salaries would have to be about even since we are over the cap. Since looking it up I see you're closer to being right, it says that the maximum incoming salary can be 125% of the outgoing salary, plus $100,000. I originally was going to propose CJ, Meyers, Robinson and our 2018 1st round pick unprotected for Noah. I don't believe we'd lose any of our starters in 2015 as we'd have Bird rights on all of them to resign them and if the team is in championship contention mode PA will pay the tax to keep us there. The Bulls are a weird franchise and much more dysfunctional behind the scenes than I think many believe. They have mistreated their players throughout the entire Reinsdorf era and I don't believe the owner really cares about winning. He spends money on the White Sox but treats the Bulls like a red headed step child. They blew up the 90's Bull team once Jordan retired even though that team would have still been a good team for several more years. Considering they traded Deng for cap space. Considering they shipped Tyson Chandler out for PJ Brown, JR Smith and cap space, then used that cap space to pay Ben Wallace I think a CJ/Meyers/Robinson/future 1st round pick would be very enticing, not only because of the talent those three (4?) possess but also because of how cheap they will be for several more years.

 

I don't think Noah is the type of player we break up our starters for. Backups and future picks yes you consider it but our starters are basically untouchable. If a starter could be part of an MVP level trade as when olshey got CP3 we'd look at it but Noah isn't close to that level.

 

I thought it was 125% for tax teams and 150% for under tax teams like us.

 

We don't lose a single starter in this deal. Sure Lopez moves to the bench but he would still get plenty of minutes considering he would be the only competent big off the bench besides Freeland

 

That's just it. He's a scumbag.

 

I thought we're over the cap this year? Our salary is at 62,869,557, salary cap is at 58,679,000

 

I didn't want to cut Teague, I wanted to cut James and replace him with a FA like Rodrigue Beaubois, Booby Gibson or Jamaal Tinsley. Of course none of them are perfect options either but not quite as bad as Mike James lol

 

Uh, let's just say that we disagree on how transformative a player Noah is. Better than Lopez? Sure. Shaq or Olajuwon good? Not hardly. The main reason
I said Portland gets worse is for the balance of this season. All of the improvement of the second unit over last year is pretty much flushed away since it takes time to build a cohesive unit. Teague, Crabbe, Wright, & Murphy don't thrill me as backups in a playoff run. I think over the summer Olshey could build the second unit up, but I think that the rest of this year would be a mess.

At any rate, we agree that Chicago isn't going to do it anyway, so no point in spending too much time debating it.