http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/11838893/13535220 As long as Miami doesn't offer Beasley, I just can't see an offer beating us, unless a team like the Hawks jump in with something like Bibby and Horford. I like that the Bulls involved in the mix hasn't faded out yet. But we always seem to be in trade talks until the end. I think because Kerr is a Chicago guy, this one might turn out differently. Good to see Portland out of the mix as well. I thought the Western Conference had teams that could make better talent offers than us, but because those teams suck, they would most likely lose Amare in 2010 after giving up whatever they had to give up to get amare. (I'm talking about Sacramento and Golden State). And I'm sure the Suns didn't want to create a Roy/Amare/Oden trio, and that's why the Portland talks died. (similar to how the Bulls wouldn't trade Gordon to Miami despite getting some cap relief by getting rid of Nocioni's expiring with Gordon).
Man that Portland deal would have been a beautiful move by Phoenix. Seems to be some mixed reporting though, this article says Barbosa is untouchable, but a 'source' earlier today said Phoenix is trying to package Amare & Barbosa.
Heh, it's nice if Kerr's a Chicago guy, because he might be finding himself no longer in Phoenix if he's not on the same page as his ownership. I've been through it several times, and it still seems clear to me finance is driving this deal. 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.
I agree MikeDC it's about money and I wonder if Sarver is cash strapped and property poor after the real estate bubble popped.
that portland deal was never alive. i wouldn't be entirely sure that the talks are dead though, just don't expect aldridge to leave portland and if a deal was made don't expect portland to be the final destination for amare.
I had trouble believing this deal to begin with. Either way, nothing is gonna happen until Monday after all-star weekend is over.
If Portland were willing to had another $5M to their Luxury tax bill, how would you feel about this? Blazers trade: Raef, Sergio, Outlaw, Diogu Blazers get: Hinrich, Gooden, Nocioni Bulls trade: Hinrich, Gooden, Nocioni, Thomas Bulls get: Amare, JRich, Sergio, Amundson Suns trade: Amare, JRich, Amundson Suns get: Thomas, Outlaw, Diogu, LaFrentz Financially this trade gets the Suns under the tax, resulting in the big savings I talk about above, while not putting the Bulls over the tax. The Blazers are already over the tax, so the escrow and tax disbursements are lost to them anyway. They do have to pay extra cash in the form of more tax and more salary however. I've heard Paul Allen is good for that, but everyone has their limits. I dunno. And it satisfies the Blazers desire for a PG. I don't know if you're going to do better than Kirk. The Bulls are left with 1- Rose 36, Serio 12 2- JRich 16, Gordon 32 3- Deng 18, JRich 18, Thabo 12 4- Amare 18, Deng 18, Simmons/Amundson 12 5- Noah 30, Amare 18 That's a pretty interesting lineup. I might also go Rose/Gordon/JRich/Deng/Amare to start, but I'd have to see how it all works out. As I've said elsewhere, I'm not as optimistic as many about pairing up Noah and Amare
Why don't you like the Noah Amare pairing? Offensively it's great because Noah is all rebounding and doesn't need or expect the ball. Defensively, I don't think there is much you can do to help fill in the gap Amare creates, but Noah is a good man defender.
I talked about it a bit in the Noah/Thomas turn the corner thread, but in short: Offensively, Noah is useless if not close to the basket and I want Amare occupying that space as frequently as possible. Other teams will leave Noah wide open and constantly double Amare. If Noah could be even a minor threat to hit a jumper (a la Camby or Tyrus), I'd like it a lot more. In short, I want the "template" for how we play Amare if we have them to be how the Suns played with Amare and Marion/Diaw. The Bulls analog to Marion/Diaw is Tyrus. Noah brings rebounding, but otherwise very few to none of the skills of those two guys. Defensively, I keep seeing people who want to put Amare next to some big Dreadnaught sized guy, but if I really project how he's going to play, people need to realize Amare himself is 6'10 and 250lbs. He's got a good 20lbs of muscle on Noah, and he's the guy, not Noah, we'd probably man up on other big centers with. That's especially going to be true over time, as Amare loses some of his athleticism. Over the next couple of years, I expect Noah/Amare is a better defensive pairing than Noah Thomas, but it's not a huge difference. But I would project both Noah and Amare to ultimately have their best defensive role as 5s. Noah is going to put on strength and weight a la Chandler. Amare isn't going to get faster and leaner, he's going to get slower. Think Derrick Coleman or Shawn Kemp (although hopefully not to those extremes). So
He appears to be a guy who'll play if he feels challenged. But yeah, he's not a good defender. So how do you compensate for that? You have him stay at home and you put a 4 next to him who can fly all over the court, help and block shots. And a couple years down the road, that's not going to be Noah, just like it's no longer Tyson Chandler. Even though it was Tyson Chandler during the majority of his tenure here.
the extra money shouldn't be a problem for the blazers, but i think they would push for deng over nocioni for them to want to do the deal. that would require the blazers to send shavlik to either of the teams.
why would they have to trade Shavlik? Do they have a no more than one Dukie at a time rule? But yeah, why would the Bulls do that?
i tried the trade with deng instead of nocioni and the blazers had to move shavlik's salary to make it work. i assume the bulls would be doing it to get amare and jrich. nocioni would be a downgrade for the blazers and i think they'd probably rather make no move at all if deng wasn't involved.
