Illuminaire wrote:Cap-only deals for Okafor I'm all over. Nene, I want to get something more. At least for now.
Agreed.
The problem with dumping Nene for cap space is that it would only leave us with about $8M in cap room next summer. That's just enough money to overpay for a middling free agent. I'd rather just keep Nene. He's likely to be significantly better than what we could buy for $8M.
Now if we first dumped one or both of Ariza or Okafor, then it might make sense to dump Nene too. That way, at least we'd be looking at max cap room in the offseason and the potential to sign an actual star. (Of course, there really aren't many stars available unless you want Josh Smith or Andrew "Glassman" Bynum.)
Ultimately, rather than trade our vets for cap room, I think we'd be better off trading them for picks/prospects plus bad contracts. Nene for Eric Bledsoe + filler makes sense. Nene for Calderon does not.