I think that HOU might be better off without a trade. If we can some kind of way trade Mac for Vince we have a chance to acheive what we were hoping for at the begining of the season. If we pull off a Artest,Landry,Head for VC I dont think this will make us contenders. Not with T-Mac in his current state and we also lose Landry. If Mac is really hurt having VC wont magicly make T-Mac healthy. If we dont make a trade this season I think we should try our best to resgin Ron and Von Wafer and trade T-Mac to CHI for Ben Gordon and Hinrich. Our lineup would look like this:
Hinrich,Alston/Brooks
Artest, Gordon, Barry
Battier, Von Wafer, Barry
Scola, Landry, Hayes
Yao, Dorsey/Hayes
We would be solid at every position and potentially have the best defensive starting lineup in the nba. We get a PG that we have needed for years. A PG that can catch'n shoot, hit the outside shot and play good defence with 2 good backups. Hinrich can also play some 2 if needed. At the SG/SF positions we would have combination of good offence and defence. When Gordon comes in he and Hinrich would just switch defensive assignments so Gordon's weekness(height,defence) wont be used agianst us. Gordon can also catch'n shoot and is a career .413 3pt shooter. We will still have our solid lineups at the PF/C. In 2010 Barry, Alston and Scola($11,125,000) come off the books. We could resign Scola to 7-8 million(or more) if we wanted to.
How can this all of this be done?
1. First resign Ron. Ron makes $7,400,000 this year and he will want a raise(which is obvious) next year. But there are only a few teams with cap space next year and not many will want to take a chance on Ron(having his worst season in about 5-6 years and ahistory of problems). We should be able to resign Ron for(starting at) $10,500,000 for 4-5 years(a very reasonable salery for Ron). A 3 million raise for a player off a pretty bad year is (I think)enough to get him back.
2. Resign Wafer starting at $2,500,000(reasonable) for 2-4 years. Von Wafer should be hungry for a contract after playing for 5 teams(with limited PT and no contract) in 4 years in the nba. If he leaves HOU who's to say he wont go back to the Von Wafer that nobody cared about.
3. Trade with CHI. Chicago sign Gordon at $8,500,000 and trade him and Hinrich($9,500,000 in 2009) for T-Mac. Last season Gordon wanted around at least 10 million a year but no one(including CHI) wanted to pay him that much. And this offseason he still wont get that much from CHI or any other team(especially this close to 2010). It doesnt seem like CHI will resign him to play for the Bulls nest year. Gordon makes $6,404,750 this year. +2 million (fair value)a year is close to the best he'll get this offseason. CHI gets out of paying (Hinrich) 9.5 million for 3 more years for a backup to D.Rose. CHI get Mac for next year and gets over 20 million of the books in 2010(they will also have L.Hughes expiring). CHI could sign the star Big Man they've needed so badly.
I like Tracy and have defended him because I really beleive he wants to win but he is just to injured to be T-Mac. I wish he could stay healthy and that we could win a championship with him. But there comes a time that we all must realize that we will never see the T-Mac of 05-06 ever agian.
Especially if the microfracture talk is true. Like I said, If we dont make any trades and we can resign Artest I think we should cash in on Mac's expiring and make a deal like this one. Thoughts??? 
