Honestly, you guys are looking at PG, but our weakest area this year was SG/SF (the area we should have been strongest in entering the season)! PG will improve naturally, and on the cheap next year. That leaves the above and a backup C. I won't worry about that, but for SG/SF here's a thought..
Someone that I GUARANTEE no one is looking at, but who might be a good option is KG.
Why? He's already looking bad with the knee injury at 33, he has a LONG contract (3 more years cause Ainge is a dumbface) that doesn't release him until he's 36, and will continue to get worse with 1055 games under his belt. Playing as a primary option in Boston will hurry that, but playing for us in a rotation with Scola and Ming may well help limit BOTH Yao's and KG's injuries by halving their minutes, while preemptively prolonging Scola's career. Boston's already had their championship run, and with KG and Allen on the definitive downhill, they will cut salary after next year for a quick rebuild on the fly around Rondo/Pierce with TMac as an interlude option next year. Not only that, but if they let Mac expire after next year, they'll be looking VERY nice for the 2010 offseason, when Old Man Allen also comes off the books. Both players are injured, and coming off surgery, and thus both teams acquire a good deal of risk, us more than Boston even, but there's definitely some potential there. For instance, we reduce salary for next year by a good bit, potentially putting us under the tax (almost 8 million reduction from McGrady to KG next year in compensation for the extra risk, while Boston loses the risk of his next two years, which are almost 40m in total - so next year we'd gain perhaps as much as 11-13m total after considering luxtax penalties and bonuses). With Yao, Scola, KG, Landry manning the middle, none of them should have to play over 25-30 mpg, which is a MAJOR boon for us.
This would still leave us with an issue at SG, but with Scola/KG / Yao/KG / KG/Scola in the middle, and Landry/Hayes off the bench, we could skimp with a cheaper SG, as our post play would attract a TON of attention. It's possible Artest might even work properly for us under this setup, if he and KG didn't kill each other with aluminum baseball bats in the parking lot after game 28. Raja Bell might fit the bill via S&T or as a 3-team trade piece if his defense hasn't dropped off too badly (I heard mixed reports last year). We could give Artest in that deal, giving the Bobcats a better marketing ploy, Artest a better contract than we're likely to give him, as we don't HAVE to, and us a short-term great 3p shooter who can still cut and run some. Suddenly, we're well under the threshold with budget happy non-chucking SG/SFs who can shoot, pass, and have room to operate. KG has replaced the fiery and slightly psychopathic personality that Artest provided this year. If that's not enough to fix our SG problems, we still have Cook and Barry expiring this year for a total of about 5.7m (+25%, which is now an option since we're under the cap), readily tradeable to a team looking to cut an MLE player to save salary.
...Eureka! If there's no direct solution, come at it from the side. I don't see why Boston shouldn't do this trade in a heartbeat, and I don't see why we wouldn't either - unless KG is not expected to recover from his current injury to any degree, in which case the deal is suddenly poison for us, but I wouldn't expect this to happen.
(Why not a small, tweaky trade like I usually favor? Ans: You're dealing with a 24m contract [McGrady] and expect ANYTHING involved to be small?)
p.s. The Chron article is based only on Solomon's perspective, so I don't care. Ref:
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/spo ... 30290.htmlp.p.s. Morey has YET to go in the direction that either the fanbase or media initially want or expect.
p.p.p.p.p.p.p.p.s.
http://www.wagesofwins.com/Top152009.html - Garnett 2nd, Scola 4th
