RealGM

A fun wild one while we wait out the last week and a half before the deadline.

First, the oft discussed McCollum to DET happens before the following trade.
McCollum <-----> THJ + Fontechio (or other small salaries if they can make it work). DET gets a vet secondary scorer/spacer for Cade, Pels move on from CJ who doesn't fit the timeline in a lost season.
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Bulls trade: Giddey + Pat Williams + Duarte + J. Carter
Bulls get: Ingram + P. Baldwin + Gill

Wizards trade: Poole + Gill + Balwin
Wizards get: Giddey + Pat Will + J. Carter

Pelicans trade: Ingram
Pelicans get: Poole + Duarte
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Bulls dissapoint fans and do a predictable middle of the road move to compete for the play-in. With no takers for Lavine's contract and his change of tune about being happy on the Bulls, they pivot to capitalize on his new health and stellar play. Upon productive discussions with Lavine and Ingram's agent, they feel good enough about Ingram's next contract at less than max to pair up the duo while shedding Williams' and Carter's contracts. They give up Giddey as the value here, but they see it as worth it to get Ingram while shedding that other bad salary. They could keep Vucevic and/or Ball, and evaluate the pieces around the new Lavine/Ingram core.

Wizards break up the Poole contract into smaller deals, taking some reclaimation projects in Williams and Giddey. Williams slots in between Coulibaly and Sarr in some lineups, while Giddey gets to run the show and play for his next contract, with the Wiz or elsewhere. Carter's player option next year becomes expiring salary filler for future moves.

Pelicans basically use Ingram to upgrade the role of McCullom for a younger, better player with an extra year on his deal. With the lack of suitors for Ingram, especially in way of expirings and picks-- they pivot to using the situation to be a buyer for next season. With Poole actually playing very well now and no longer a joke, he could help the team going forward but likely still not good enough to ruin the current tank trajectory this season. Herb is injured, possibly for the season, so Poole can start and get reps with Z, Murray and Murphy the rest of the season while giving them extra games off here and there for injury recovery and rest.
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Bulls

Vucevic/ J. Smith
Buzelis/ Craig
Ingram/ Phillips/ THT
Lavine/ White/ Terry
Ball/ Dosunmu
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Wizards

Jonas/ Holmes
Sarr/ Bagley
Kuzma/ P-Will/ K. George
Coulibaly/ Kispert
Brogdon/ Bub

+lotto pick
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Pelicans

Missi/
Zion/ Fontecchio
Murphy/ *Herb
Poole/ Boston
Murray/ Jose

+lotto pick

Trade McCollum for Poole if you think he's an upgrade, not Ingram, you may talk me into Poole being worth a dead expiring money, but not a player with useful bird rights...

Mavrelous wrote:Trade McCollum for Poole if you think he's an upgrade, not Ingram, you may talk me into Poole being worth a dead expiring money, but not a player with useful bird rights...

Fair enough. Can you share your idea for a McCullom for Poole trade where Ingram is traded separately for positive value while getting mostly expirings back? So you think the Wizards take a McCullom for Poole trade straight up due to the one less year on the contract? Although, I think David Griffin would send CJ to a winning situation.

YayBasketball wrote:

Mavrelous wrote:Trade McCollum for Poole if you think he's an upgrade, not Ingram, you may talk me into Poole being worth a dead expiring money, but not a player with useful bird rights...

Fair enough. Can you share your idea for a McCullom for Poole trade where Ingram is traded separately for positive value while getting mostly expirings back? So you think the Wizards take a McCullom for Poole trade straight up due to the one less year on the contract? Although, I think David Griffin would send CJ to a winning situation.

I'd let Ingram expire and not have both Poole and CJM on the books.
In the offseason, CJM is expiring, trade him with 2-3 2nds for Poole.

Mavrelous wrote:

YayBasketball wrote:

Mavrelous wrote:Trade McCollum for Poole if you think he's an upgrade, not Ingram, you may talk me into Poole being worth a dead expiring money, but not a player with useful bird rights...

Fair enough. Can you share your idea for a McCullom for Poole trade where Ingram is traded separately for positive value while getting mostly expirings back? So you think the Wizards take a McCullom for Poole trade straight up due to the one less year on the contract? Although, I think David Griffin would send CJ to a winning situation.

I'd let Ingram expire and not have both Poole and CJM on the books.
In the offseason, CJM is expiring, trade him with 2-3 2nds for Poole.

If you read my preamble, a CJ to DET trade precedes or coincides with this trade. So they would have already cleared the CJ and Ingram contracts while taking on the Poole one.

So that plan compared with yours above would save the Pels 2-3 2nds. And while a CJ/Poole swap does make sense in the offseason, Pels aren't likely to trade away 2nds since they only have like 2 future 2nds left, and even those have swap options on them owned ORL. Thanks to the luxury tax dodging salary dumps of Graham and Kira Lewis Jr.'s contracts.

Sorry, I missed CJ to DET, yeah, that would be better, assuming DET is willing to do it.

Pelicans aren’t taking on Poole. Even if we traded CJ too, why are we taking on Pooles contract over just playing Jordan Hawkins.

Mavrelous wrote:Sorry, I missed CJ to DET, yeah, that would be better, assuming DET is willing to do it.

I don't think DET is willing to take CJ.

I was one of the few DET fans that was willing to take CJ to DET for pure cap space last July; most DET posters disagreed with me, some angrily. Part of my rationale for the move is that it would get DET close to the salary floor, and then we wouldn't have been forced to overpay anyone to reach that floor. Getting to the salary floor was a large part of the value in CJ's bloated contract.

That was then, this is now.

We ended up overpaying for Tobias Harris, and taking BBall Paul off the waiver wire, and have long since reached and stayed at the salary floor. Now, we have a team that looks play-in bound, maybe even playoffs, and the salary matching would require us to trade away two useful parts of our surprisingly good rotation and mess with the chemistry. Not a good deal.

I think the Bulls would be glad to move Giddey for something good, I don't think half a season of Ingram for Williams would be their plan. If they still have Lavine and Vucevc resigning Ingram might be possible but not for as much as Ingram desires I'm sure. Ingram just doesn't do it for the Bulls especially if they still have Vucevic and Lavine. He's not going to push them to #6 in the East and he's not going to make them fall to the bottom 10 so they keep their pick. At best he's a third option on offense maybe even 4th behind Ball. He's not going to want to stay for that.

You don't put Baldwin on the Bulls list because he's so far down the bench he'll never play the same for Gill

Jon1798 wrote:Pelicans aren’t taking on Poole. Even if we traded CJ too, why are we taking on Pooles contract over just playing Jordan Hawkins.

I hear you, it probably won't happen. Makes more sense to tank it out without making any major changes other than CJ/BI trades.

But think you're way undervaluing Poole as just a bad contract. Having a good season in the midst of the Wiz tank. He has high level off the dribble playmaking and pull up 3's that Hawkins will never be capable of. Basically a super-charged, younger, better CJ type player. That could be valuable next season, and the idea would be to get him now and build some chemistry with the other potential core players. And he could actually make the rest of the Pels' season watchable without ruining the tank, lol.