Craig Smith Trade Ideas

[Winter Wonder]

A couple of small, one-for-one trade ideas that I think are reasonably close in value that may help balance the roster. Both involve our favorite trade item in Craig Smith, hence the title. Not sure if they have been discussed already or lately, but here they are.

MN out, OKC in
Craig Smith $2,300,000

OKC out, MN in
Thabo Sefolosha $2,759,628 $3,816,565 (2nd year is a Qualifying Offer)

OR

MN out, GS in
Craig Smith $2,300,000

GS out, MN in
Marco Belinelli $1,547,640 $2,380,270 $3,377,604 (2nd year Team Option, 3rd year Qualifying Offer)

*all numbers taken from Sham Sports

Essentially offers expiring PF Craig Smith for young SG that could be let go or retained.

I don't think OKC would be as interested and will go with Collison, Krstic, Mullens, Green as there 4/5 rotation and they do have quite a bit of scoring (not low post though) already; but this would give them a true PF (though undersized a tad). I think they are fairly high on Thabo though.

GS clears out some of their wing/guard glut, but with Randolph, Wright, Bierdins, Turiaf as their 4/5 mix, not sure Smith fits. He also may not be athletic enough, though he is versatile with his ballhandling skills, etc.

Overall, would do them as a MN fan, not sure the other teams would be as interested. Figured I would see what others thought of these or had other short term trades (ie, that balance roster and don't cost us cap space in the long run). Plus, the board seems slow now post the Rubio crazy talk time.

[MN Die Hard]

I dont think OKC touches that one.

[Winter Wonder]

Again, I could see OKC not being interested and I realize stats are not everything, but here is what both players did statistically in nearly the same amount of time.

Thabo Sefolosha
6-5 SG from Switzerland (Foreign)
4.5 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 1.5 apg in 17.1 minutes

Craig Smith
6-7 PF from Boston College
10.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.1 apg in 19.7 minutes

Also, they have a much weaker front court with bigs of Krstic, Collison, White, Ibaka, Mullens, and out of position Green as the only front court players I had seen. There 1-3 players (not including Green though he should be a 3) are Westbrook, Harden, Durant, Atkins, Watson, Wilkens, Livingston, Weaver and the purposed traded Thabo. A much stronger group with the guards in my opinion.

They do have cap space to change that, so that should be factored in as a different way they can change it, but I don't think the value here is that far off, or am I being biased?

[Esohny]

I doubt OKC is interested. The GS trade seems fair, based on what I've seen of Belinelli. But warriors fans really seem to like Belinelli, so I find it hard to gauge his value.

[Basti]

Again, I could see OKC not being interested and I realize stats are not everything, but here is what both players did statistically in nearly the same amount of time.

Thabo Sefolosha
6-5 SG from Switzerland (Foreign)
4.5 ppg, 2.9 rpg, 1.5 apg in 17.1 minutes

Craig Smith
6-7 PF from Boston College
10.1 ppg, 3.8 rpg, 1.1 apg in 19.7 minutes

Also, they have a much weaker front court with bigs of Krstic, Collison, White, Ibaka, Mullens, and out of position Green as the only front court players I had seen. There 1-3 players (not including Green though he should be a 3) are Westbrook, Harden, Durant, Atkins, Watson, Wilkens, Livingston, Weaver and the purposed traded Thabo. A much stronger group with the guards in my opinion.

They do have cap space to change that, so that should be factored in as a different way they can change it, but I don't think the value here is that far off, or am I being biased?

I'd love to trade Cookie for Thabo but I doubt OKC would do it.

and I think Thabo's numbers are skewed due to playing little to no minutes in Chicago. if the numbers you posted are only his OKC numbers feel free to ignore this post

[Foye]

I don't think Thabo has more value than Cookie.

He did average 8,5 pts and 5 rebs (nice for a guard) in about 30 minutes per game in OKC, but Cookie is way more efficient on the offensive end of the court, scores more than 10 points in only 20 minutes...

I can see OKC saying no this trade is pointless because it won't put us over the top but I don't think you can argue that Thabo has more value than Cookie.

The GSW trade is IMO more off because Belinelli is two years younger than Thabo, has more upside and is already a bit better than Thabo (just my opinion).

[Basti]

I don't think Thabo has more value than Cookie.

He did average 8,5 pts and 5 rebs (nice for a guard) in about 30 minutes per game in OKC, but Cookie is way more efficient on the offensive end of the court, scores more than 10 points in only 20 minutes...

I can see OKC saying no this trade is pointless because it won't put us over the top but I don't think you can argue that Thabo has more value than Cookie.

The GSW trade is IMO more off because Belinelli is two years younger than Thabo, has more upside and is already a bit better than Thabo (just my opinion).

but Thabo is a much better defender and is more athletic - two things we could use.

[Winter Wonder]

I don't think Thabo has more value than Cookie.

He did average 8,5 pts and 5 rebs (nice for a guard) in about 30 minutes per game in OKC, but Cookie is way more efficient on the offensive end of the court, scores more than 10 points in only 20 minutes...

I can see OKC saying no this trade is pointless because it won't put us over the top but I don't think you can argue that Thabo has more value than Cookie.

The GSW trade is IMO more off because Belinelli is two years younger than Thabo, has more upside and is already a bit better than Thabo (just my opinion).

but Thabo is a much better defender and is more athletic - two things we could use.

And this is why I think OKC may value him more than I have given him credit. Again, I think it is close between he and Smith, but OKC has plenty of scoring (again, primarily from the outside) in Durant, Harden, Westbrook, and to lesser extents Green and Krstic. That being the case, Thabo may fit better due to being a defender. Smith gives them a different dimension in scoring (low post brute), but that may not be as valuable to OKC, I don't know.

[ChazzleDazzle]

What About

Minnesota gives- Cookie, Bobby Brown
Portland gives - Outlaw

Might have to throw a bit more value in there, but they have a lot of wings and not a lot of frontcourt depth, we're the flip of that...

If they sign Milsap, this wouldn't work, but if they don't, Cookie is a good guy for bench minutes behind Aldridge.

[shrink]

Two really good ideas, WW.

OKC seems to love Thabo, but I think you are talking about players with comparable value. Remember, the number Craig Smith puts up are limited because we didn't have the rangy athletic center to put up behind him.

Esohny's right too. I think that Belinelli is in the same class too, but we'd never get Warriors fans to admit it, since they love any young player on their team. Their continued defense of POB right up until their management dumped him for nothing means we're not getting a fair assessment from them on younger players. Smith would look really nice next to Biedrins, and mroeover, GSW has a guard glut.

[MN Die Hard]

I dont think anyone here is saying Thabo has more value than Cookie (at least I'm not). The numbers are similar. But OKC is high on him and I dont think they'd let him go for Cookie.

Look at the way we all felt about McCants last year....we had a lot of ideas on the table for trading him and I'm pretty sure all of them involved getting more value than Bobby Brown and Sheldon Williams. Just saying that the value we see and the value they see are probably two different things.

[Basti]

Look at the way we all felt about McCants last year....we had a lot of ideas on the table for trading him and I'm pretty sure all of them involved getting more value than Bobby Brown and Sheldon Williams. Just saying that the value we see and the value they see are probably two different things.

the way McCants played last season made me want to trade him for a bag of chips and a beer. talking about addition by substraction. now if you're talking about last offseason yeah I certainly agree with you.