Post#11 » by younggunsmn » Tue May 18, 2010 11:03 am
Pekovic's trade value? Probably a pick in the 15-20 range. I would think a team like Miami would be a great fit. Their 18th pick or the pick Toronto owes them (top 14 protection) would be decent value. He could also be the trade chip that pushes a bigger deal over the top.
Great News Shrink, thanks. You can never have enough options. Especially stoked about the Darko part. As someone who suffered through watching the last 20+ games, it's my opinion Darko was probably our best overall player during that stretch. His BBIQ seemed to be well above all of his teammates. Solid defense, great passing. I would love to see what he looks like when he's actually in shape, his shooting efficiency (while not terrible) should improve.
That said, I think alot depends on how the draft/free agency shapes up because of two things:
1. Playing Time
2. Cap Room
As far as playing time, there are room for 3 of love/jefferson/darko/pekovic. If we can't move love or Al for value, or get stuck with Favors or Cousins at 3 or 4, it's pretty unlikely Pekovic plays for us next year. Darko should be priority 1, he is the only true center or decent defender of the 4, the other 3 are somewhat interchangeable in my opinion.
He is an asset that has good value as a player, but no trade value, thus the most efficient use of the asset is signing him outright to a reasonable deal. His comfort with the team and coach, and bad history with getting playing time on other teams gives us a huge advantage when it comes to Darko and free agency, to the point we're the only NBA team he'll play for. Trading cardinal for him was truly a magnificent move by Kahn. There is no way he'd have considered us as a FA otherwise.
The only other decent defensive C FA is Haywood, and he is older and will cost significantly more.
Say we draft Whiteside or another project big with 16 or 23, can we still sell the idea of playing time to Darko? Can we convince him they are just projects?
Cap Room - The draft lottery will play a huge role. We may need to use gomes to take a bad contract if need to trade up for turner, which will cut into our cap room. We could also use his unguaranteed deal in a pickswap/trade up/salary dump for a pick (NOH?). So we really won't know our cap situation until the draft.
It will take probably at least 5 million for darko. Probably one year is smartest for both sides.
Pekovic I would say probably 3 years 10-12 million minimum. Without any trades we will have about 14.5 million. If we sign/trade for rudy gay or pull off a deal for granger it would cut significantly into that number. We would be lucky to have enough room for Darko.
There is the possibility of dumping our later picks for future picks (or consolidating them), but the cap effect of that is negligible, we'd be lucky to clear even 2-3 million that way.
The highly preferable option, in my opinion, is to not have to use our raw cap space, which means our big acquisitions should come between draft day and july 1 (Or any trade or S&T we do after 7/1 fits under 125% matching). This way we can use Bird Rights on Darko and the MLE on Pekovic.
