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The first premise is that David Lee signs a contract with a declining salary (goes down 8% in 2010 and 2011 on a 3 year contract) for the purpose of a sign-and-trade.

Utah:
Incoming: ($22,064,100)
David Lee ($8,250,000), Ryan Gomes ($3,867,500), Chucky Atkins ($3,480,000), Jared Jeffries($6,466,600)
Outgoing: ($28,147,765)
Andre Kirilenko ($16,451,250), Kyle Korver ($5,155,115), Matt Harpring ($6,500,000), NY's 1st round pick, Utah's 2nd round pick.
Utah simultaneously trades Boozer for a scoring wing with similar salary (I'm sure someone wants Boozer and his expiring contract this year, Charlotte seems as good a bet as any...so Boozer for Gerald Wallace?).


Minnesota:
Incoming: ($26,951,673)
Eddie Curry ($10,500,423), AK47 ($16,451,250), NY's 2010 1st round pick, NYs 2012 1st round pick (top 10 protected in 2012, top 5 in 2013, top 3 in 2014, then unprotected).
Outgoing: ($23,607,640)
Ryan Gomes ($3,867,500), Mark Blount ($7,962,500), Brian Cardinal ($6,750,000), Chucky Atkins ($3,480,000), Oleksiy Pecherov ($1,547,640), both 2010 2nd round picks.

New York:
Incoming: ($27,915,255)
Mark Blount ($7,962,500), Brian Cardinal ($6,750,000), Oleksiy Pecherov ($1,547,640), Kyle Korver ($5,155,115), Matt Harpring ($6,500,000), Utah and Minnesota's 2nd round picks (giving them 4 total).
Outgoing: ($25,217,023)
Eddie Curry ($10,500,423), David Lee ($8,250,000), Jared Jeffries ($6,466,600), and NYs 2012 protected 1st round pick.



Why Utah does it:
Not only does this save them a huge amount of money (about 9 mil after they cut Atkins), that team is much better this year. Add in the luxury tax savings and the $$ value goes closer to 15 mil. Utah has a legitimate shot to win a championship this year, and has more flexibility to resign guys they might want to keep next year or trade a big for a scoring wing. If they trade Boozer now they can take equal salary (and value) back in return rather than looking to dump him for nothing. As is, here is how they would stand:
C: Mehmet Okur/Kosta Koufos/Kyrylo Fesenko
PF: Paul Millsap/David Lee
SF: Ryan Gomes/C.J. Miles/Jared Jeffries
SG: Gerald Wallace?/Ronnie Brewer
PG: Deron Williams/Ronnie Price/Eric Maynor
Feel free to change Gerald Wallace to someone you think is more suitable. Or you can keep them out of it completely, this part of the trade is unimportant and easily rectified (Larry Hughes for Boozer is easy enough). I just evened out Utah's roster with a wing for a big that I felt was of similar value and attainable (and both injury prone). I'm sure they could trade Jared Jefferies + Boozer to Milwaukee for Michael Redd as well. Lots of options, similar overall results.



Why NY does it:
Everyone on that list is an expiring. Essentially, they would have another $17 million in cap space in 2010 (Curry has an $11.28 million player option next year and Jefferies has a $6.88 mil player option next year) and they can sign the 4 second round picks next year to fill out the roster for cheap. In addition, they would be giving a few young guys a "trial run" and be able to resign them for cheap next year too. They could sign any 3 of LeBron, Wade, Joe Johnson, Bosh, and Boozer next year with all that cap space. As a bonus, they would GET RID OF Eddie Curry, the PR disaster. Not so bad for a protected 2012 lottery pick. I'm sure they'd happily throw in 3 mil to Minnesota for taking Curry's contract and 2 mil to Utah just to flaunt it.



Why the Wolves do it:
While NY might not be giving up their first round pick, with THAT team it would be guaranteed to be the worst record in the league. While this isn't bad for NY (they'd have the #31pick overall) this is huge for the Wolves. We're taking on 2 huge contracts in 2010 and giving out 1 solid player in Ryan Gomes in order to get that unprotected 1st round pick (with a future 1st thrown in). But it only hits our cap for 1 year (2010) and then we're in the black again. Andre Kirilenko might be a terrible contract, but he's only 28, he's better in a running system, and he would love a new start with the Wolves. We could resign him to a reasonable contract amount for 2011-2014.

It's not ideal, but would you rather have NYs picks or cap space next year? Another way of asking this is, would you rather have AK 47 and John Wall, or Ryan Gomes and Joe Johnson?
Our team would be:
Jefferson/Hollins/Curry (ugh)
Love/Songalia
AK47/Brewer
Ellington/Wilkins
Sessions/Flynn/Brown
+NYs pick, MN top 10 protected, Charlottes top 12 protected, and Utah's pick

Good? Bad? Batsh%t crazy? Whaddya think?

It would never happen. But the spacing on the Wolves roster would be terrible, there's not one reliable 3-pt shooter to space the floor for Jefferson. Not to mention Session/AK-47 can't shoot either.

SonicYouth34 wrote:It would never happen. But the spacing on the Wolves roster would be terrible, there's not one reliable 3-pt shooter to space the floor for Jefferson. Not to mention Session/AK-47 can't shoot either.

You are looking at 2009, I am looking at 2010 and beyond. We're going to suck next year no matter what we do.

So the question is, who do you want to suck with, and would you rather have NY's top 4 overall pick in 2010, the Wolves top 10 pick, and NY's 2012 pick or would you rather have cap space in 2010? The only talent we're giving up is Gomes and the only talent we get back is AK 47 (picks not included). That's a pretty clear wash in 2009.

I fixed Utah's roster too after you posted this. I added a plausible scoring wing trade for Boozer with a couple of backups and explaination.

getting NY's unprotected pick is really intriguing but taking on Curry AND AK47 with their contracts? no way

Even Glen Taylor might not go for this deal. He's a billionaire, but I am not sure how much dead money(Curry and AK to a lesser extent) he would want to shell out to a losing team.

basti wrote:getting NY's unprotected pick is really intriguing but taking on Curry AND AK47 with their contracts? no way

That's how I feel. $26 million for the NYK pick, then hoping D'Antonio doesn't make it mid-lotto? I'm not enthused about 2012 pick, since NYK has a good chance, imho, of bringing in a major free agent in 2010.

I like trades where MIN uses its 2009 financial flexibility to get assets with UTA in the deal, particularly with Atkins and Harpring involved. UTA is not a big market team, and with every player re-signing with the Jazz, they are being pinned down with nearly $25 mil costs over the lux. I think though that they work better as a place to move Songalia, since they won't have these lux problems in 2010. Swapping 2009 cap space for 2010 cap space makes us good trading partners.

ny gets out way to cheaply on this..

NYK should be ponying up at least 1 of its recent youth for that much capspace. Hill swapped for someone at a position of need for mn?

Utah swapping out ak47 for 3 more manageable contracts is an interesting idea.

MN is compensated for it's part, but imo not quite enough. It adds 25m in salary if you assume gomes is bought out. The nyk 2010 is high value. Let's just say a top 5 pick is worth 15m for arguements sake? They are still coming up short by 10m in value. Add in hill or Gallinari. If its hill try and swing him to a 3rd team, maybe phx for my boy earl clark?

Additionally if you are blowing out the 2010 cap. You may as well try and upgrade MN at various positions. You could probably land a decent stop gap 2g if you cut some other teams cap in 2010 by packaging curry + expiring.

Maybe curry + wilkins for redd?

Or maybe you could be a bit more sly and involve CHA. Send them Curry(they had some interest in him last year and he can score in the post something their 3 curent big men can't as they are all defensive C's) + Songaila + Ak47(they need a forward and have 3 C's) + cha pick and have them send over Crash + Chandler + bell + vlad. You'd need to really think about this idea for awhile to make the value fair.

al/chandler
love
Crash/brewer/vlad
bell/ellington/Wilkins
flynn/sessions
(plus nyk 2010 pick, plus some addition nyk asset)

This is actually a pretty good lineup. I don't mind the idea but if you are blowing out the 2010 capspace you better get a few things.

I wonder if NYK can be carved out of the deal, since they appear to be a value-sinkhole?

Kirilenko isn't worthless, just vastly overpaid and risky, and I have questions whether he can still play the #3. However, moving him this season, while UTA is over the lux, would be something the Jazz should be willing to pay a lot for. MIN can add even more 2009 cap savings with Atkins and by creating a TPE for them. We could also serve as a third team in a deal that moves Boozer, which may be their first priority.

shrink wrote:I wonder if NYK can be carved out of the deal, since they appear to be a value-sinkhole?

Kirilenko isn't worthless, just vastly overpaid and risky, and I have questions whether he can still play the #3. However, moving him this season, while UTA is over the lux, would be something the Jazz should be willing to pay a lot for. MIN can add even more 2009 cap savings with Atkins and by creating a TPE for them. We could also serve as a third team in a deal that moves Boozer, which may be their first priority.

Good point. Maybe a simple 3 way with CHA.

cha in: boozer, cards, gomes
jazz in: crash, Song, Chandler
MN in: AK47

Rube Chatter here, I was the one who suggested Narf run the deal by the people on this board since you all do this for a living. I was hoping for a more game response, but I think a lot of you are missing out a few key points which is making you hate on the trade more than is warranted.

1) Kirilenko and Curry are indeed bad contracts, but they're not long, bad contracts. By next offseason, they'll be expirings. By 2011, they're both off the books to the tune of almost $30 million. In exchange for our delaying our free agency splash one year, we pick up an otherwise free asset in New York's 1st rounder.
2) The reason New York is included in the deal is to load them up with expiring but useless players, thus ensuring that their pick is as high as possible.

If you buy into the premise of what this does for the Wolves, the real criticism of this trade proposal ought to be that Utah, while getting some monetary relief, isn't really getting enough value back. I was wondering if anyone here might see a way to make this deal more attractive to them.

I think this is more than attractive for Utah to be honest.

Ak47 gets broken down into 3 guys that can play the value of their contract. Jefferies can D up and play some 3 like AK47. Gomes can shoot fairly well @the 3 and play some 4. Lee is a solid addition assuming his contract isn't to large. Add to that they get a 6m tpe, plus atkins unguarenteed money for ~2.5m. that's 8.5m in savings before lux doubling.

sham lists UTAH at ~81m. Bringing them down to 72m which is right around the lux tax line. Lets assume they get below it. ~17m in savings this year plus lux tax share ~3m = 20m in savings this year with no talent downgrade. Next year they are about break even if they keep gomes, or they save 3-4m if they take his unguarenteed money. So utah saves 17-25m in this trade at a glance and no talent downgrade. Plus they still have boozer who they could ship somewhere for value. NYK still needs to give more as they shouldnt et out of both those contracts for Lee in a s&t. think utah has a better and much deeper team after this trade and they save a boatload of cash. That nyk pick for 20m is an easy sell for them.

It's an interesting idea, and I like some of the concepts in it, but NYK has to pay more. IMO hill makes it closer to fair value.

John Doe [MN] wrote:1) Kirilenko and Curry are indeed bad contracts, but they're not long, bad contracts. By next offseason, they'll be expirings. By 2011, they're both off the books to the tune of almost $30 million. In exchange for our delaying our free agency splash one year, we pick up an otherwise free asset in New York's 1st rounder.

My main problem is the +8m in payroll mn spends this year(~6m tpe + 2.5m for atkins deal) plus and extra 11.2 curry & 17.8 in AK47 next season. For a whopping + 29m in payroll next season, Or +37.5m for the nyk pick.

In contrast...
Utah saves: ~25m over 2 seasons
NYK saves: ~22m over 2 seasons (~18m of that being pure 2010 cap space)
MN spends: ~+38m over 2 seasons for a pick that is probable top 10(but you never know with dantoni)

I don't mind the idea, but MN needs something more to pull the trigger here. As least 1 of the NYK youth AND probably swapping Curry for a different bad contract. Maybe a 4 way with CHA where they get boozer + curry MN gets vlad or chandler instead of curry? Utah gets Crash + x?

John Doe [MN] wrote: 2) The reason New York is included in the deal is to load them up with expiring but useless players, thus ensuring that their pick is as high as possible.

Good to have you here too John. I'll handle #2.

I am willing to accept the premise that NYK will be able to turn any 2010 cap space into elite free agents. Not everyone agrees, thinking most of these stars will be re-signed, but I'll go this far.

The problem though is that NYK doesn't have the assets to get those expirings. David Lee at $8 mil is not much of an asset .. he's at market value. The 2012 NYK pick, after they've added their stars, isn't worth enough to justify moving $18 mil of 2010 salary with Curry and Jared Jeffries.

No way the Wolves should pay that much for a chance at a decent pick. David Lee's the only decent player they lose, and they're not exactly jumping to keep him long term anyways. That 2012 pick would be worthless because this allows the Knicks to sign two max free agents.

Utah just committed a bunch of money to Millsap, and even with a Boozer trade, I think taking on David Lee would be quite difficult for them. Plus, I hear Sloan likes defense. Lee, not so much.

I generally agree with the notion that NY should pay more and MN should get more, so lets do that.

NY takes Songalia and Wilkens, Minnesota gets Jamal Crawford and his expiring (clear upgrade at the SG spot this year and less money next year), and NY is stuck with Songalia (a decent role player) and 5 million less in expiring contracts. I really like the idea of making NY worse in the same trade that we get their 1st round pick. That's the only reason this makes sense to me to add NY in the mix.

Here's my take for NY though. In 2010 there are plenty of options for NY to take back a solid player for Songalia. NY can trade Songalia + cash + raw cap space for a player with a big salary (Next year's version Tyson Chandler, someone like Michael Redd with a big contract that the team wants to get rid of). Essentially, the team who took Songalia could be on the hook for as little as 2 million of his salary, and I'm sure Milwaukee would love to drop their cap space 13 million next year. I'm equally sure that if they trade Songalia + 3 mil in cash they could find a better deal than Michael Redd as well, I just don't know who yet. Maybe to Dallas in a sign-and-trade for Josh Howard? Someone who's team is not exactly happy with them and wouldn't mind having a mostly paid for asset off the bench like Songalia in exchange.

As long as another team eats that cap space and the Knicks get a solid player in return, NY won't mind throwing in 3 mil. But that's on them to figure out.

That greatly lessen's the Wolves cap load next year. But it leaves them a little thin on players. So maybe resign Carney to a 1 year contract and give some other young player a shot short term.

We might also be able to get Koufos from Utah out of all this, which I would certainly ask for. They would have their front court locked up for years with no place to play him. Assuming they bite, our team would be:

Jefferson/Hollins/Curry(ugh)
Love/Koufos
AK47/Brewer/Carney
Crawford/Elllington
Sessions/Flynn/Brown

And in 2010, Crawford drops off and we add NY's pick there.

think craw is in atl now.

Narf wrote:I generally agree with the notion that NY should pay more and MN should get more, so lets do that.

NY takes Songalia and Wilkens, Minnesota gets Jamal Crawford and his expiring (clear upgrade at the SG spot this year and less money next year), and NY is stuck with Songalia (a decent role player) and 5 million less in expiring contracts. I really like the idea of making NY worse in the same trade that we get their 1st round pick. That's the only reason this makes sense to me to add NY in the mix.

Stop. You're done. Jamal Crawford plays for the Atlanta Hawks and he doesn't expire until 2011.

I would do this for sure.

I am not confident that we will be a player in a Free agent market. I think our goal needs to be either trading for a key player, or trading for crap and picks. Ny's pick this year is not only going to be a valuable piece of our team, but we keep it away from Utah. That is huge. Then in a couple years we get another NY pick. If you ignore the money, AK is a player. He will be nice in a running system also. Curry is likely not going to play, but both him and AK are short contracts.

We are all about stockpiling assets right now. With this deal we would have a chance at 2 top 5 picks+ char pick+utah picks. This is a very deep draft where there would be a done of value. Lets say we get Turner, Aldrich, and Ebanks in the draft. here is our rotations.

Al/Hollins/Curry
Love/Aldrich
AK/Brewer/Ebanks
Turner/Ellingson
Flynn/Sessions

Add rubio in a couple years. Or combine some young bits for a stud. This is a crazy amount of value.

john2jer wrote:

Narf wrote:I generally agree with the notion that NY should pay more and MN should get more, so lets do that.

NY takes Songalia and Wilkens, Minnesota gets Jamal Crawford and his expiring (clear upgrade at the SG spot this year and less money next year), and NY is stuck with Songalia (a decent role player) and 5 million less in expiring contracts. I really like the idea of making NY worse in the same trade that we get their 1st round pick. That's the only reason this makes sense to me to add NY in the mix.

Stop. You're done. Jamal Crawford plays for the Atlanta Hawks and he doesn't expire until 2011.

Silly me, I'm thinking of Harrington. They have Wilson Chandler and I got it crossed with Crawford (who was on that team for a stint last year).

So, um, Harrington for Songalia and Wilkens. Same idea, not as good a fit but who cares in 2009.

Again, the reason for taking NY into this trade is to add a little money (which I think we need to convince Taylor to do this) and to make them worse (thereby creating a more valuable asset in their 1st round pick). NY, as is, could be the 10th worst team in the NBA and a #10 pick is just not worth that much. But if we slice up their team and take their best players (leaving them with just a core of young guys + crap role players off the bench) its almost guaranteed to be a top 5 pick.

The value of that pick changes based on what happens to NY. And it changes NY's incentives as well, they are trying to win now to make their fans happy where as they would want to play their young guys for next year after this trade.