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Our raw cap space is going to be a vital trade commodity, even if its not used on a free agent.

For example, a smaller-market team like IND is looking at being about $5 mil over the lux next season, and perhaps finishes with the #7 pick (even higher, if Granger is out a long time). A deal like:

A summer deal of TJ Ford ($8.5 mil) + #7 for Sessions ($3.9) + UTA pick (#21?) would be a good use for our cap space. It costs us $5 mil for the upgrade, but saves IND $14 mil.

Other teams like PHI, NOH, and TOR are other non-contenders that could benefit from a deal that helped slide them under the lux. A deferred pick might be worth even more, because they wouldn't be adding any cap hold whatsoever.

I like that trade. We probably bow out of free agency except for maybe adding Pekovic, but with two picks in the top 10 and ours probably top 4-5, we can probably come out with Evan Turner and Xavier Henry, and have the luxury of BPA with the charlotte pick.

We'd be doing this trade long after the draft, though. Which makes it less likely to get done because of that whole fans attached to their draft pick, business.

Cant teams agree in principle predraft and still use cap space. I'm almost certain it's been done but to lazy to verify

Esohny wrote:I like that trade. We probably bow out of free agency except for maybe adding Pekovic, but with two picks in the top 10 and ours probably top 4-5, we can probably come out with Evan Turner and Xavier Henry, and have the luxury of BPA with the charlotte pick.

I talked about this in the prospect thread, and maybe this isn't the thread for it, but I don't see Turner coming out this year. If he wanted to be a high draft pick, he would have come out lat year (I don't think he would have lasted past our #'s 5 and 6), but instead he talked about wanting to win a championship and stuck around. Ohio State's got a dynamite recruiting class coming in next year, headlined by big man Jared Sullinger, and if Turner sticks around should be in the mix for a title. Given his comments when he made the decision last year and what his high school coach has said about Turner's desire to win at every level (can't find the flippin' quote right now), I don't see Turner leaving that opportunity on the table. The back injury may make him worry more about getting injured and give him a reason to bolt, but for now I'm assuming he'll be a Buckeye next year. If he does enter the draft it'll be a pleasant surprise.

I still expect Turner to come out, but I was just making a general point that we can get two of the better wings in the draft. Instead of Turner/Henry, we could still come out with Wes Johnson/Xavier Henry with two top 10 picks and any number of very good prospects with the charlotte pick (and yes, I know that right now we don't get the bobcats pick, but I expect them to grab the 8th playoff seed).

Even with all of the savings, jumping from 21 to 7 is a bit of a stretch. I've been thinking for a while about using Sessions to move up from the Charlotte pick back into the top 10 (I can't see Charlotte missing the playoffs with a healthy team) but that's not to say I wouldn't do this deal if it came across, as long as Ford was fine with being a backup.

Assuming they don't get a top 3 pick they could probably walk away with Henry and one of Aminu or Johnson. Then with Charlotte's pick maybe Alabi falls (doubt it after workouts) or go after someone like Sanders to provide some shotblocking, or really like someone said just go BPA. There's some good players around there like Ebanks and Vesely.

But to come out of this draft with 3 picks in the top 15 would be beyond incredible.

john2jer wrote:We'd be doing this trade long after the draft, though. Which makes it less likely to get done because of that whole fans attached to their draft pick, business.

If you don't mind me asking, why would you have to do it long after the draft?

shangrila wrote:

john2jer wrote:We'd be doing this trade long after the draft, though. Which makes it less likely to get done because of that whole fans attached to their draft pick, business.

If you don't mind me asking, why would you have to do it long after the draft?

+1, I was wondering that as well. We were able to trade for a #5 pick predraft this year...

John Doe [MN] wrote:

shangrila wrote:

john2jer wrote:We'd be doing this trade long after the draft, though. Which makes it less likely to get done because of that whole fans attached to their draft pick, business.

If you don't mind me asking, why would you have to do it long after the draft?

+1, I was wondering that as well. We were able to trade for a #5 pick predraft this year...

Seriously? You guys can't look at that and see why? We're sending out 3.9mil and taking back 8.5mil. There's $4.6million reasons why we can't do that trade until July 1st.

The reason why we were able to do the Foye/Miller for Rubio trade was because salaries balanced it out. It's not possible to do it in this case, without us sending out Brewer, or some combination to get us sending out more than $6.72mil that doesn't expire at the end of this season.

john2jer wrote:Seriously? You guys can't look at that and see why? We're sending out 3.9mil and taking back 8.5mil. There's $4.6million reasons why we can't do that trade until July 1st.

The reason why we were able to do the Foye/Miller for Rubio trade was because salaries balanced it out. It's not possible to do it in this case, without us sending out Brewer, or some combination to get us sending out more than $6.72mil that doesn't expire at the end of this season.

So hold on. You're saying contracts expire before the draft but you don't get that benefit until after it?

I'm saying that once the trade deadline goes by in February, you can't trade a player unless he has at least one more year left on his contract. So once the deadline goes by, Blount, Cardinal, Sasha, Wilkins, etc... They can't be traded without being extended.

And the 2009-10 year doesn't end until 23:59pm on June 30th. Thus we don't have cap space until July 1st. And the draft is June 24th. So between the lottery in May and June 24th, when we'd know our draft position, we can definitely make trades, but only including players who have at least one more year on their contract, and as long as we're not taking in more than 125%+100k of what we're sending out. This trade fails that until after July 1st when the new numbers come into play.

john2jer nailed this one, that while teams are willing to trade picks, they are often less likely to trade them once they become players, because the fans have had time to dream about the highest upside of each prospect in their favorite team's uniform.

If both teams wanted to gamble, they could do the the deal at the February 19th trade deadline, in something like

Sessions + Wilkins + UTA 1st for TJ Ford + IND 1st

This would give IND the 2010 cap space, and a little extra payroll relief in 2009.

One other failing of this trade is that IND's owner is even richer than Glen Taylor. Personally I think a downgrade for $14 mil is well worth it for any team, but there's always the chance IND wins the lottery, so they might be unwilling to do it this far out.

A poorer owner of a team more depserate for financial relief, like NOH, would be a more likely target.

We're gonna be top ten anyway so we don't really need to give up assets/take on more liability to get two top ten picks.

TheFranchise21 wrote:We're gonna be top ten anyway so we don't really need to give up assets/take on more liability to get two top ten picks.

Why?

We have many holes that need to be filled.

Draft is the cheapest way to do so.

What will our cap look like if we drafted 3 players in the top-15, signed Pekovic, and took on TJ Ford? Not to mention Rubio's cap hold that we have to count during the offseason. Maybe I am overestimating cap holds but it seems like that scenario above is pretty much our offseason.

And I dont mind it necessarily but I am curious what the is remaining?

It depends on alot of things, but taking on Ford and signing Pekovic would put a big dent in any free agent plans.

Foye wrote:

TheFranchise21 wrote:We're gonna be top ten anyway so we don't really need to give up assets/take on more liability to get two top ten picks.

Why?

We have many holes that need to be filled.

Draft is the cheapest way to do so.

The draft is also the biggest crap shoot. We all want to believe that the top-10 is where the stars are born but lets face it, maybe 1/2 of them really live up to their expectations. The crap shoot is being part of the correct half. And thats also the liability. We could try and fill holes by signing or trading for guys that have already performed in this league, or we can build through the draft. Two different methods that have their pros and cons.

slinky wrote:What will our cap look like if we drafted 3 players in the top-15, signed Pekovic, and took on TJ Ford? Not to mention Rubio's cap hold that we have to count during the offseason. Maybe I am overestimating cap holds but it seems like that scenario above is pretty much our offseason.

And I dont mind it necessarily but I am curious what the is remaining?

We can't draft 3 guys in the top 15, unless we did some trading up. Utah's pick is top 15 protected. Or top 17, depending on where you look.

Also, it'll be tough for Charlotte's pick to be better than 15th, and us get it, considering the make up of the two conferences.

john2jer wrote:We can't draft 3 guys in the top 15, unless we did some trading up. Utah's pick is top 15 protected. Or top 17, depending on where you look.

OK, 3 top-17 picks then...

In shrink's original deal here it has UTAH's pick going to IND. So we would have our pick, IND and CHA.