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Is anyone else afraid of Hedo opting out after this coming season (almost gauranteed) and the Magic not resigning him because he will be too expensive? Its apparent now that the Magic are reluctant to go into the luxury tax like before, maybe due to the cost of the new arena. What should we do? When should we trade him? Before the season to create some continuity and chemistry before the playoffs or at the trade deadline?

Trade him for a PF, maybe even package him and Battie for an upgrade at PF and some PG help (Collison & Ridnour) if you can...

The Magic wouldn't let Hedo walk for nothing to save on Luxury Tax... if they did Otis should be fired on the spot.

I would have to play it by ear but his stock will probably never be higher. MIght as well get the best available talent at PF and pg help as glyde says. Hedo will not play for us after next year anyways especially if he has a year like last season his price will be in the 9-12 mil per year range. Which will be to high for us to carry especially with the shard deal rising steadily. Trade.

trade him for chris kaman

Actually thinking now that Brand is in philly what about a speights, williams or olie and a future 1st for Hedo?

or other than a guard add jason smith as another big?

Keep him for now. . .

I say trade him and Battie for someone like kirilenko or something along those lines. Just trying to throw out names that could help.

TheGlyde wrote:Trade him for a PF, maybe even package him and Battie for an upgrade at PF and some PG help (Collison & Ridnour) if you can...

The Magic wouldn't let Hedo walk for nothing to save on Luxury Tax... if they did Otis should be fired on the spot.

How on earth does us trading Hedo and Battie, for Collison and Ridenour make us better? No disrespect but thats just crazy. I'd personally walk over to the RDV and slap Otis and BVW myself. You do realise youd just turn a 52 win team into the Lotto Seattle Supersonics right?

We won 52 GAMES, 52 GAMES because of the mismatches Shard and Turk + Dwight cause together. You dont scrap a team right on the cusp just for the sake of trying anything to get Rashard Lewis to average 2-3 more points a game.

Our starting unit is not a problem, its the lack of defensive matchup versatility that we need help with to get over the top. Those are rare situational matchup problems, for stuational problems, you sign situational players.

Our uniqueness in the starting frontcourt is what brought us to the dance. They are the reason we jump out to huge leads. The lack of versatility on our bench is what loses those leads.

keep him and try to resign

i love hedo!

If anything you trade off Battie and a draft pick off to a team with cap space or for an expiring big at the deadline to clear the extra 5-6 million for Turk (if he keeps playing like a top 5 SF like he was this year)

I played with the idea of trading him but, with what he brings to the table he can not be matched, with regards to salary. Thats why you must include another player to get something useful back in return.

I say if possible extend him this summer or pay him what he wants next summer and skip the mle.

He plays pg 1/3 of most games(if not more)& he is our goto guy at the close of most games. DO NOT LOSE HIM, DO NOT TRADE HIM

Neon1 wrote:How on earth does us trading Hedo and Battie, for Collison and Ridenour make us better? No disrespect but thats just crazy. I'd personally walk over to the RDV and slap Otis and BVW myself. You do realise youd just turn a 52 win team into the Lotto Seattle Supersonics right?

We won 52 GAMES, 52 GAMES because of the mismatches Shard and Turk + Dwight cause together. You dont scrap a team right on the cusp just for the sake of trying anything to get Rashard Lewis to average 2-3 more points a game.

I can think of some ways it makes us better, how about getting a guy to help Dwight on the boards who averages more than 5.7rpg (which was our 2nd best rebounder, Hedo) With Collison pulling down 9.4rpg last season in just 28.5mpg.

How about the fact the guy shot .502 last year, including above 40% on jumpers from the top of the key and, heres a rarity, .737 from the line.

How about the fact that our 2nd best shot blocker last year was Adonal Foyle with .55

Dwight can't do it all himeself, especially not in the playoffs, give him a solid, starter quality PF and move Rashard to his natural position, I want to see if Rashard can actually blossom in the system in any sort of way like Hedo did... On top of that, you dump Battie and his contract and can still play Shard backup PF minutes with MP at SF and Lee, Bogans or JJ at SG to cause the mismatches.

Then we have Ridnour, a PG with great passing skills, who has always had alot of potential but never been in a good situation, to back up Nelson. If you prefer Watson, then shoot for Watson, he has a better FG% and defends better but turns it over more, either one would tremendously upgrade the PG position and potentially challenge Nelson as the starter.

Wilcox, Collison, Harrington, Haslem are all on my wishlist of PF's to be had with Hedo.

And, Neon those "situational" matchups you speak of are true...for the regular season. Yes, we can spot play Battie 30 mpg when we play a big team, but in the playoffs it wouldn't work (and it didn't work).

Also, that would not be a lotto Sonics team, the big difference being Howard in the middle and SVG on the sidelines. Though, I do agree that I'm not exactly dying to have 3 Sonics in our SL; I'm indifferent to acquiring Ridnour/Watson.

The Kaman idea is also a good one.

Neon1 wrote:We won 52 GAMES, 52 GAMES because of the mismatches Shard and Turk + Dwight cause together. You dont scrap a team right on the cusp just for the sake of trying anything to get Rashard Lewis to average 2-3 more points a game.

Our starting unit is not a problem, its the lack of defensive matchup versatility that we need help with to get over the top. Those are rare situational matchup problems, for stuational problems, you sign situational players.

Our uniqueness in the starting frontcourt is what brought us to the dance. They are the reason we jump out to huge leads. The lack of versatility on our bench is what loses those leads.

I still lean in this direction. We made a major leap forward. I don't want to move Hedo - one of our best playmakers - to see how Rashard may do in his place. Rashard is not putting up the same numbers as before, but he's fairly close.

The front-court defense - especially on Rip - was a big factor in what cost us the Detroit series. Having MP will help with this very much. Plus he's a better rebounder than Evans/Dooling, gets more steals and blocks per min, iirc. He can be like our Prince.

In that series we were missing Battie and Cook to help out Shard, which led to him wearing down a bit, imo. He did a good defensive job on Bosh. We'll have both those guys back, as well as our 2 young PF/Cs.

I think we go with the same lineup and use our depth more during the season - especially Auggie and Gortat - to keep Dwight and Shard fresher at the end of the season.

We can trade Battie for a situational banger to save $.

That's my opinion at least.

what about speights and such from philly? A little raw but would play very well next to dwight. I would hate to have hedo in the east so I will rescind this trade actually now that I really think about it,

Speights hasnt played a single minute in the NBA yet, Id rather trade Hedo for a known commodity. I like the AK trade, but he is pretty expensive. I really want to move Shard back to the 3 though to lessen the wear and tear.

dwightmeer wrote:Speights hasnt played a single minute in the NBA yet, Id rather trade Hedo for a known commodity. I like the AK trade, but he is pretty expensive. I really want to move Shard back to the 3 though to lessen the wear and tear.

kinda why I called it off if next season we cant sign hedo might work though if speights has a good year.

maybe a little Brand will wear off on Speights, then were talkin...

I believe that you definitely trade him for a pf. Last years performance is not the norm for him, and we should sell now while his stock is high. Having a starting lineup with three wing players and one power player had success in the regular season, but it fell short in the playoffs. I'd like more balance for this team, and his price tag is going to be too expensive to move him to the bench. Also, paying Lewis max money to have him play out of position for six years isn't a smart move. Plus Battie is aging and will be on his way out sooner rather than later. We need to get Dwight some more consistent help. There are three trades that I really like that could be available to us.

1.Hedo for Lee and Jeffries with a pick or at least the option to swap picks next year.

2.Hedo for Frye and either Outlaw or Webster.

3.Hedo and Bogans for Harrington. Not that likely with Maggs signing though.

I also like Haslem, but you got to believe that Riley would try to rip us off in any deal. Look what they tried to do when they offered to trade Beasley to Minny during the draft. Wilcox looks promising, but he's a fairly big expiring and not sure what his contract demands are going to be. Its a remote possibility though, but I'm not a Collison fan. And I forgot Odom was making so much money, it would be very tough for us to match salaries and put together a complete team if we traded with LA. AK47 is a lateral move imo, because he too like Shard is best suited to play sf. I still like Hedo and Battie for B.Miller and Garcia though, but now we got Pietrus, that seems less like a decent fit. Other than that, I don't see much else out there worth considering. Might as well wait until the deadline to see what else comes available then.

I see your reasons for trying to trade him now.. But don't jump the gun just yet. We have improved this year by leaps and bounds you don't just Blow up this ship now, If it takes not re-signing dooling this year to keep hedo in check in all for it and we just get white chocolate... You gotta see what happens and if it doesn't fall through or you feel we wont be abile to retain him at mid season theres always the possibility for a S & T. But collins and luke from the sonics? lol.... Thats the definition of you having your hand on the button. You be patient and IF a GOOD<----- deal comes your way the you make your move... Maybe on the Frye,outlaw type deal but just play it cool