Official Trade Thread XIV: 6/14/10 - 12/22/10

[willbcocks]

Apparently some one with inside sources who posts on Wizards Extreme said the trade is back on and it likely will happen. Personally, that's not enough to go on IMO but its got me worried.

Ernie complemented me on my gold Arenas jersey I wore yesterday. I still bitched out and couldn't tell him how I really felt. although I heard some fan at the Summer League thoroughly chewed him out to his face on Thursday.

You bitched out again?

Not that I would have played it different, mind.

[no D in Hibachi]

Only way I can reasonably agree with trading Arenas for cap space is if they have a legitimate shot at acquiring Melo. I know everyone talks about Melo going to NYK, well at least they do out here, but if the young'n develop this year and show their talent DC would be the ideal situation for a superstar small forward to be the man on a contending team.

[Ruzious]

Realistically, if you're the Wiz, you absolutely have to make that trade if Orlando really agrees to it - which would shock me. No matter how you feel about Gil, it's hard to justify him being on the books for 4 seasons for 30 - 40% of the cap, and that's certainly going to cause major problems with cap flexibility at some points.

[Hoopalotta]

Realistically.....

This was where you really lost us.

[AceDegenerate]

Realistically.....

This was where you really lost us.

Because only the geniuses on this board know what's Realistic.

[sfam]

Realistically, if you're the Wiz, you absolutely have to make that trade if Orlando really agrees to it - which would shock me. No matter how you feel about Gil, it's hard to justify him being on the books for 4 seasons for 30 - 40% of the cap, and that's certainly going to cause major problems with cap flexibility at some points.

Realisticaly, dumping Gil before seeing him play is about the most risk-averse move I can imagine. If you absolutely feel you must dump Gil, "realistically" wouldn't it make far more basketball sense to do it after his value rises? Trading a Gil at the deadline who averages 22 points, 1.5 steals, 5 assists and 4 rebounds would yield a FAR better trade that dumping a gun-toting, injury-ridden Gil right now.

[Ruzious]

Realistically, if you're the Wiz, you absolutely have to make that trade if Orlando really agrees to it - which would shock me. No matter how you feel about Gil, it's hard to justify him being on the books for 4 seasons for 30 - 40% of the cap, and that's certainly going to cause major problems with cap flexibility at some points.

Realisticaly, dumping Gil before seeing him play is about the most risk-averse move I can imagine. If you absolutely feel you must dump Gil, "realistically" wouldn't it make far more basketball sense to do it after his value rises? Trading a Gil at the deadline who averages 22 points, 1.5 steals, 5 assists and 4 rebounds would yield a FAR better trade that dumping a gun-toting, injury-ridden Gil right now.

Sorry if some people find reality offensive here.

I think there's approximately zero percent chance that Gil's value is ever going to be higher than VC's this season. If the Wiz are really offered that deal - no matter when - they would take it, imo.

[Wizardspride]

Realistically, if you're the Wiz, you absolutely have to make that trade if Orlando really agrees to it - which would shock me. No matter how you feel about Gil, it's hard to justify him being on the books for 4 seasons for 30 - 40% of the cap, and that's certainly going to cause major problems with cap flexibility at some points.

Realisticaly, dumping Gil before seeing him play is about the most risk-averse move I can imagine. If you absolutely feel you must dump Gil, "realistically" wouldn't it make far more basketball sense to do it after his value rises? Trading a Gil at the deadline who averages 22 points, 1.5 steals, 5 assists and 4 rebounds would yield a FAR better trade that dumping a gun-toting, injury-ridden Gil right now.

Sorry if some people find reality offensive here.

Ruzious, you MIGHT be correct but my reality says something different.

[Shanghai Kid]

From my perspective, a healthy Gilbert Arenas is exactly what the Magic needs. They havn an awesome team already, but they're definetly missing that clutch go-to guy down the stretch, and Vince Carter was unable to fill that role for them. Now with Lebron and Wade on the same team, the need for a good closer is magnified. I think it would be interesting to see it happen.

[DallasShalDune]

If we were to trade Gilbert to Orlando, we would have to get more than cap relief. He is too good of a player to give up for nothing. His contract is not offensive enough to dump for nadda. He was playing very well before the suspension, well enough to warrant his money.

We'd have to get more talent than just VC. We'd need 1st rounders, Gortat, and Pietrus or something. In my opinion, Gil is that much better than VC. That would leave too many holes in Orlando, though, so the trade is difficult to make even.

A salary dump is a bad idea. Orlando would vote no on giving up so many assets. Bad trades all around.

[Kanyewest]

I think there's approximately zero percent chance that Gil's value is ever going to be higher than VC's this season. If the Wiz are really offered that deal - no matter when - they would take it, imo.

You didn't watch the Orlando/Celtics series, did you? Carter only had a TS% of 48% in the postseason against the Celtics. Excluding game 1, during his last 5 games, Carter's TS% was only at 35%. Or are you under the philosophy that any expiring for Gilbert would do? I have to agree with the above that Arenas's value is likely to rise when he gets some games under his belt, even among his fan base.

[LyricalRico]

^ I don't think anybody who wants to see Gil-for-Carter go down actually expects VC to see any time in a Wiz uni. No way he goes from contender to lottery team. And since he'd be able to go to any team he wanted for the MLE (say, Dallas for instance) we might be able to get him to give some money back in a buyout.

Heck, we should just include Dallas and make it a 3-way where they get Carter and we end up with Chandler. I wouldn't mind getting Pietrus in that deal, also. It would have to be structured as two deals, but here's something that could work for everybody:

Wizards trade: Arenas
Wizards receive: Chandler and Pietrus (maybe even some picks)

Magic trade: Carter, Pietrus, and Bass
Magic receive: Arenas and Butler

Mavs trade: Chandler and Butler
Mavs receive: Carter and Bass

Why for Dallas? They get a true starting SG in Carter (who is used to playing next to Kidd) and a young PF for depth that's played for them before. Assuming Charlotte (or somebody else) waives Dampier, they could pick him back up and be really deep.

Haywood/Dampier
Dirk/Bass
Marion/Najera
Carter/Terry/DeBrick
Kidd/Beaubois/Barea

Why for Orlando? They get a more dynamic scorer and a more clutch player in Gil, plus a player he is used to playing with in Butler. Also, swapping Pietrus/Bass for Caron's expiring mitigates the addition of Gil's salary for next season.

Howard/Gortat
Lewis/Anderson
Butler/QRich
Arenas/Redick
Nelson/Duhon
(Actually looks a lot like the Wiz of a few years ago, but with Gil off the ball and actual bigs. Could be interesting.)

Why for Washington? We get Gil's deal off our books while getting a big who is largely what we want McGee to become and an athletic SF with range.

Chandler/McGee
Blatche/Yi/Seraphin
Pietrus/Thornton/Booker
Young/Hinrich
Wall/Hinrich

Uber athletic young team where everybody (except McGee and Yi) is willing to defend. Lots of fun to watch, no one with a history of locker room indiscretions, and no massive deals choking our longterm cap. Plus everybody is young enough to grow together and be ready to compete at the same time.

Make it happen Ernie!

[Ruzious]

I think there's approximately zero percent chance that Gil's value is ever going to be higher than VC's this season. If the Wiz are really offered that deal - no matter when - they would take it, imo.

You didn't watch the Orlando/Celtics series, did you? Carter only had a TS% of 48% in the postseason against the Celtics. Excluding game 1, during his last 5 games, Carter's TS% was only at 35%. Or are you under the philosophy that any expiring for Gilbert would do? I have to agree with the above that Arenas's value is likely to rise when he gets some games under his belt, even among his fan base.

This is ironic. Last year, at this time, there were several posters here insisting on what a great acquisition VC would be for the Wiz, and I was the one saying - it would make no sense - saying he was overrated, would likely start to deteriorate at his age, has never been a winner, would be a bad fit, etc, etc. It makes sense now mainly because of the contracts - but he's also probably roughly just as good a player as Gil and probably a better fit with the personnel the Wiz have.

Yes, I saw the entire series with the Celtics - including the halftime stuff about his drug-dealing brother and how VC has tried to help his brother and the community. I enjoyed the series. VC stunk. It looked like he choked. I don't really care. That didn't change my opinion of him.

[mtrean2]

About the Gil for VC trades or any Gil for cap space trades, I think it comes down to this.

1) Trade him immediately for guaranteed long-term cap flexability, while possibly losing value that he may have gained while playing.

2) Risk injury which would kill the chance at long-term cap flexability for the chance to gain value.

It's a tough call. My only thought is how much more do you think you can realistically get from waiting. I think the teams that would be willing to trade for him at the trade deadline would be the teams competing for a championship, and can only offer late picks.

[nate33]

About the Gil for VC trades or any Gil for cap space trades, I think it comes down to this.

1) Trade him immediately for guaranteed long-term cap flexability, while possibly losing value that he may have gained while playing.

2) Risk injury which would kill the chance at long-term cap flexability for the chance to gain value.

It's a tough call. My only thought is how much more do you think you can realistically get from waiting. I think the teams that would be willing to trade for him at the trade deadline would be the teams competing for a championship, and can only offer late picks.

This has been my point all along. When Arenas was signed 2 years ago, it wasn't like the rest of the league was praising us for getting the biggest steal in free agency. The general consensus was that we either overpaid or paid full value but it was generally understood that, given our circumstances, we didn't really have another option.

Players who are "fully paid" or "overpaid" generally aren't worth more than expiring contracts. If Arenas was fully paid when we signed him, and his trade value has dropped since then due to injury and off the court issues, it's pretty hard to expect more than expiring contracts in return for him now.

I think that the consensus value for Arenas right now is that we'd have to take on some bad long term contracts just to dump him. If Arenas rehabs his value by having a good season, my guess is that his trade value would improve to be worth expiring contracts. If Orlando is already willing to offer expiring contracts, my assessment is that they're already factoring an improved season out of Arenas and that they (or anybody else) wouldn't really offer anything better down the road.

[LyricalRico]

It's a tough call. My only thought is how much more do you think you can realistically get from waiting. I think the teams that would be willing to trade for him at the trade deadline would be the teams competing for a championship, and can only offer late picks.

I don't even think it's about improving Gil's value for the folks who want to keep him. It's about seeing him him put up 25ppg on a lottery team. That's all they seem to care about.

[rockymac52]

The way I see it, we're clearly not trading Arenas before the start of the season. That may be because 1. no one wants him, 2. we're only getting awful offers for him, or 3. we actually like him on our team. I'm thinking more along the lines of option 2, and possibly 1. With that said, here's what I think our options are going forward.

1. Arenas re-injures himself or doesn't play well at SG, and as a result, no one is willing to trade anything for him other than equally large and long term deals for most likely worse players.

2. Arenas performs well, something along the lines of 20-25 ppg with 4-5 apg, and teams slowly begin to accept that he's a good player on a somewhat reasonable, although still large, contract. Contenders looking for a move to push them over the top go after Arenas hard, but still likely can only offer late 1st round picks, some expiring contracts, and maybe a young, raw player or a young player with limited upside or two. So likely the types of deals we're getting now. Not many contenders have young prospects on the ends of their benches, and their draft picks aren't exceptionally valuable, so we're not looking at much value here.

3. Arenas performs well as in option #2, but the Wizards are having a solid season with a developing Wall and Arenas combo and are in the mix for the 7 or 8 seed, and show a lot of potential. We realize that while Arenas might be getting paid what other, better, superstars are getting paid, he does deserve a max contract (given the nature of today's NBA salary structure), although probably a few million per year less. It turns out the deal isn't SO awful, but alas, it's not one we'd ideally build around. But hey, he's performing well, and he fits well with Wall and the rest of our lineup, and the Wizards are winning a decent amount of games. We're still open to a trade, but given the proposals we're getting (see #2), we laugh because it's clearly an uneven deal, and we'd rather be patient and wait for a better deal to come along or just keep Arenas around because he's playing well after all. However, we then have his max contract on the books for the foreseeable future, and we're treading water between the back end of the lottery and the 7 or 8 seed in the East.



I still can't decide what to do. I say don't trade Arenas for expirings now, unless we really don't believe that he'll be good this season for some reason. Although we need to understand that the offers out there might not get much better, we also need to understand that if we want to have long term cap flexibility to get some younger assets to surround Wall we're going to need to trade Arenas.

I honestly can't make a commitment one way or another until I see Arenas play at least 10 games with the new look Wizards. But like I said earlier, that may just be wasting our time and could be ruining our chances. But who knows?

[WizStorm]

It's a tough call. My only thought is how much more do you think you can realistically get from waiting. I think the teams that would be willing to trade for him at the trade deadline would be the teams competing for a championship, and can only offer late picks.

I don't even think it's about improving Gil's value for the folks who want to keep him. It's about seeing him him put up 25ppg on a lottery team. That's all they seem to care about.

Wow ... what a total strawman argument with absolutely no basis in fact. You act like it's a simple group think with a single purpose of selfishly wanting Gil around to get his points. I've seen a wide range of arguments for retaining Gil to wanting to get his value up for a future trade to keeping him longterm as cap space is pure fool's gold. Hell, I could just as easy say that everyone that wants to deal Gil are complete Gil haters. But I don't, because you can't easily put any pro or con argument for trading Gil into a neat little box.

Personally, I want to give Wall every possible chance to succeed in this league and not just dump him in a situation where he feels he's a one man show and sinks deep into the abyss of being part of a losing franchise. I think Gilbert is the perfect compliment for Wall in terms of on-court ability as well as being able to actually take the pressure off Wall to feel like he has to everything himself. I think it's an absolute win/win with Gil and Wall in terms of each other actually needing each other to take the limelight off the other.

[fishercob]

It's a tough call. My only thought is how much more do you think you can realistically get from waiting. I think the teams that would be willing to trade for him at the trade deadline would be the teams competing for a championship, and can only offer late picks.

I don't even think it's about improving Gil's value for the folks who want to keep him. It's about seeing him him put up 25ppg on a lottery team. That's all they seem to care about.

Rico, I think this is a poor mischaracterization of the general feelings of those in the "Keep Gil" camp. We all aren't Krizko Zero.

The main reason people want to trade Gil is the risk that he injures himself or sucks and we're left trying to rebuild with an albatross contract in tow. However, we're heading into a CBA negotiation and likely a lockout, since owners have all the leverage (and they do -- they're going to crush the union in this). I'd bet, as we've all discussed, that there's going to be some type of "Allan Houston" amnesty proposition in the new CBA whereby owners can get relief from their past/current mistakes. Frankly, I think that practically explains some of the silly spending we've seen this summer -- owners know they'll have a chance to buy their way out of a deal if it really blows up in their face.

So with "Allan Houston II" in our back pocket, what good reason is there to trade Gilbert now?

As to why not to deal him now, I'll try to sum it up as quickly as possible in no particular order

1) Rehab his value so that if we do trade him down the line, we're getting actual assets of value in return.

2) Upside. Wall-Arenas has the potential to be one of, if not the single, best starting back court in the league. Yes there are question marks, but we have to see it play out to know for sure. It's the equivalent of trading a lotto pick before the draft lottery.

I think those are the two main reasons. Like most "keep Gil" proponents, I'm not motivated by seeing an entertaining team win 25 games. If that's indeed the outcome, then all the better -- we'll have another high lotto pick/.

[nate33]

Personally, I want to give Wall every possible chance to succeed in this league and not just dump him in a situation where he feels he's a one man show and sinks deep into the abyss of being part of a losing franchise. I think Gilbert is the perfect compliment for Wall in terms of on-court ability as well as being able to actually take the pressure off Wall to feel like he has to everything himself. I think it's an absolute win/win with Gil and Wall in terms of each other actually needing each other to take the limelight off the other.

I can understand the argument that it would take some pressure off of Wall to have another legit scorer sharing the backcourt with him. But have you considered that Vince Carter could serve that function nearly as well as Arenas? Carter is no longer as good offensively as Arenas, but he's still above-average. And Carter is surely better than Arenas defensively. And we still have Hinrich to come in and settle Wall down if he gets flustered. It's not like Wall is working without a net.