Wiz Acquire Hinrich, Seraphin, $3M for Veermenko's rights

[sfam]

Camby is an excellent rebounder and shotblocker, and if McGee can become as good as Camby in those two areas, I'll be thrilled...and so will the Zards. I'll leave it at that.

Rebounding and blocks, sure, but I'll again say its probably unrealistic to expect much more than that. I agree with Nate that McGee has a much better offensive upside than Camby in the sense that we could imagine going to McGee on purpose down low in the not too distant future. I still contend though that McGee will probably not become the defensive stopper in the Garnet or Camby mold. Nothing indicates that he even cares about that role right now. I agree he can get lots better there (put another way, could he get any worse?), but I think the best case we can probably hope for is a middle of the road defender who also rebounds and blocks shots (which will probably go down from his current total now, assuming he actually tries to play real defense - meaning less jumping at everything). I just don't see him having the court awareness to read offensive schemes and regularly figure out when a weak-side drive is about to come so that he can get in a position to stop a bucket.

[Hoopalotta]

Judging by the list of free agents that were contacting, I'd think that James Johnson is almost surely not included in the Hiney trade.

[montestewart]

Thanks for the welcome everybody (and nice touch, keynote). I'll try to keep most of em shorter.

You think that's long? Stick around.

Hi wrexingcrew. Nice posts.

[Rafael122]

Thanks for the welcome everybody (and nice touch, keynote). I'll try to keep most of em shorter.

You think that's long?

That's what she said.

[dobrojim]

quick repeat of my post in the Kev Ser thread

is it possible for CHI to back out if it looks like they aren't
making headway on the FAs that they wanted?

[keynote]

Thanks for the welcome everybody (and nice touch, keynote). I'll try to keep most of em shorter.

You think that's long?

That's what she said.

What, "nice touch, keynote"?

[wrexingcrew]

quick repeat of my post in the Kev Ser thread

is it possible for CHI to back out if it looks like they aren't
making headway on the FAs that they wanted?

Technically, I think so - especially since it's pending til the end of the July Moratorium. In practice though, I highly doubt any NBA front office would pull that. I'm sure that gets you the heavy end of the hammer. We've seen players/agents do that, sure, like the Boozer situation, but a front office has too much to lose and not enough to gain. Someone with a better grasp of the CBA should probably weigh in though.

What, "nice touch, keynote"?

I'm a fan of the Wreckin Cru LP cover.

[willbcocks]

This trade is growing on me as free agency progresses...

[Hoopalotta]

This trade is growing on me as free agency progresses...

Yeah, and as I was mentioning in the Free Agency thread, it occurred to me that we have a nice easy out on Hinrich's second year with the almost inevitable Revenge Of The Allen Houston Rule. If there was any doubt that they would unleash it again, it died with the Drew Gooden signing.

So we could potentially buyout Kirk's remaining salary for about $3.5-$4 million and free up $8 million in cap space with that being just about covered by the cash that was sent.

That would push this over into being pretty darn shweeeeet.

[verbal8]

This trade is growing on me as free agency progresses...

Originally I thought Hinrich was a bit overpaid, but costing only as much as Darko plus Gooden this year he looks like a pretty good deal.

I think Salmons might be a little better than Hinrich at this point, but Salmons deal is too long.

[montestewart]

This trade is growing on me as free agency progresses...

Originally I thought Hinrich was a bit overpaid, but costing only as much as Darko plus Gooden this year he looks like a pretty good deal.

I think Salmons might be a little better than Hinrich at this point, but Salmons deal is too long.

His skills have declined, and I didn't love this trade, but I generally like him as a player. Maybe I'm overestimating Hinrich's "intangibles" but I've always liked what he brought and in his prime I thought he'd be a good compliment to Arenas. Maybe he can still do that for however long he's here.

[Kanyewest]

Yeah, and as I was mentioning in the Free Agency thread, it occurred to me that we have a nice easy out on Hinrich's second year with the almost inevitable Revenge Of The Allen Houston Rule. If there was any doubt that they would unleash it again, it died with the Drew Gooden signing.

I think Allan Houston made more money on the first two years of his deal than Gooden will make during a 5 year span. I also believe that the final two years on Gooden's contract are partially guaranteed. I would call the deal "Revenge of Jared Jeffries".

[Hoopalotta]

I just meant as in Gooden being the Free Agent equivalent of the minutemen at Lexington & Concord. That was the signing heard round the world and a warning of the carnage to come.

But the Allan Houston rule was actually a formal buyout provision following the previous CBA negotiations whereby teams can axe one contract and remove it from the salary cap (they still have to pay the actual cash).

It would be simple for us with Hiney as he'll only have about $4 million more on his contract at that point after the lockout wraps up. So paying out that $4 million would open up $8 million in cap space.

[verbal8]

But the Allan Houston rule was actually a formal buyout provision following the previous CBA negotiations whereby teams can axe one contract and remove it from the salary cap (they still have to pay the actual cash).

Off topic, but the "Allan Houston" rule wasn't actually used on Allan Houston. It shows you how bad a GM Thomas was that he managed to acquire a contract even worse than Allan Houston's.

[Hoopalotta]

Am I messing up my recollection and the rule only affected the tax hit? I thought it was the cap as well but there is this blog saying otherwise:

http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2005/07/ ... uston.html

[MJG]

Am I messing up my recollection and the rule only affected the tax hit? I thought it was the cap as well but there is this blog saying otherwise:

http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2005/07/ ... uston.html

The way I remember it is that it only helped you out with the tax, not the cap. I believe it was because the tax was new, so it would have felt like they were punishing you for something you couldn't have prevented ahead of time, while the cap was not new, so tough nuts for you if you have a bad contract that puts you over.

[nate33]

Am I messing up my recollection and the rule only affected the tax hit? I thought it was the cap as well but there is this blog saying otherwise:

http://sports-law.blogspot.com/2005/07/ ... uston.html

The way I remember it is that it only helped you out with the tax, not the cap. I believe it was because the tax was new, so it would have felt like they were punishing you for something you couldn't have prevented ahead of time, while the cap was not new, so tough nuts for you if you have a bad contract that puts you over.

Yeah. I think you are right. It makes sense too. The premise of the Allan Houston Rule was to save teams money. It wasn't meant to give them more cap flexibility to improve their rosters.

[Hoopalotta]

Yeah, looks like that's not going to be a big help from my follow up research.

So, the only way to get out of Hiney is by way of trade. I'm hopeful someone would bite, but there's so may point guards out there now, so we might be looking at something around the trade deadline after an injury to a starter as our best shot. I can think of a few other scenarios, but no individual deal is particularly likely.

But not as much cap space as I would like as things stand now.

[JonathanJoseph]

Whoa. Read through all of the Javale McGee tangents....yawn.

Let's see: Haywood was so soft he was Brenda. Blatche was so lazy and clueless he wasn't even going to stay in the league. Marcus Camby? He's been in the NBA for 14 years and played 3 seasons at Umass. Javale Mcgee has played 1 season in college and 2 in the NBA.

Big men ALWAYS take time to develop (and I'm not sure I wouldn't include Yi in that category either). Everyone relax until the guy is at least 23 years old. I wish he had better practice habits but I've seen no long-term concerns. His momma will wup his azz if he doesn't put in the effort.

As for the trade, with each ridiculous contract signed the Wizards look smarter and smarter. If you figure the Wiz need 2 years of seasoning before they contend, realize that over the next 2 years the Wiz gain $19M in cap space coming off the books (Yi, Young, Thornton, Hinrich) and didn't give away any future draft picks.

[montestewart]

Whoa. Read through all of the Javale McGee tangents....yawn.

Let's see: Haywood was so soft he was Brenda. Blatche was so lazy and clueless he wasn't even going to stay in the league. Marcus Camby? He's been in the NBA for 14 years and played 3 seasons at Umass. Javale Mcgee has played 1 season in college and 2 in the NBA.

Big men ALWAYS take time to develop (and I'm not sure I wouldn't include Yi in that category either). Everyone relax until the guy is at least 23 years old. I wish he had better practice habits but I've seen no long-term concerns. His momma will wup his azz if he doesn't put in the effort.

As for the trade, with each ridiculous contract signed the Wizards look smarter and smarter. If you figure the Wiz need 2 years of seasoning before they contend, realize that over the next 2 years the Wiz gain $19M in cap space coming off the books (Yi, Young, Thornton, Hinrich) and didn't give away any future draft picks.

I've liked McGee despite his deficiencies, because he always had that... and besides, he also had some significant spurts of progress last year. There's no single assigned track for big men and I almost always want things to progress faster than they want to, but I'm pretty happy with the progress of his game so far.

The Wizards are kind of sitting pretty, with largely minimized a risk in a time of great uncertainty regarding labor, caps, etc. Under other circumstances, that might look smart but quite boring for a few years, but with Wall added to Arenas, Blatche, McGee, and bunch of young players looking to establish themselves (along with the cap space and future picks you mention) this is a pretty exciting time to be a Wizards fan.