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When the Phoenix Suns reached the midway point of its season and Emeka Okafor still out with a neck injury, an insurance policy began to take over payment on 80 percent of the remaining $14.4 million on his 13-14 contact.

Okafor's contract has become one of the most valuable assets for trade partners seeking significant savings.

A team dealing for Okafor would receive an insurance payout of $5.7 million – roughly $141,000 per game.

With $5 million in cap space and Okafor's contract, Ryan McDonough is looking to improve his roster for a playoff run. The Suns are currently holding the seventh seed in the Western Conference.

The Suns have expressed a willingness to acquire a veteran player on a short-term deal who wouldn't compromise their cap space.

McDonough has expressed publicly his willingness to explore using his draft picks, young assets and cap space to explore possible deals for All-Star-level players.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski/Yahoo! Sports

Good to know we gave up a pick to unload that terrible contract.

McDonough is a smart guy he nearly turned around Phx up and down.
Dudley, Marshall, Scola and Gortat into few exciting young pieces that are doing work now, but the best thing he did. He hired Jeff Hornacek as Head Coach.

If he stays on the path of building good team with right players and right free agent signings Phx gonna be impressive team to join and watch.

For the Wizards, if they didn't make this trade they will play without real center this season bc Seraphin, Vesely and even Booker are just role players who have their good moments.

Too bad that Porter project is gonna take a looooong time to develop his game, body strength and also confidence.

If they flip Okafor for some sort of first, I will laugh. They'll get 2 first rounders for an average Gortat.

So if EG had done a better job drafting, we could have kept Okafor and our draft pick, and then turned Oak into another draft pick?

EG is the gift that keeps on giving.

Zonkerbl wrote:So if EG had done a better job drafting, we could have kept Okafor and our draft pick, and then turned Oak into another draft pick?

Or free agency could have avoided the desperate move. Gortat is better than Blair, but not $15 million and a draft pick better?

Or he could have done better in negotiations. If he had given up Vesley/Seraphin and Singleton the salaries would match and the pick might only have been a 2nd rounder, and the Wizards would have the Okafor trade chip.

verbal8 wrote:

Zonkerbl wrote:So if EG had done a better job drafting, we could have kept Okafor and our draft pick, and then turned Oak into another draft pick?

Or free agency could have avoided the desperate move. Gortat is better than Blair, but not $15 million and a draft pick better?

Or he could have done better in negotiations. If he had given up Vesley/Seraphin and Singleton the salaries would match and the pick might only have been a 2nd rounder, and the Wizards would have the Okafor trade chip.

Grunfeld? better in negotiations?

verbal8 wrote:

Zonkerbl wrote:So if EG had done a better job drafting, we could have kept Okafor and our draft pick, and then turned Oak into another draft pick?

Or free agency could have avoided the desperate move. Gortat is better than Blair, but not $15 million and a draft pick better?

Or he could have done better in negotiations. If he had given up Vesley/Seraphin and Singleton the salaries would match and the pick might only have been a 2nd rounder, and the Wizards would have the Okafor trade chip.

Pfft. If I'm the suns, I shop Gortat around to every team in the league, saying the going price is a first round pick. I wouldn't even be vaguely tempted by Veseley, Seraphin, or Singleton.

No, the true solution here would be for one of Vesely, Seraphin, or Singleton not to suck eggs.

Hey look—the Suns signed Barbosa for the rest of the season.

And we're stuck with Maynor. Awesome job by our FO.

The Suns FO just took three of our assets, and only lost Gortat. Impressive...talk about a good FO taking a weak desperate FO to school.

TGW wrote:Hey look—the Suns signed Barbosa for the rest of the season.

And we're stuck with Maynor. Awesome job by our FO.

It's been only 9 games and less than 200 minutes, but Barbosa has actually been pretty bad for Phoenix so far. He's still better than Maynor or Temple, but it's a minor difference. None of the three are much good.

Nivek, any FA pgs out there that you think are worthy of being picked up?