RealGM

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wireta ... an_thomas/

The Oklahoma City Thunder have acquired veteran center Etan Thomas, it was announced today by Executive Vice President and General Manager Sam Presti. In addition to Thomas, Oklahoma City receives Minnesota’s 2010 second round draft pick and a conditional 2010 second round draft pick in exchange for guards Chucky Atkins and Damien Wilkins. “We are pleased to welcome Etan Thomas to the Thunder family,” said Presti. “Etan adds experience and depth to our front court as well as a defensive mentality and competitiveness that we value.”

I guess Etan is not needed and burned some bridges.
But what's the need for Wilkins/Chucky?

I'm happy that Etan's back in the state where he attended HS and is with a team that will use him at C.

BadWolf wrote:

http://basketball.realgm.com/src_wireta ... an_thomas/

The Oklahoma City Thunder have acquired veteran center Etan Thomas, it was announced today by Executive Vice President and General Manager Sam Presti. In addition to Thomas, Oklahoma City receives Minnesota’s 2010 second round draft pick and a conditional 2010 second round draft pick in exchange for guards Chucky Atkins and Damien Wilkins. “We are pleased to welcome Etan Thomas to the Thunder family,” said Presti. “Etan adds experience and depth to our front court as well as a defensive mentality and competitiveness that we value.”

I guess Etan is not needed and burned some bridges.
But what's the need for Wilkins/Chucky?

Atkins makes a lot of sense because Minnesota will have a rookie PG. An old vet can demonstrate how to be a professional, how to take care of one's body, dos and don'ts, that kind of stuff.

As far as burning bridges, I'm not sure if Thomas didn't simply express desire to be elsewhere. Oklahoma makes sense to me. I'm not sure if his mom's still a school principal in OK (IIRC--know she was a principal), as I read years back, but if so that would seem to be a good place for Thomas in case he calls it a career there.

Personally, I believe Thomas still has some good basketball in him.

Interesting. Minnesota managed to dump Etan's $7.9M contract for two players with a combined salary of $6.8M. Atkins' contract is just $3.48M and Wilkins' is $3.4M. Furthermore, only $748,000 of Atkins' contract was guaranteed. Basically, Minnesota just turned a $7.9M obligation into a $4.2M obligation, although they sacrificed two 2nd round picks to make it happen.

I'm really surprised at this deal. OKC just paid $3.7M for two 2nd round picks. If they were willing to do so, they could have gotten better terms from an over-the-luxtax team (like us). An over-the-luxtax team would save double for the salary they unload. For example, if EG made the exact same deal before the Rubio trade, the Wizards would have saved $6.2M. Minnesota only saved $3.7M

Hmmm. Minnesota is now under the salary cap and they're obviously looking to save money.

I wonder if they'd be willing to make a deal with us involving a swap of expirings and cash. The idea is to make a trade where we send them more salary than we get back, but we also give them cash to cover the salary differential plus a little extra cash for their trouble. Our goal is to lower our luxtax figure so we end up with net savings as well.

I'm thinking something like:
Minnesota trades: Mark Madsen ($2.84) and Pecherov ($1.55M)
Washington trades: Mike James ($6.40M) and $3M cash.

Minnesota ends up taking on $2.0M in additional salary but getting $3M in cash to pay it. They save a net of $1M. From Washington's perspective, we save $2M in salary which is doubled because of the luxtax, but we're out $3M cash, for a net savings of $1M. It's a win-win for both teams.

nate33 wrote:Interesting. Minnesota managed to dump Etan's $7.9M contract for two players with a combined salary of $6.8M. Atkins' contract is just $3.48M and Wilkins' is $3.4M. Furthermore, only $748,000 of Atkins' contract was guaranteed. Basically, Minnesota just turned a $7.9M obligation into a $4.2M obligation, although they sacrificed two 2nd round picks to make it happen.

I'm really surprised at this deal. OKC just paid $3.7M for two 2nd round picks. If they were willing to do so, they could have gotten better terms from an over-the-luxtax team (like us). An over-the-luxtax team would save double for the salary they unload. For example, if EG made the exact same deal before the Rubio trade, the Wizards would have saved $6.2M. Minnesota only saved $3.7M

I think I see the logic of your point - The Wiz got 2.5 mil from Houston for their 2nd rounder. They could have effectively doubled the value if they had made a trade where they gave up 2.5 mil in cap room more than they took in.

nate33 wrote:Hmmm. Minnesota is now under the salary cap and they're obviously looking to save money.

I wonder if they'd be willing to make a deal with us involving a swap of expirings and cash. The idea is to make a trade where we send them more salary than we get back, but we also give them cash to cover the salary differential plus a little extra cash for their trouble. Our goal is to lower our luxtax figure so we end up with net savings as well.

I'm thinking something like:
Minnesota trades: Mark Madsen ($2.84) and Pecherov ($1.55M)
Washington trades: Mike James ($6.40M) and $3M cash.

Minnesota ends up taking on $2.0M in additional salary but getting $3M in cash to pay it. They save a net of $1M. From Washington's perspective, we save $2M in salary which is doubled because of the luxtax, but we're out $3M cash, for a net savings of $1M. It's a win-win for both teams.

Didn't Madsen go to LAC in the Q-Rich deal? Does the CBA prevent Pecherov from being sent back here?

fishercob wrote:

nate33 wrote:Hmmm. Minnesota is now under the salary cap and they're obviously looking to save money.

I wonder if they'd be willing to make a deal with us involving a swap of expirings and cash. The idea is to make a trade where we send them more salary than we get back, but we also give them cash to cover the salary differential plus a little extra cash for their trouble. Our goal is to lower our luxtax figure so we end up with net savings as well.

I'm thinking something like:
Minnesota trades: Mark Madsen ($2.84) and Pecherov ($1.55M)
Washington trades: Mike James ($6.40M) and $3M cash.

Minnesota ends up taking on $2.0M in additional salary but getting $3M in cash to pay it. They save a net of $1M. From Washington's perspective, we save $2M in salary which is doubled because of the luxtax, but we're out $3M cash, for a net savings of $1M. It's a win-win for both teams.

Didn't Madsen go to LAC in the Q-Rich deal? Does the CBA prevent Pecherov from being sent back here?

Yes to both questions. But Minnesota has a bunch of little expiring contracts so the general idea may still be workable.

Just goes to show you, Etan had some value out there. Like CCJ I think Etan will have something to prove this year and he will do-fine in spot muscle duty for OKC while being an expiring contract. I really like what Presti is doing over there.

nate33 wrote:Interesting. Minnesota managed to dump Etan's $7.9M contract for two players with a combined salary of $6.8M. Atkins' contract is just $3.48M and Wilkins' is $3.4M. Furthermore, only $748,000 of Atkins' contract was guaranteed. Basically, Minnesota just turned a $7.9M obligation into a $4.2M obligation, although they sacrificed two 2nd round picks to make it happen.

I'm really surprised at this deal. OKC just paid $3.7M for two 2nd round picks.

I'm surprised as well. I could see if they were a playoff team that wanted more depth, but they aren't even close. OKC could just as well have picked up a big body anywhere for the minimum, yet they chose to take on Etan's salary. Why? I don't get it.

closg00 wrote:Just goes to show you, Etan had some value out there. Like CCJ I think Etan will have something to prove this year and he will do-fine in spot muscle duty for OKC while being an expiring contract. I really like what Presti is doing over there.

I'm not sure the trade showed that - considering Minnesota had to give up 2 2nd round picks to get rid of him. Maybe the trade just showed the price of 2nd round picks.

Okay, WTF!? It took us what...two or three years to dump Etan, and it takes Kahn a couple of weeks.

JWizmentality wrote:Okay, WTF!? It took us what...two or three years to dump Etan, and it takes Kahn a couple of weeks.

I'm not quite sure this qualifies as a "dump". If all we wanted to do was save a couple million and were willing to give up a pair of second rounders to do so, I'm sure we could have made this same deal with someone along the way.

MJG wrote:

JWizmentality wrote:Okay, WTF!? It took us what...two or three years to dump Etan, and it takes Kahn a couple of weeks.

I'm not quite sure this qualifies as a "dump". If all we wanted to do was save a couple million and were willing to give up a pair of second rounders to do so, I'm sure we could have made this same deal with someone along the way.

When the Wizards were trading Etan, he had a trade kicker which made him even harder to trade.