RealGM

This is pretty simple, and hopefully it will be a fun discussion during the lockout. If there were to be an expansion draft, what 8 players from your roster would you protect?

The rules:
1. Unrestricted free agents are not available to an expansion team to draft.
2. Unsigned draft picks are not available for the expansion team to draft.
3. Restricted free agents are available.
4. Each team must have at least one player unprotected, so if team x had 8 players under contract and 4 that were UFAs, it could only protect 7 players.
5. The expansion team can only draft one player from each roster and must have at least 14 players.

This could get interesting. Would you protect TT, or allow him to be selected and free up a whole lot of cap space? (he would be a good pick in an expansion draft where you get the crumbs of a roster)

It seems like a waste of a draft pick and talent, but it could allow us to pursue Gasol.

It would be pretty simple for us... I'd only care about DJ, Hendo, the rookies, and Tyrus. If we're lucky someone drafts Maggette or Diaw.

I think we could work out a deal with an expansion team. Let them take Tyrus if they swap first-round picks (if they're picking 1-4 and we're picking 8-12, that would be a huge help).

We could also do something similar to the White deal and offer a future pick if the team drafted Diop.

I think it's obvious for us: Diop, Diaw, Maggette, Najera, and Tyrus if the other team agrees to a deal.

Can you do that? I thought with expansion drafts they could pick who ever isn't protected, no strings attached.

kemba and biyombo aren't eligible for the xdraft. count them out.

protected players
1. dj augustin - solid young player, cheap contract
2. gerald henderson - solid young player, cheap contract
3. boris diaw - as expiring contract he has value
4. tyrus thomas - talanted but with large contract, would still protect
5. dj white - young bench player, cheap
6. dante cunningham - young bench player, cheap

i would probably stop here and leave the others unprotected.

unprotected
1. gana diop
2. corey maggette
3. matt carroll
4. eduardo najera

there are 3 main strategies an expansion team might take
1. get good fast by selecting vets like maggette despite contract. not a great way to build a young team but you could probably put together a playoff level team with bad contracts to generate immediate fan support

2. select restricted free agents and players with unguaranteed or partially unguaranteed contracts then fill out the rest with cheap young players with upside. you cut the restricted guys and save a huge chunk of cap space. this was the bobcats strategy.

3. wheel and deal, take bad contracts from teams in exchange for future picks. you take on a lot of salary early, but you cash in on stockpiled picks in a few years as the bad contracts expire.

#3 is what i wanted the bobcats to do more of during our x-draft. i always felt bernie didnt work the phones hard enough during this process. the only deal he really pulled off was agreeing to take on melvin ely in exchange for us moving up in the draft from 4 to 2. that was a good move but i feel there were plenty of other deals like that available if we looked hard enough.

Sachmo wrote:Can you do that? I thought with expansion drafts they could pick who ever isn't protected, no strings attached.

http://www.insidehoops.com/bobcats-expa ... raft.shtml

We made three trades. If we can draft players for compensation, I don't see why we couldn't demand compensation to make one of our players eligible.

DONE DEAL: Charlotte gets second pick in 2004 NBA Draft from the Clippers, Charlotte selects Clippers forward Pedrag Drobnjak in the Expansion Draft. The Bobcats will send the fourth overall pick and 33rd overall selection to the Clippers.

DONE DEAL: Utah and Charlotte have a deal. The Bobcats select Aleksandar Pavlovic in the expansion draft, and he will be sent to Cleveland for a future first round draft pick.

DONE DEAL: Charlotte selects Phoenix center Jahidi White in the expansion draft. Phoenix will convey $3 million and a future first-round pick owed to the Suns from Cleveland. Cleveland’s pick is lottery protected and will be conveyed to Charlotte (via Phoenix) the first time Cleveland qualifies for the playoffs.

oh, yeah, it was drobnjak, not ely that landed us the 2nd pick

Peja Drobjnak's website. Anyone remember that? What a delight!

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ball_d ... nba-324121

He just retired a few months ago.

http://work.wongdoody.com/sonics/drobnjak/index.html - Is that the website you're talking about Walt?

Walt Cronkite wrote:Peja Drobjnak's website. Anyone remember that? What a delight!

I wasn't here for that.

Jaruff wrote:http://work.wongdoody.com/sonics/drobnjak/index.html - Is that the website you're talking about Walt?

Heeeellllllllllll yeeeeaaaahhhh!!

OHHH, the "Victory for Sonics, OKAY" guy! Man he must be upset now...

I too thought there was more opportunity during the x-draft to make deals like that. Bernie did do a decent job though, he just put way too much stock into guys like Tamar Slay. Bernie was good at identifying good, hard working guys and ditching the crappy workers (like princess Rush - remember him?) but really bad at judging who will be top tier talent. I wish we started out with Cho, I could only dream about what he'd do in an expansion draft situation.

But to the point of this thread, yes I would basically only protect the rookies, DJ, Hendo, Diaw, Dante, and White. I would actually leave Tyrus out there and would not mind getting out of that contract right now. I don't trust it.

i thought bernie grossly overvalued the idea of having lots of cap room early.

He did, but it was also stupid that they strapped us with that 3 year situation of having a lower cap than anybody else. They should've let us have as much room as everybody else right out of the gate. After all, we lost our f'n team because the NBA and Stern were too impatient to wait one more year.

We did end up with the assets we needed, we just didn't use them very well and got unlucky. We were a coin flip away from ending up with Chris Paul and Danny Granger in the 05' draft. Damn that last win vs Detroit.

Rich4114 wrote:I too thought there was more opportunity during the x-draft to make deals like that. Bernie did do a decent job though, he just put way too much stock into guys like Tamar Slay. Bernie was good at identifying good, hard working guys and ditching the crappy workers (like princess Rush - remember him?) but really bad at judging who will be top tier talent. I wish we started out with Cho, I could only dream about what he'd do in an expansion draft situation.

But to the point of this thread, yes I would basically only protect the rookies, DJ, Hendo, Diaw, Dante, and White. I would actually leave Tyrus out there and would not mind getting out of that contract right now. I don't trust it.

I think there would be an 80% chance of Tyrus being taken. A new team and you need a young energy guy to build around. You're going to have a team of small contracts so his salary isn't that bad.

Rich4114 wrote:He did, but it was also stupid that they strapped us with that 3 year situation of having a lower cap than anybody else. They should've let us have as much room as everybody else right out of the gate.

So many NBA fans that aren't Bobcats fans fail to realize that fact. They say it took 6 years to make the playoffs - but we spent the first three at a significant disadvantage. We had a league imposed cap that kept us from fielding a good team for the fist three years.

We did end up with the assets we needed, we just didn't use them very well and got unlucky. We were a coin flip away from ending up with Chris Paul and Danny Granger in the 05' draft. Damn that last win vs Detroit.

Even with that win we still had the assets to land D.Will or Paul but BB wanted to draft those two home town losers rather than package the picks and move up.

Now D.Will and Paul are studs and the guys we drafted? One is a journeyman who is on his 4th team in 2 years and the other is out of the NBA.

BigSlam wrote:Even with that win we still had the assets to land D.Will or Paul but BB wanted to draft those two home town losers rather than package the picks and move up.

Now D.Will and Paul are studs and the guys we drafted? One is a journeyman who is on his 4th team in 2 years and the other is out of the NBA.

Don't remind me. On top of that we followed it up the next year by drafting Ammo for additional lulz.

^^^

Charlotte is committed to loldom...

I thought Bernie did alright in that expansion draft with what was available.

As Rich said we put ourselves in the right situation asset wise but screwed up with those said assets, cap space & draft picks we had in abundance but blew it...now we have the best assets...Rich Cho & MJ.