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Earl "I am probably available for expiring contracts" Watson had 23 pts on 9-12 shooting including 3-4 from 3 with 10 rebounds and 10 assists with 2 steals and 1 block while leading Seattle to a road win over a hot Sacramento team.

I know it is bad form to suggest trades during the afterglow of a tight win over the Lakers when Lue scored 16 off the bench and AJ had 8 assists. However, I'm still thinking about the longer haul and I don't want this home stand lull us into a false sense of "we're fine at PG." Andre Miller might still be a better option, but he might not be available at a reasonable price. If that turns out to be the case, BK, don't sleep on Watson and just stand pat.

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You got the cube reference and hit us with some campaign allusion. Not bad. Watson brings a lot of defense and he is a solid offensive player, I wouldn't mind having him on the Hawks. If he is available for expirings, that needs to get done.

He is making quite a bit of money for his production. I'm not sure if I would give up expirings for just him. We might need some sweetner cause having two average pg's making a combined 12 million is not good use of our cap space, especially since we would need a better pg eventually.

conleyorbust wrote:You got the cube reference and hit us with some campaign allusion. Not bad. Watson brings a lot of defense and he is a solid offensive player, I wouldn't mind having him on the Hawks. If he is available for expirings, that needs to get done.

If it'd be up to me(and most of the other Sonics fans around here) then yes, Earl Watson should be available for expiring contracts.

uga_dawgs24 wrote:He is making quite a bit of money for his production. I'm not sure if I would give up expirings for just him. We might need some sweetner cause having two average pg's making a combined 12 million is not good use of our cap space, especially since we would need a better pg eventually.

We could throw you Damien Wilkins alongside Earl.

The Hawks are (Please Use More Appropriate Word) if they wouldn't take Earl Watson for expirings. He is a good distributor,defender,and isn't a liability on offense...basically the definition of a MLE player....atleast more deserving of the MLE than an injury prone Speedy.

uga_dawgs24 wrote:He is making quite a bit of money for his production. I'm not sure if I would give up expirings for just him. We might need some sweetner cause having two average pg's making a combined 12 million is not good use of our cap space, especially since we would need a better pg eventually.

I can't factor Speedy into any calculations anymore. He's dead money. It makes no sense for anyone to trade for him and it is unlikely that he makes it back to the floor for us and if he does it probably wouldn't last long. If you insist in counting that money as investment toward PG then the only deals that can be added to him to give bang for the buck is a rookie deal. The only one of those (I can find) that might be available is Kyle Lowry and that would probably only be part of larger package. If we can get Mike Miller and Kyle Lowry in one trade then great. If it takes acquiring a bad contract like Cardinal to get either of them then I move on.

Looking around at PGs, it seems like Watson or Ridnour is the best bet for us in terms of price/performance/availability. I won't kid you that 6+M per year is a tremendous bargain for the performance. That is why he's available for trade. If he or Ridnour was a contract bargain then Seattle would have no incentive to move either one.

I wouldn't ignore the sweetener as long as it didn't have too bad of a contract attached. A 2nd rounder is more likely of a sweetener. Wilkins contract is 2 more years at 3+M per year. That isn't a horrible contract, but he only seems to play well against us. If he did flourish we'd have to deal with the ETO on the last year. If he didn't do well he'd be dead weight. He can create some, but he isn't the shooter that stretches the court. Not the perfect 2/3 I was looking for to allow us to move Chill for an upgrade or help elsewhere.

evildallas wrote:-= original quote snipped =-


Looking around at PGs, it seems like Watson or Ridnour is the best bet for us in terms of price/performance/availability. I won't kid you that 6+M per year is a tremendous bargain for the performance. That is why he's available for trade. If he or Ridnour was a contract bargain then Seattle would have no incentive to move either one.

I wouldn't ignore the sweetener as long as it didn't have too bad of a contract attached. A 2nd rounder is more likely of a sweetener. Wilkins contract is 2 more years at 3+M per year. That isn't a horrible contract, but he only seems to play well against us. If he did flourish we'd have to deal with the ETO on the last year. If he didn't do well he'd be dead weight. He can create some, but he isn't the shooter that stretches the court. Not the perfect 2/3 I was looking for to allow us to move Chill for an upgrade or help elsewhere.

The Sonics probably wouldn't mind giving you the worst of our four(4) 2nd round picks on top of Watson, if you send us expirings in return.

Wilkins was more of a joke on my side. Though, he can opt out after this season, but i doubt that he'd leave that money on the table, cause he most likely wouldn't get paid that kind of money in free agency.

First, I hope that I am wrong, but I have the feeling management is not ready to trade expiring contrats. It's the only way for to really improve this team, but they could prefer going in the opposite way, trading running contracts (Zaza, Shelden,...) for expiring contracts in oreder to get free money and justify this by saying this money is for the Joshes extensions. No ambition. No risk.

Back to Watson, I thought the best was either trade for a $10M+ PG but one that can hit 3's, not Miller, or trade for a "around MLE or less" PG (Daniels, Watson, ...).

So Watson... searching for some stats, I found http://www.82games.com/0708/07SEA1C.HTM and http://www.82games.com/0708/0708SEA5.HTM
and these pages reminded me the reaction we had seeing the ATL one ( http://www.82games.com/0708/0708ATL5.HTM even if it's way better than it was some weeks ago).

It doesn't say all, but I was surprised with Watson page, was thinking it would be better, but it also depends on the rest of the team in a bad season.

My bet is the Sonics would trade The Earl...

E Watson & a 2008 2nd pick (#43, Houston's) for expirings (eg T Lue, A Johnson, L Wright)

On the other hand, I'm hearing that the Denver Nuggets are also interested in E Watson...

E Watson & Denver's 2008 2nd pick back (#51) for E Najera (expiring)

If I'm Sam Presti I'd prefer to trade with the Hawks instead of the Nuggets as you are not in our divison.

djthesonicsfan wrote:My bet is the Sonics would trade The Earl...

E Watson & a 2008 2nd pick (#43, Houston's) for expirings (eg T Lue, A Johnson, L Wright)

On the other hand, I'm hearing that the Denver Nuggets are also interested in E Watson...

E Watson & Denver's 2008 2nd pick back (#51) for E Najera (expiring)

If I'm Sam Presti I'd prefer to trade with the Hawks instead of the Nuggets as you are not in our divison.

Who did Denver trade Earl for?

it was a three team trade awhile back between sac, den, and sea. earl was the only player of consequence.

Damien Wilkins' mama cooked the breakfast with no hog...

I think it would be interesting to see how Wilkins would play as a Hawk.

D21 wrote:So Watson... searching for some stats, I found http://www.82games.com/0708/07SEA1C.HTM and http://www.82games.com/0708/0708SEA5.HTM
and these pages reminded me the reaction we had seeing the ATL one ( http://www.82games.com/0708/0708ATL5.HTM even if it's way better than it was some weeks ago).

The pages for AJ and Lue show better margins than Earl, but I got to question the accuracy of the measurements in some cases. For instance, Lue's PER against is 15.9 compared to 17.2 for Earl Watson. Although Lue has played much better this year, my eyes tell me that anyone can drive past him at will. I can't really imagine many PGs who should be worse defensively. The thing that concerns we about Watson is comparing the 82games numbers for him and Ridnour. He is showing up as worse defensively than Ridnour. In theory their supporting casts should be equal.

Not that I buy it entirely, but Keyon Dooling is doing well when at PG in Orlando according to 82games.

http://www.82games.com/0708/07ORL3C.HTM

Wonder if they still would like to get a big.

Tonight's PG audition was Chris Duhon.

Playing short-handed Chicago surprised Golden State behind strong games from Joe Smith and Chris Duhon who put up 34 pts and 9 assists while going 4-6 from 3 pt range. I don't think Duhon is available for a trade anymore this year (since he is expiring and they have so many injuries). It is interesting for the off season as he is UFA and is likely to be in the 4-5M range.

Pass on Duhon...fluke game. Give me Ivey for the minimum over Duhon at any where near the MLE.

You think that Duhon's play gives the Bulls an option to move Hinrich?
That is what I saw out of last night, more than movind a small cap hit like Duhon.
Duhon is erratic, but may convince Chicago to give a multi-year.
Most teams do need 2 quality PGs, and the Hawks have an okay lineup, but one that probably won't advance you against the Top 4 teams in the playoffs.
Right now, there probably won't be a trade to help the Hawks because BK has too many mistakes he has to answer for already. We will have Shelden until we give up on him and move him for a 2nd rounder.
We also can 't convince Speedy to retire as well.
Tough times if you want to advance in the playoffs.