RealGM

If the Net's make this deal, is it possible to trade salam for Diop or do you guys think they may just cut him

why would they cut him or trade him for crap? He is a useful player.

Diop is an expiring deal. They may not sign him again in the off season, but they have little reason to cut him right now. In fact, he is useful like killbuckner says.

As for trading him, he wouldn't be cheap enough for us to acquire.

Let me put a different way, to make the salary work 3 deals work for:
Josh Smith
or
Acie Law
or
Solomon, Salim, and Mario

He has to be dealt by himself and well that is all the combinations that work. I can't see any of those working for us.

If they traded him which is unlikely, the likely destination would be either Phoenix (which would be funny) or Orlando (which wouldn't) or maybe Houston.

Phoenix has a trade exception and if they offered the 2008 1st rounder from Atlanta up they could acquire him as another big man to back up Shaq. Doubt they would do that though.

Orlando could offer Redick and a pick or Redick and the rights to Fran Vasquez for Diop. Of course, NJ would have to like Redick to make either deal which I doubt.

Houston has several matching expiring contracts to swap like Wells or Snyder or Francis. If they are willing to package a 1st round pick with it, I think NJ would bite. The question here is whether Houston thinks they need a backup to Yao to make the playoffs.

I happen to think NJ is a bigger threat to reach the playoffs after the Dallas trade. If they agree, then I doubt they peddle Diop. If they are bent on rebuilding then Houston makes good sense to get a 1st out of it. This draft is looking deeper to me than last year's draft. A extra pick in the middle of the round might give a shot to move up in the draft for a big impact player.

Found an interesting take on the Kidd trade by Tony Parker. he is glad Diop is gone.

Here is Parker verbatim following Wednesday's practice: "To be honest with you, I'm really happy for that trade. Diop was doing a good job on us. And Devin Harris, most of the time, he played good against us. So I thought it would be good for us. No disrespect to Jason Kidd, he's a great point guard, but those guys that left always gave us trouble."

In that, Parker was simply verbalizing the conventional wisdom floating around the Spurs' locker room in the wake of the Kidd trade. Harris is one of the few point guards on the planet who can keep up with Parker's speed. Diop was a capable big man, useful for banging on Tim Duncan.

http://blogs.mysanantonio.com/weblogs/c ... d_p_7.html

If they don't resign him, I want to make a run at Diop. I don't think we will keep Chill, and even if we sign and trade him, we should have room to stay under the luxary tax to sign him since it has been going up every year. If not, I would still sign and trade Chill for picks and contracts I could buy out to make room for Diop and incoming rookies.

No rookies this year...we don't have a draft pick!

geeman wrote:No rookies this year...we don't have a draft pick!

^^^I was saying I would trade Chill (and Zaza if we got Diop) for picks + expiring contracts.

We'll probably have rookies come in, still. Undrafted FAs. With Salim gone after this season, they'll need to sign at least one new player, probably a couple if the next regime decides to take advantage of the D-league to develop them any (unlike this regime).

In order to convince a general manager to trade big for small, you're going to have to really impress him with the guard.

Nothing against Stoudamire, but I don't think he's going to be able to net you Diop.

Makes as much sense as Brown for Gasol.