Charlotte/ATL trade

[Rod700]

What would you guys think of a trade built around:

Josh Smith, Evans, Law + deal sweeteners for:
Okufer, Bell

Hawks get: Amazingly stronger inside. For all the blocks and steals Smith gets, they are largely cancelled out by his turnovers, lack of rebounding, and points he gives up to stronger players who post him up. Okufer is a defensive presence himself, and brings a toughness inside we greatly lack in our inconsistent interior defense and rebounding.

We also improve our perimeter defense with a lock down defender. As I said in a previous post, Joe is absolutely horrible at rotating on time, and Marv makes too many mistakes too. It would help us to have some one locking down the opposing team’s perimeter scorer. On offense, Raja can spread the floor and blister opposing teams with 3’s. He is used to a running offense too from his days in Phoenix, which would mesh well with a team that would still be relatively young. Being a playoff team, I think we have a decent shot at resigning him too.

On a side note, although I think Law has great potential, and is a victim of his own limited, erratic minutes, we can easily replace him with our first rounder as the draft is deep with point guards.

BOTTOM LINE FOR THE HAWKS: We get much tougher inside, while retaining 2 of the 3 young players from our original starting front court. With Raja taking Marv’s starting spot though, we increase perimeter defense, bring Marv off the bench (which is a great way to utilize a player that scores in spurts), and we move Joe to SF. That last move is especially important since Joe’s recent struggles are mainly with his jump shot. He continues to score in the paint though, and is at his most effective when he attacks the basket.

Starting Line-up:

Okufer
Hortford
JJ
Bell
Bibby
6th Man: Marv

What Charlotte gets:

These guys have built a fine defensive team, but their offense needs help. Smith brings that flash and energy of breaking to the hole without the ball, and blocking shots and stealing the ball to create fast breaks . . . things that get a stagnant offense moving. Smith still has some developing to do if he wants to become a super star, but Charlotte’s record suggests they are still in the rebuilding process and thus in the market for long-term investments.

Concerning Raja, his is a great player, but he will probably retire before the team really develops. They likely won’t even have that option though, as I would expect him to bolt at the end of the following year when this contract expires. Evans is not a lock down defender, but he hustles on defense, and hits a good deal of threes himself. He is essentially the poor man’s version of Raja, which could save them a good deal of money (as opposed to other replacements they might find for Raja) and allow them to make long term investments in young developing players.

Adding Law also increases the team’s flexibility. He was the selected with an 11th pick and is better than his extremely limited minutes allow him to showcase. I’ve heard rumors on some boards that Felton might be better as a shooting guard, and having a talented point guard on the roster behind Augustine allows for Felton to make that shift on occasion. If Felton is two small to guard an opposing guard though, the team can go in a different direction by inserting the versatile Diaw at shooting guard instead, since Josh Smith will have the starting job at power forward. If any of you doubt that Diaw can guard a shooting guard, remember how he did against Tony Parker in the past, one of the quickest point guards around. It’s probably good that Diaw is free to play less minutes at the 4 spot too, since his defense is not so great against opposing bigs.

BOTTOM LINE FOR THE BOBCATS:
They get a couple of hustle players that can infuse some energy into a stagnant offense, without sacrificing the defensive prowess of the team. Evans is especially affordable, and the roster gains some flexibility.

Variations of the trade: I’m sure there are lots of additions you could make to this trade though.

[Hood President]

this is the 1st on and only response to this to dumb post. your welcome.

[HoopsGuru25]

I guarantee Charlotte wouldn't do it. Okafor allows them to start Diaw and Wallace at the same time.

[Rod700]

this is the 1st on and only response to this to dumb post. your welcome.

Gotta love the one liners with all the eloquence of a drive by.

[Rod700]

I guarantee Charlotte wouldn't do it. Okafor allows them to start Diaw and Wallace at the same time.

I know they would be reluctant to let Okafor go, but we could sweeten the deal if we needed to. That's what I meant by saying a trade "built on" the above. I meant for people to explore the above as a framework that could be tweaked into a workable trade. We'd still need to add a little something since Law doesn't offset the fact that Okafer>Smith & Raja>Evans. I went back and edited the post to clarify that a bit.

Concerning Diaw, I'm not sure starting him at power forward is a good thing though. He is versatile enough to play their offensively, but he gets bullied when he's on defense. He's a great small forward, but any position larger than that is a stretch for him if he's playing it for extended minutes.

[Rod700]

Deleted Duplicative Post

[conleyorbust]

I guarantee Charlotte wouldn't do it. Okafor allows them to start Diaw and Wallace at the same time.

I know they would be reluctant to let Okafor go, but we could sweeten the deal if we needed to. That's what I meant by saying a trade "built on" the above. I meant for people to explore the above as a framework that could be tweaked into a workable trade. We'd still need to add a little something since Law doesn't offset the fact that Okafer>Smith & Raja>Evans. I went back and edited the post to clarify that a bit.

Concerning Diaw, I'm not sure starting him at power forward is a good thing though. He is versatile enough to play their offensively, but he gets bullied when he's on defense. He's a great small forward, but any position larger than that is a stretch for him if he's playing it for extended minutes.

I think Diaw is almost exclusively a "power player" if he's going to be effective. He does get bullied but its even worse on the wing were he isn't exceptionally quick laterally and his ball handling and high post passing abilities, which are his best attributes offensively, are wasted.

Now the question is whether the Wallace-Diaw-Oak front line is worth keeping together but like most other non-championship caliber teams (Hawks' certainly included), the only response is "what else you gonna do?"

Smith's value should go back up over the rest of the season and hopefully the playoffs, but with his poor performance over the past month especially, he's probably tanked his value enough that teams wouldn't trade for him unless they were the clear winner. In other words, even if his value is still equal to or greater than Okafor's in a vacuum, Charlotte isn't viewing this trade in a vacuum.

[evildallas]

I guarantee Charlotte wouldn't do it. Okafor allows them to start Diaw and Wallace at the same time.

I know they would be reluctant to let Okafor go, but we could sweeten the deal if we needed to. That's what I meant by saying a trade "built on" the above. I meant for people to explore the above as a framework that could be tweaked into a workable trade. We'd still need to add a little something since Law doesn't offset the fact that Okafer>Smith & Raja>Evans. I went back and edited the post to clarify that a bit.

Concerning Diaw, I'm not sure starting him at power forward is a good thing though. He is versatile enough to play their offensively, but he gets bullied when he's on defense. He's a great small forward, but any position larger than that is a stretch for him if he's playing it for extended minutes.

I think Diaw is almost exclusively a "power player" if he's going to be effective. He does get bullied but its even worse on the wing were he isn't exceptionally quick laterally and his ball handling and high post passing abilities, which are his best attributes offensively, are wasted.

Now the question is whether the Wallace-Diaw-Oak front line is worth keeping together but like most other non-championship caliber teams (Hawks' certainly included), the only response is "what else you gonna do?"

Smith's value should go back up over the rest of the season and hopefully the playoffs, but with his poor performance over the past month especially, he's probably tanked his value enough that teams wouldn't trade for him unless they were the clear winner. In other words, even if his value is still equal to or greater than Okafor's in a vacuum, Charlotte isn't viewing this trade in a vacuum.

Good analysis on Diaw. He got his 9M a year deal while playing PF and C with Amare out. When the team was at full strength he couldn't adapt to playing SF that well because the mismatches that he could exploit were gone. He's in a similar vein as Josh, AK47, and Marion in that they've been successful by exploiting their matchup advantages at PF more than the other team has been able to exploit their weaknesses. When moved to SF they lose the advantages that made them successful and other deficiencies in their games come out. They can all play SF for stretches, but their respective teams always seem to be the worse for it.

Okafor can play C which makes him a better fit with Diaw than Smith. He's not a pure C though which makes pairing him with Horford not the greatest idea. Mind you not a bad idea, just not a tremendous upgrade from a Horford/Smith combo.

[conleyorbust]

Okafor can play C which makes him a better fit with Diaw than Smith. He's not a pure C though which makes pairing him with Horford not the greatest idea. Mind you not a bad idea, just not a tremendous upgrade from a Horford/Smith combo.

I actually have no clue what position Oak is at the NBA level. He's an inch (or two) shorter than you'd like in a C, but other than that, nothing about his game says PF to me. At least with Al you have a guy with pretty quick feet, a poor post game, and a nice J. With Meka, you have a tremendously slow player with almost no offensive game outside of 6 feet but decent strength and long arms. I think he can play PF for stretches but if you paired him with a guy like Kaman (as the Cats may have been considering for a time), you'd have all the good pick and roll teams in the league just having a field day.

I think Emeka is a fine C at this level. He's got a ton of strength and can hold position on the block against just about anyone, not to mention he's got some crazy long arms.

[evildallas]

Okafor can play C which makes him a better fit with Diaw than Smith. He's not a pure C though which makes pairing him with Horford not the greatest idea. Mind you not a bad idea, just not a tremendous upgrade from a Horford/Smith combo.

I actually have no clue what position Oak is at the NBA level. He's an inch (or two) shorter than you'd like in a C, but other than that, nothing about his game says PF to me. At least with Al you have a guy with pretty quick feet, a poor post game, and a nice J. With Meka, you have a tremendously slow player with almost no offensive game outside of 6 feet but decent strength and long arms. I think he can play PF for stretches but if you paired him with a guy like Kaman (as the Cats may have been considering for a time), you'd have all the good pick and roll teams in the league just having a field day.

I think Emeka is a fine C at this level. He's got a ton of strength and can hold position on the block against just about anyone, not to mention he's got some crazy long arms.

My comment came from Charlotte's long stated desire to play him at PF and put a "real" C with him. That was pre-Diaw though. I never really got it (the plan), but I assume that there has to be some logic in it as they are way more familiar with him than I.