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First, I'm not advocating this.

Just wondering.

The Celts have one bad contract, Brian Scalabrine's.

$3 million this year, $3.2 million next year, $3.4 million in 2010.

Due to the luxury tax, double those numbers essentially, since that is what would be saved if you could dump Scal for an expiring contract.

Dumping Scal would also lessen the tax bite of signing someone with the mid-level this summer.

Tyrone Lue is 30 years old, 6' tall, can protect the ball, is a career 38.5% 3 point shooter, and career 43.5% FG shooter, 83.5% free throw shooter.

This year, and next, he's probably a better option than Gabe Pruitt.

Lue will be an unrestricted free agent this summer, so the Celts could just sign him and a center (like Kurt Thomas, Brian Skinner or Jake Voskuhl), but they'd still be stuck with Brian Scalabrine on the books.

Giving the Hawks Pruitt is an incentive to do this trade for the Hawks. They have a lot of young players, won't have a first round pick this year, so getting Pruitt offsets eating Scal's contract. The Hawks are currently about $2.55 million under the salary cap, so even with this deal, they will be about $2.4 million under the cap, and split the proceeds of teams over the luxury tax limit with Charlotte.

The Celts would be down to 12 players.

They could put Lue on the active list, try to sign PJ Brown for an extra post defender for a playoff run, and put Powe on the Inactive List.

From a financial viewpoint, the Celts don't save any money this year, since Pruitt plus Scal make $150,000 more than Lue.

But next year and the year after that, Scal and his remaining $6.6 million are off the books, and the $6.6 million in luxury tax that the owners would have to pay.

It's probably worth it to them to give up Pruitt for that.

Atlanta will probably lose Lue as a free agent.

Heck, for $12.2 million in savings, the Celts would probably be willing to even give Atlanta Two future second round picks in addition to Scal + Pruitt for Tyrone Lue.

Lue could just sign with the Celts over the summer for minimum (or part of the MLE), but the Celts would still be stuck with Scal's contract.

jammer, were you always jammer or did you change your name? What was your previous name?

It's a sound idea and you make some valid points, but I personally dislike Lue's game, and thinking Pruitt could become something in the not-too-distant future. Scal's contract certainly isn't onerous enough (in today's market) to sacrifice a decent young PG prospect with good size for a few months of Tyronn Lue.

If we really wanted to add PG depth, it a) wouldn't be at the expense of a PG on the roster now, and b) wouldn't be for another PG 6'1 or less.

grantlongforpresident wrote:Jammer, were you always Jammer or did you change your name?

Always Jammer.

I'd like trades like this if I cared at all about the bottom line. But doing this isn't going to allow the Celtics to be any better as a basketball team so I don't care. I don't care to give up a player with reasonable potential just so the owners can have a little more scratch. Now maybe if they could use that money to acquire elite players in the future it would be different but this doesn't do that as the Celtics are going to be over the salary cap forever anyway.

I like it. The Celtics are looking to win and win now, and Lue is going to help more there than Pruitt will. Pruitt won't be ready for a few years, and that's even IF he gets good (personally, I'm not a believer). Lue brings playoff experience and someone who can at least protect the ball.

No freaking way.

Possible west coast bias here - but Gabe is an extemely talented and intelligent player. I've seen him a lot and he really is very much like Devin Harris (many made that comparison at draft time).

I'm also not a fan of Lue's so it's just not worth it to me.

Speaking of "worth it" - I also am one of the few who don't think Scal's deal is all that bad. It's a couple more years at $3 mil per. Big deal. There are players making 3 times that who don't even know how to play.

nope

the signings of garnett's extension and posey indicate the owners are not concerned about the luxury tax at this point

and for the record, i don't think Scalabrine has a bad contract i just feel he is overpaid, there is a difference to me

Whether Scalabrine has a bad contract or not is not the point. If you do this trade you save 12 million dollars. As fans, though, who cares?

clearly it is the point though......

No it isn't.

My problem with this is that i don't like Lue's game that much. We could use a backup to rondo, but Lue is a worse House. That won't help us.

Besides that there are issues of chemistry. Scal is a great chemistry guy, a great practice player, and doesn't have any expectations about minutes. Lue is Garnett's buddy... why take the risk that for some reason Garnett loses some killer instinct because his buddy is there to play video games with.

No, I like Pruitt a lot, definately not interested in giving him up for Lue. I'd rather sign Payton, I'm not a fan of Lue at all.

All you need to know about Pruitt is that Danny drafted him before Big Baby That should tell you how he views him. He isn't going to give Pruitt away for a bad deal.

lue is too small. a big pg like jaric/snow would be much better for us for defensive and ballhandling purposes.

No point in doing this when we could just get Payton. I'm sure Payton could bring the ball up as effectively as Lue can.

Given that Sam I Am is unhappy in LA, I'd wait to see what happens in his situation first.

Why exactly does Atlanta take an extra 2 years of Scalabrine's contract?

Answer: They don't.

I say we do nothing.... why brake up the chemestry that has produced a 29-3 record so far this year?

We must be doing something right?

"If it aint broke, dont fix it!"

if Scalbrine makes the veteran minimum...this thread isn't made