Trade Talk (Part 16): Early Season Anxiety Edition

[winforlose]

Ingram makes $36.0, Siakim makes $42.2. Since they make more than Randle, we need to aggregate, which means our total payroll has to be under the second apron ($189.5) when the transactions are completed.

Our current payroll is $199.8, so we would need to send out at least $46.3 mil for Ingram, or $52.5 mil for Siakim.

Randle makes $33.1. The gap would mean hard choices between

$43.8 Gobert
$42.2 Ant
$23.0 Jaden
$14.0 Naz
$11.4 Donte
$10.0 Conley

Also, keep in mind that we would need to come up with incentive for IND, and we would also want to pay these players going forward, which might mean not having the money to pay Naz. A trade isn’t impossible legally, but it seems very difficult to pull off.

Randle for Ingram straight up?

According to the checker here and ESPN Machine the trade works

https://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/8815387

Congratulations on a successful trade
Due to Minnesota being under the cap and choosing to invoke the Cap Room rule, Minnesota could not go over the cap by more than $100,000 of post-trade Team Salary, which did happen here.

Due to New Orleans being under the cap and choosing to invoke the Cap Room rule, New Orleans could not go over the cap by more than $100,000 of post-trade Team Salary, which did happen here.

This trade satisfies the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

My question is simply why would the Pelicans?

Good question but not the most urgent question. How do we pay BI 50+ million next year? If he would settle for a reasonable deal the Pels would keep him. We cannot address to overpay BI even with bird rights because of the 2nd apron. We need to be moving into value added deals not big name deals. For example, Walker Kessler is in his 3rd season, that is one more cheap year. By making him a bench guy, who also have inconsistent play and injury issues over the past few seasons, we should be able to keep him cheap. Then you throw in a body like Collins to chew the Randle backup PF minutes while promoting Naz to starting PF. This is the type of deal we need.

Jordan Poole is too inconsistent to be worth anything. His salary is hard to swallow because we won’t be able to move him again, he is putting up better numbers on a bad team, that is not the same as doing it on a good team. Plus long term we are committed to Dilly, and there is no way we are moving on from Naz. Your suggestion is not factoring in the second apron and the long term plans of the Wolves.

Edit to add: Poole is averaging 4.8 assists to 3.5 turnovers per game. This is not a PG, this a SG. Poole is averaging 2.2 boards per game which is poor for his position. Poole is shooting well from deep for the moment on volume, but as we have seen with DDV, that doesn’t always carry over. Poole’s defensive rating is 119.9. Do I really need to continue?

[Norseman79]

Randle for Ingram straight up?

According to the checker here and ESPN Machine the trade works

https://basketball.realgm.com/tradechecker/saved_trade/8815387

Congratulations on a successful trade
Due to Minnesota being under the cap and choosing to invoke the Cap Room rule, Minnesota could not go over the cap by more than $100,000 of post-trade Team Salary, which did happen here.

Due to New Orleans being under the cap and choosing to invoke the Cap Room rule, New Orleans could not go over the cap by more than $100,000 of post-trade Team Salary, which did happen here.

This trade satisfies the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

My question is simply why would the Pelicans?

Good question but not the most urgent question. How do we pay BI 50+ million next year? If he would settle for a reasonable deal the Pels would keep him. We cannot address to overpay BI even with bird rights because of the 2nd apron. We need to be moving into value added deals not big name deals. For example, Walker Kessler is in his 3rd season, that is one more cheap year. By making him a bench guy, who also have inconsistent play and injury issues over the past few seasons, we should be able to keep him cheap. Then you throw in a body like Collins to chew the Randle backup PF minutes while promoting Naz to starting PF. This is the type of deal we need.

Jordan Poole is too inconsistent to be worth anything. His salary is hard to swallow because we won’t be able to move him again, he is putting up better numbers on a bad team, that is not the same as doing it on a good team. Plus long term we are committed to Dilly, and there is no way we are moving on from Naz. Your suggestion is not factoring in the second apron and the long term plans of the Wolves.

Washington has been bad the whole time. What numbers did he put up on a good team?

As for BI, why would we want to pay him? We have Jaden and Naz...

[winforlose]

My question is simply why would the Pelicans?

Good question but not the most urgent question. How do we pay BI 50+ million next year? If he would settle for a reasonable deal the Pels would keep him. We cannot address to overpay BI even with bird rights because of the 2nd apron. We need to be moving into value added deals not big name deals. For example, Walker Kessler is in his 3rd season, that is one more cheap year. By making him a bench guy, who also have inconsistent play and injury issues over the past few seasons, we should be able to keep him cheap. Then you throw in a body like Collins to chew the Randle backup PF minutes while promoting Naz to starting PF. This is the type of deal we need.

Jordan Poole is too inconsistent to be worth anything. His salary is hard to swallow because we won’t be able to move him again, he is putting up better numbers on a bad team, that is not the same as doing it on a good team. Plus long term we are committed to Dilly, and there is no way we are moving on from Naz. Your suggestion is not factoring in the second apron and the long term plans of the Wolves.

Washington has been bad the whole time. What numbers did he put up on a good team?

As for BI, why would we want to pay him? We have Jaden and Naz...

I added more to the original post on Poole, take a peak and then we can talk. For BI we are not trading for him because we don’t want to pay him. That is my point. No one wants him because he wants too much next year.

[cmoss84]

The only trade that I am interested right now is Brandon Ingram for Randle or whatever. Maybe Siakam if Pacers decides to go a different direction. I understand the salary may not work but maybe we could do it as two separate transactions or involve a 3rd team with the principal concept of we end up with less total salary than what we currently have.

Ingram makes $36.0, Siakim makes $42.2. Since they make more than Randle, we need to aggregate, which means our total payroll has to be under the second apron ($189.5) when the transactions are completed.

Our current payroll is $199.8, so we would need to send out at least $46.3 mil for Ingram, or $52.5 mil for Siakim.

Randle makes $33.1. The gap would mean hard choices between

$43.8 Gobert
$42.2 Ant
$23.0 Jaden
$14.0 Naz
$11.4 Donte
$10.0 Conley

Also, keep in mind that we would need to come up with incentive for IND, and we would also want to pay these players going forward, which might mean not having the money to pay Naz. A trade isn’t impossible legally, but it seems very difficult to pull off.

Shrink:
#1 Thanks for your patience with me
#2 How are we able to trade for Ingram or Siakam but not Cade?

[Klomp]

#2 How are we able to trade for Ingram or Siakam but not Cade?

Shrink will likely go into more detail, but it has to do with the extension Cunningham signed, which doesn't go into effect until next season. The NBA has a separate set of trade rules for that situation that make it extremely difficult for any team to acquire Cunningham, but especially a team in the second apron.

[TimberKat]

Keep in mind that our high payroll is a very big deal.

Last year, with a very successful season and plenty of playofff games, the team only had $305 million in revenue, which was #27 in NBA. We used $165 mil for player salaries, which represent only part of all the expenses the team has.

This year we have $204 mil in salaries and $96 mil in lux taxes. Yes, the salary component just jumped to $300 mil! Revenues aren’t going to come close to covering expenses this year, and ownership is going to have to dog deep in their pocket to pay the difference.

I think the Wolves are hoping Randle simply expires, but be careful on making trades for players we need to pay next year.

Let Randle simply expire is not a good thing. That means we loss Towns, who is going to make the all star this year, to simple salary dump and not getting anything back. I get and also don't get the argument that will allow us to sign Naz.

The 2nd apron has some pretty nasty penalties and some pretty quick salary escalations. The idea is that by saving 50+ million on KAT next year, we can let JR walk and still be able to pay Naz such that in 26/27 we are out of the 2nd apron having only been there in 24/25 and 25/26 worst case.

Why not keep Towns + Ant and trade Naz for picks? Why not just get thru the next two years and let Gobert and Conley walk? There is also increase in cap the next few year from new TV money.

Also, If Randle is really just salary, it would seem we find a better deal with more picks（Connelly and Taylor is saying it is not）. There are way better options trade Towns to DET, POR, CHA, etc. Connelly should be fired for making this trade, if it's for salary dump.

[winforlose]

Let Randle simply expire is not a good thing. That means we loss Towns, who is going to make the all star this year, to simple salary dump and not getting anything back. I get and also don't get the argument that will allow us to sign Naz.

The 2nd apron has some pretty nasty penalties and some pretty quick salary escalations. The idea is that by saving 50+ million on KAT next year, we can let JR walk and still be able to pay Naz such that in 26/27 we are out of the 2nd apron having only been there in 24/25 and 25/26 worst case.

Why not keep Towns + Ant and trade Naz for picks? Why not just get thru the next two years and let Gobert and Conley walk? There is also increase in cap the next few year from new TV money.

Also, If Randle is really just salary, it would seem we find a better deal with more picks（Connelly and Taylor is saying it is not）. There are way better options trade Towns to DET, POR, CHA, etc. Connelly should be fired for making this trade, if it's for salary dump.

Connelly should be fired for a whole host of reasons, the KAT trade included. We needed shoes and he bought socks. The question is why? Was it an order from ownership to dump salary? If that is the case which ownership group? This is like a jigsaw puzzle full of turds and snakes and everyone is worse off for touching it.

Karl for a blue chip and picks was the proper trade. This is the Sabonis for Hali type deal. Instead we took DDV captive (again he was happy there and chose not to come here the prior year.) we took Randle for money matching (needed to go to a 3rd team,) and got insufficient draft capital as well. There is also a Finch element to this disaster as he might have requested Randle in the deal similar to how he requested NAW in the Dlo trade. Everyone who touched this filthy and dangerous puzzle needs to be publicly shamed. Preferably Game of Thrones style.

[Klomp]

Why not keep Towns + Ant and trade Naz for picks?

I think the importance was to stay competitive for a 5-10 year window. With Towns' contract climbing from $49 million to $61 million over the next four years, it would be much more difficult to build a contender around both him and Ant, a duo that has been shown to be flawed.

[TimberKat]

Why not keep Towns + Ant and trade Naz for picks?

I think the importance was to stay competitive for a 5-10 year window. With Towns' contract climbing from $49 million to $61 million over the next four years, it would be much more difficult to build a contender around both him and Ant, a duo that has been shown to be flawed.

So we build a team around Ant and Naz? Naz is not close to take the lead? We dump everyone to sign a free agent all star? That require dropping Gobert and Naz. Why not trade Naz then? Why take Randle who most likely would op in next year? Why sign Gobert for two more years?

[Klomp]

Why not keep Towns + Ant and trade Naz for picks?

I think the importance was to stay competitive for a 5-10 year window. With Towns' contract climbing from $49 million to $61 million over the next four years, it would be much more difficult to build a contender around both him and Ant, a duo that has been shown to be flawed.

So we build a team around Ant and Naz? Naz is not close to take the lead? We dump everyone to sign a free agent all star? That require dropping Gobert and Naz. Why not trade Naz then? Why take Randle who most likely would op in next year? Why sign Gobert for two more years?

We build around Ant and a deeper collective of Gobert, Reid, DiVincenzo, McDaniels, Alexander-Walker, Dillingham, as well as whatever Randle can fetch usetc.

If Towns is here, I am 95% confident that only one of Gobert, Reid and Alexander-Walker would be on the team past this season, maximum. As it is currently, I think there is a decent chance that all could potentially stick around.

[winforlose]

I think the importance was to stay competitive for a 5-10 year window. With Towns' contract climbing from $49 million to $61 million over the next four years, it would be much more difficult to build a contender around both him and Ant, a duo that has been shown to be flawed.

So we build a team around Ant and Naz? Naz is not close to take the lead? We dump everyone to sign a free agent all star? That require dropping Gobert and Naz. Why not trade Naz then? Why take Randle who most likely would op in next year? Why sign Gobert for two more years?

We build around Ant and a deeper collective of Gobert, Reid, DiVincenzo, McDaniels, Alexander-Walker, Dillingham, as well as whatever Randle can fetch usetc.

If Towns is here, I am 95% confident that only one of Gobert, Reid and Alexander-Walker would be on the team past this season, maximum. As it is currently, I think there is a decent chance that all could potentially stick around.

DDV is unhappy here. Everything you hear about online in articles and pods is that DDV wants to start. How do you make that work? He has proven he is better off ball and thus not a starting PG. Ant has proven he is better at SG than small forward, and Ant has said he doesn’t want to be a PG. You ask a girl out, she says she likes you, but doesn’t want to date you. The next year you see her happy with someone else, so you kidnap her and force her to be your girlfriend or you will destroy her career. That is what we did to DDV. But yeah, that sounds super healthy for the future.

To your other point, you can move Karl, get a better return, and still keep Naz and NAW. Especially with Rudy extending for less money next year. Your argument assumes no one but NYK wanted Karl, that is nuts.

[Klomp]

To your other point, you can move Karl, get a better return, and still keep Naz and NAW. Especially with Rudy extending for less money next year. Your argument assumes no one but NYK wanted Karl, that is nuts.

I think "better return" is rather difficult to quantify. I think once you consider the influences that agents have, the pool would narrow as well.

[winforlose]

To your other point, you can move Karl, get a better return, and still keep Naz and NAW. Especially with Rudy extending for less money next year. Your argument assumes no one but NYK wanted Karl, that is nuts.

I think "better return" is rather difficult to quantify. I think once you consider the influences that agents have, the pool would narrow as well.

Blue chip, plus draft capital, plus backup C. It isn’t a difficult equation to understand. Houston would have loved Karl, so would Detroit, so would the Pels, and others. We don’t need to tie ourselves in knots trying to solve a mystery that isn’t mysterious. TC wanted DDV badly enough that he would only trade Karl for him. NYK refused to include DDV which is why things took so long to happen (trade happened right before camp.) DDV was the WRONG choice as he doesn’t want to be HERE. He wants to START at SG and that is Ant’s role.

[Klomp]

DDV was the WRONG choice as he doesn’t want to be HERE. He wants to START at SG and that is Ant’s role.

Every player wants to start. Them not starting does not mean that they are automatically unhappy.

[Klomp]

Blue chip, plus draft capital, plus backup C. It isn’t a difficult equation to understand.

Prospects and draft picks don't help us win right now. And the teams that have the most valuable picks and prospects aren't going to want to trade for Towns.

[winforlose]

Blue chip, plus draft capital, plus backup C. It isn’t a difficult equation to understand.

Prospects and draft picks don't help us win right now. And the teams that have the most valuable picks and prospects aren't going to want to trade for Towns.

Tari Eason, Alperen Sengun, and picks is one example of this type of trade. Houston would have done it because they lack star power and have a ton of picks and young players.

[Klomp]

Blue chip, plus draft capital, plus backup C. It isn’t a difficult equation to understand.

Prospects and draft picks don't help us win right now. And the teams that have the most valuable picks and prospects aren't going to want to trade for Towns.

Tari Eason, Alperen Sengun, and picks is one example of this type of trade. Houston would have done it because they lack star power and have a ton of picks and young players.

That's only $9 million in contracts, not $49 million.

[winforlose]

Prospects and draft picks don't help us win right now. And the teams that have the most valuable picks and prospects aren't going to want to trade for Towns.

Tari Eason, Alperen Sengun, and picks is one example of this type of trade. Houston would have done it because they lack star power and have a ton of picks and young players.

That's only $9 million in contracts, not $49 million.

Sengun is a poison pill I believe. They could have added filler to make it work financially or bring in a 3rd team. Our goal is to get better while reducing cost.

[cmoss84]

Found a 3-way that works:

MN in: Cade, Duren, Reed
MN out: Randle, DD, RD, Miller
(gets us into 1st apron as well)
Cade-ANT-Jaden-NAZ-Rudy starting 5

Det in: Lavine, DD, RD, Miller, SAC '25 SRP, Chi '28 FRP
Det out: Cade, Duran, Ivey, Hardaway Jr., Reed
DD-Lavine-Fontecchio-Harris-Stewart starting 5

Chi in: Randle, Ivey, Hardaway Jr.
Chi out: Lavine, '25 SRP (via SAC), '28 FRP
White/Ball/Ivey/Giddey/Randle/Williams/Vucevic

[winforlose]

Found a 3-way that works:

MN in: Cade, Duren, Reed
MN out: Randle, DD, RD, Miller
(gets us into 1st apron as well)
Cade-ANT-Jaden-NAZ-Rudy starting 5

Det in: Lavine, DD, RD, Miller, SAC '25 SRP, Chi '28 FRP
Det out: Cade, Duran, Ivey, Hardaway Jr., Reed
DD-Lavine-Fontecchio-Harris-Stewart starting 5

Chi in: Randle, Ivey, Hardaway Jr.
Chi out: Lavine, '25 SRP (via SAC), '28 FRP
White/Ball/Ivey/Giddey/Randle/Williams/Vucevic

So in the end we manage to trade KAT, Miller, our 2030 pick swap top 1 protected, and our unprotected 2031 pick for Cade, Duren, and Paul Reed. Also did you factor in the dead money from KBD when you said it gets us to first apron? This is the kind of trade that would not only get TC fired but probably make it hard for him to find another job. Talk about your massive overpay.