Drellberg wrote:From a trading perspective, I don't think the issue is Ben Wallace per se. Trading one bad big man contract for another bad big man contract is unlikely. Or even one bad frontcourt contract for a bad backcourt contract. The issue really is about a bulls roster that is mis-aligned. There are too many players who warrant PT, and the younger players are getting the short end of the stick. The goal is not simply to dump Wallace's contract. So what is (or are) the goal(s)? Instead of asking, who can the bulls trade for Wallace, I think the up front question ought to be, what are all of the things the bulls would want to get out of a mega-trade involving Ben Wallace?
Moreover, I think it's a mistake to buy high and sell low. Several players on the bulls roster who are underperforming will not fetch even their reduced value in a trade. There are several reasons. First, these players are not as bad as they presently seem. Second, if the bulls are in a panic, potential trading partners will not offer to return fair value. Third, the mere act of putting a player out there for trade tends to diminish his value. (Called "adverse selection.") And there's more.
With the growing likelihood that the bulls will add yet another top-10 draft pick to their roster after this season, I think one question has to be how they consolidate. They just have too many middling players. Maybe they give up Wallace and this year's pick for ...? I don't know. I'm not expert. But I do think that larger issues come into play. Just my two cents. And now I'll shut up.
drellberg, I agree with many of your points but I'm not sure how relevant they are to this particular thread. With Wallace there is not much of an option other than buy high, sell low. If we want to clear up PT for our youngsters, and if we think that our youngsters are at least as good as BW right now and possibly better, with much higher upside (since BW doesn't seem to have any long-term upside whatsoever), then trading BW for expiring contracts is addition by subtraction.
Further, the proposed LA trades at least do not contemplate taking on bad big man contracts in exchange for BW's. We're proposing to take on an
expiring contract, and one bad contract (Vlad's) that's half the size of BW's. Of course it'd be much better to acquire Kwame's expiring plus something other than Vlad, such as Mihm plus Sasha or Ariza plus Sasha (and we could throw in something else to seal the deal).
Bottom line is that most of us don't want to take on other, bad, long-term contracts in exchange for BW. We want to free up PT for our youngsters and get out from under the financial burden of BW's contract.
RE: Kirk and BG, I agree that it'd be foolish to trade them when their values are pretty low. Still, if we could get a good, tall, defensively minded but offensively slashing SG in exchange for Kirk I would still do it. (Josh Childress, for example.) I have lost confidence in Kirk & BG as being a capable tandem to anchor our backcourt.
but i watched the game last night. i also happened to have a torn acl myself. i predict bynum tore his acl. i could be wrong, but the innocuous nature of the fall with the way the knee buckled so slightly inward is a classic acl mechanism. if he is done for the year as i will speculate, then wallace is a no brainer for them. that is, until they realize that kwame is a better version of wallace. however, they may want wallace for depth at the position. problem is, without brown they wont be able to match salaries.
