floppymoose wrote:There are some excellent points being made in this thread.
Just wanted to add one more, and I'm only half joking: to those who pointed out teams that needed a center and said Artest wasn't.... if he went to GS he might play some center.

That's the thing--in certain situations, Ron could play SG or PF as well as SF, and thus teams could adjust their lineups. In Detroit, they could possibly move Ron to PF and Sheed to Center (though I still have serious doubts that he could end up there). I think in Denver in particular, playing Ron at PF would be interesting. Even though Nene is probably better at guarding PF's than Ron, it's not like he's a whole lot better, and with the rebounding, if Ron averages say 6RPG (he would probably average more with Denver's pace) and Camby stays at his average, that's like 20-21RPG between your starting PF and C, and that's still pretty much elite.
A couple of other thoughts...
First, given the lack of teams with the necessary resources to, for example, give us straight expirings for Kenny/Ron, I think a more reasonable possibility would be Ron for an expirings/youth type package, and then Kenny for either a smaller contract of the same length, or a better player on a similar kind of contract--something like that. The example I came up with before was Mike James. Sure he's crap, but his contract is considerably smaller and while that may not mean much in the way of literal extra cap room, it could mean a lot in being able to move him to a team in need of a backup PG.
I personally still like this deal.
Houston trades
Tracy MgGrady
Mike James
Houston Gets
Mike Bibby
Ron Artest
Kenny Thomas
Why for Houston? They find a combination that works and that Rick knows. Rick has coached all of these players and coached Kenny and Mike when they were at their best. They would create more of a winning situation and would definitely be able to convince Ron to re-sign, and could compete for the next couple of years with the following lineup.
Bibby\Alston\Brooks
Battier\Head
Artest\Wells\Novak
Scola\Thomas\Hayes
Yao\Landry\Mutombo
Toronto trades
Rasho Nesterovic
Jorge Garbajosa
Andrea Bargnani
Juan Dixon
Lotto protected 1st
Toronto Gets
Tracy MgGrady
Nazr Mohammed
They make a bold move to win now that could make them serious competitors in the easy by bringing T-Mac back to Toronto
Calderon\Ford\Martin
Parker\Delfino
MgGrady\Kapono\Graham
Bosh\Moon\Baston
Mohammed\Humphries
Charlotte Trades
Nazr Mohammed
08 1st
Charlotte Gets
Andrea Bargnani
Obviously Charlotte only does it if they like Bargnani, but if they do, then this deal could be really interesting for them. He would help them a lot and fit into their current lineup well now and in the future.
Felton\McInnis\Anderson
Richardson\Boykins\Morrison
Wallace\Carrol\Dudley
Bargnani\Harrington\May*
Okafor\Davidson\Hollins
Kings trade
Bibby
Artest
Thomas
Kings get
Rasho Nesterovic
Jorge Garbajosa (would probably be waived)
Juan Dixon
Mike James
08 1st from Toronto
08 1st from Charlotte
It only saves us a few million next year (unless maybe we could do something like Rasho/2nd for GS's trade exception), and assuming we re-sign Beno, we would go into the tax a bit still, but it saves us more the year after. But after the draft, we could be an interesting team, looking something like...
Udrih\Bayless\James
Martin\Douby
Salmons\Garcia\Patrick Patterson
Moore\Hawes\Arthur\SAR
Miller\Rasho\J. Williams
Which looks like a mess, but the year after, it would look clearer (and this would be assuming we made no moves). One move we could make would be something like our 09 pick with SAR/James to help move them (since we would frankly have enough young talent, but let's just say that we can't make that move, and draft Javale MgGee).
Udrih\Bayless\James
Martin\Douby
Salmons\Garcia\09 pick?
Hawes\Patterson\SAR
Miller\Arthur\J. Williams
With the ideal, future lineup being...
Bayless\Udrih
Martin\Douby
Salmons\Garcia
Arthur\Patterson
Hawes\Williams\MgGee