I thought it was interesting that the poster says the Magic have no intention of re-signing Turk and are looking to trade him before the deadline. Also, in the poster's proposed deal it looks like the Magic give up way too much for a disgruntled player and a bad contract. Redick and Bogans? That would leave just Pietrus (who has a history of missing games) and Lee (a rookie) at the 2. Plus, having to include a 1st round pick for someone who might leave after the season is ridiculous. It would be better to use that 1st rounder to get Javaris, who is at least a young prospect and is comparable to getting a young player in next years draft. And Cook is way better than Thomas (so is his contract). I also don't agree with what the poster says about the Magic not thinking Cook can contribute because he did last season.
I don't have any idea what Thomas's contract would do to the Magic's cap situation, so I'll leave that up to you cap experts.
http://orlandomagiczone.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/8891029871/m/7651035915
With that said here is the specific trade that is supposedly being discussed:
Ron Artest , Kenny Thomas(who we'd likely buy out), and a 2009 second round pick for Hedo Turkoglu, JJ Redick, Brian Cook, and Keith Bogans and a 2009 lottery protected first round pick. So I asked why both teams would make this trade and this is what he said:
On Orlando’s side he said they feel that if Turkoglu has a season like he had last year that they will not be able to afford him. Apparently, the Magic have little intention of resigning Turk anyways, and were already planning on trading him at the deadline, but had concerns about the effects that could have on team chemistry at mid-season. By trading him before the season starts, they could avoid that. Plus, after the drubbing the Magic got in the playoffs by Detroits guard-corp, Stan Van Gundy is very high on the idea of a lockdown backcourt. If the Magic pull the trigger, then they'd have a backcourt that featured two potential lockdown defenders in Artest and Pietrus, plus a great interior defender in Dwight. Both Stan and Otis have been harping that "defense wins championships", and that defense would rival anything Boston did last year. Otis is also of the opinion that the worst thing this trade could end with is Artest leaving after this year, but since the Magic apparently don't intend to resign Turk, they wouldn't really be losing anything, since they don't think Bogans, Cook or Redick will contribute much this year anyways. He also said that the major sticking point right now is the 2009 1st. The Magic are really pushing to not have to give up the pick outright, since they're over the CAP and will need to use the draft to add talent. They are supposedly pushing to have that changed to giving the Kings the right to swap picks in the same way we did with Miami last year(which they didn't use). The problem is the Kings don't think they'll have a worse pick than Orlando, which would make that a useless trade piece for them. But right now both sides are deadlocked over that.
