Billups to Wolves? Makes sense for Denver....

Narf · Post #1 » by **Narf** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:11 pm

Denver's payroll is just over $83 million right now. The Luxury tax threshold is $70,307,000. If Denver does trade Melo to New Jersey, even if they lower their salary to say $80 million, that means they've lost their superstar and they're 10 million over the lux. In other words, they are paying $13,150,000 + $10,000,000 in luxury tax + losing out on $3 million (or whatever) in cap money from other teams over the Luxury Tax for Chauncie Billups. Only one team in the league can absorb $10 million in raw cap space, Minnesota. If you're Denver and you're rebuilding after trading Melo, don't you give Billups away to save basically $22 million dollars this year while getting a younger, veteran replacement to help the team grow?

Billups is 33 years old, so he's only got 3 or 4 years left on the decline. But Denver might trade him for, basically, cap space + Ridnour (Ridnour is super cap friendly, making $4 mil this year, $3.8 mil next year). Then we'd have Billups in a contract year + Flynn + Rubio next year, which ain't a bad problem to have. And, again, we're the only team in the NBA that can save Denver this money. Period. We could absorb someone like Shelden Williams or Anthony Carter as well, if we had to. So we can drop them below the Luxury Tax no matter what.

Post #2 » by **Klomp** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:12 pm

Not interested.

Narf · Post #3 » by **Narf** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:14 pm

Klomp wrote:Not interested.

Not even to retrade him? He's worth quite a lot to a playoff team looking to be a contender.

Krapinsky · Post #4 » by **Krapinsky** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:18 pm

"I'm the backwards Fran, I'm the backwards Fran, I can post backwards as fast as you can"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3ieGbZji_4&p=EA56EB2759991868&playnext=1&index=11[/youtube]

Post #5 » by **The J Rocka** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:26 pm

Narf wrote:
Klomp wrote:Not interested.
Not even to retrade him? He's worth quite a lot to a playoff team looking to be a contender.

We don't need to waste our time with that, why would we want to help another team especially a contender when they won't want to give up any of there talent but maybe a late pick + young scrub or expiring ? How does that benefit us?

Esohny · Post #6 » by **Esohny** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 9:32 pm

Klomp wrote:Not interested.

shrink · Post #7 » by **shrink** » Fri Sep 24, 2010 10:56 pm

J_Era_3 wrote:
Narf wrote:
Klomp wrote:Not interested.
Not even to retrade him? He's worth quite a lot to a playoff team looking to be a contender.

We don't need to waste our time with that, why would we want to help another team especially a contender when they won't want to give up any of there talent but maybe a late pick + young scrub or expiring ? How does that benefit us?

It would benefit us in a three-way, if we can get something better for Billups than for our cap space.

That said, without a third team in place, I'd be too worried to touch Billups.

Dewey · Post #8 » by **Dewey** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 1:36 am

Billups for cap space ... only if Favors ended up on our team in the process.

collin_k41 · Post #9 » by **collin_k41** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:01 am

"Billups to Wolves? Makes sense for Denver"

But not for us..

jade_hippo · Post #10 » by **jade_hippo** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 3:47 am

Isn't the team trying to dump the salary supposed to give up assets to get rid of their trash? Billups for space/Ridnour is an awful deal. Billups + picks for Ridnour is an awesome deal. Denver is going to stink for a long long time with Melo gone so a pick from them is GOLD, Flynn/Love/Beasley playing with Billups for even a half season will be way better than playing with Ridnour. That is an easy win for us.

funkatron101 · Post #11 » by **funkatron101** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:16 am

Krapinsky wrote:"I'm the backwards Fran, I'm the backwards Fran, I can post backwards as fast as you can"

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke_PCWTmyVU[/youtube]

Post #12 » by **Worm Guts** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:30 am

Isn't the team trying to dump the salary supposed to give up assets to get rid of their trash? Billups for space/Ridnour is an awful deal.

Billups doesn't really fit our needs, but I don't know that Ridnour for Billups could ever be an awful deal.

jade_hippo · Post #13 » by **jade_hippo** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 11:58 am

Worm Guts wrote:
Isn't the team trying to dump the salary supposed to give up assets to get rid of their trash? Billups for space/Ridnour is an awful deal.

Billups doesn't really fit our needs, but I don't know that Ridnour for Billups could ever be an awful deal.

without getting a deal breaker like a pick or having a setup to redeal Billups soon, it ruin our cap situation and in doing that ruins any potential deal for that single move Kahn has been talking about. If we cut him next year he counts nearly as much as Ridnour would have.

Foye · Post #14 » by **Foye** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 1:16 pm

Trading for Billups pretty much only makes sense if we go on win now route....which we're not.

I wouldn't mind bringing him in though if we don't have to use assets in order to get him.
BUT Billups still has a lot of value and Denver will find someone who offers them 1 or 2 late (future) 1sts or a prospect and an expiring contract and they'll take that offer rather than dumb him.

Grizzlies seem like a team who could or should be interested in Billups if Mayo doesn't work out at PG although I don't know if they can afford to add his salary.
How does Jaric, Conley and Arthur or Haddadi + a 2nd rounder sound, though?

Narf · Post #15 » by **Narf** » Sat Sep 25, 2010 9:06 pm

Foye wrote:Trading for Billups pretty much only makes sense if we go on win now route....which we're not.

I wouldn't mind bringing him in though if we don't have to use assets in order to get him.
BUT Billups still has a lot of value and Denver will find someone who offers them 1 or 2 late (future) 1sts or a prospect and an expiring contract and they'll take that offer rather than dumb him.

Grizzlies seem like a team who could or should be interested in Billups if Mayo doesn't work out at PG although I don't know if they can afford to add his salary.
How does Jaric, Conley and Arthur or Haddadi + a 2nd rounder sound, though?

The problem is our deal saves them $22 mil this year, and their deal doesn't. Is Conley and Arther or Haddadi worth $20 million more than Ridnour to Denver? It's possible, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say no. This is the team that gave Camby away for raw cap space just to save luxury tax. After they trade away Melo, saving that luxury tax will look awfully good to ownership.

And I think Billups makes a little more sense than people think. He's a great mentor for Flynn, our team would actually learn how to play with a good PG, and I don't see the downside to winning 40 games with 14 players on the team age 25 or younger. My thought would be to keep Billups until mid-year when Flynn recovers and then trade him to a team looking to win now for assets (Portland, for instance, for one of their young players + Andre Miller's expiring contract). Actually, we could make that trade before Flynn recovers, Miller would make a good mentor to Flynn as well.

So, if Billups was a free agent this year would you guys really have been unhappy if we'd signed him for a 2 year, $23 mil contract instead of signing Ridnour to a 4 year, $16 mil contract? Really?

skorff26 · Post #16 » by **skorff26** » Sun Sep 26, 2010 9:27 pm

We're Rubio or bust, but I do think we could get a nice package in return for him

I could see Atlanta, Charlotte, and Portland being interested in Billups.

Crash from Charlotte maybe for Billups. as for Portland and Atlanta, nothing jumps out at me but we might be able to get a solid package from either of them