Oklahoma City's Plan Was To Flip Chris Paul In Another Trade

[RealGM Wiretap]

Chris Paul is a player that can still play at a very high level, but the fact he is owed $120 million over the next three seasons makes his value on the trade issue more complicated.

The Houston Rockets had to attach multiple draft picks to trade Paul to the Oklahoma City Thunder for Russell Westbrook, who also is on a contract widely considering onerous. 

"When Oklahoma City got him this summer, their plan was to try to flip him somewhere else," said Adrian Wojnarowski on a podcast with Zach Lowe. "They hoped Miami would be willing to talk about a deal and that never got anywhere. But maybe the Heat get off to a bad start. Maybe they look at this again. And other teams."

Oklahoma City could potentially start Paul alongside two other point guards in Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Dennis Schroder.

Via Adrian Wojnarowski/ESPN

[spicy6]

Shocker

[Chris3323]

CP3 to the Bucks makes too much sense

[timstrasser]

OKC should keep him. The Thunder isn't a bad team. SGA will have a legitimate HOF'er to learn from. Galinari should have a great year in the last year of his contract and Steven Adams can see his role expand without Westbrook and George there. I don't think they need to completely tear down. They are stacked for the future with draft picks, and currently, look like they could be good.

[GreekAlex]

Easier said than done

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

OKC should keep him. The Thunder isn't a bad team. SGA will have a legitimate HOF'er to learn from. Galinari should have a great year in the last year of his contract and Steven Adams can see his role expand without Westbrook and George there. I don't think they need to completely tear down. They are stacked for the future with draft picks, and currently, look like they could be good.

It's about the taxes. The Thunder need to get under the cap as they are paying high taxes already. This is why they blew the team up. They were getting no results and paying too much in taxes. They want to get rid of Paul for tax relief, and you can't blame them. You can't expect an owner to pay high taxes for a mediocre team.

[Adam Stern]

CP3 to the Bucks makes too much sense

Who do the Bucks send back to match that $40 million price tag?

[Elnegron]

Adrian wishing an injury to the heat to save okc from hell really? Heat don't need cp3 now unless okc overpay with 2 picks with no protection otherwise it's their issue

[dougthonus]

CP3 to the Bucks makes too much sense

The Bucks can't afford Brogdon, but they can afford CP3?

[Heavyhitter10]

Paul is a loser! No one wants him for the salary he is getting. I would consider him for the league minimum.

[dougthonus]

It's about the taxes. The Thunder need to get under the cap as they are paying high taxes already. This is why they blew the team up. They were getting no results and paying too much in taxes. They want to get rid of Paul for tax relief, and you can't blame them. You can't expect an owner to pay high taxes for a mediocre team.

It's about money for sure.

How much money is Chris Paul worth for 3 years? Figure out what that number is, subtract it from his actual salary, and OKC needs to take that much dead salary back or offer enough picks to get to that value.

It seems most likely that if someone were to offer the Thunder 60m in totally dead salary for Paul that they would probably deal him for the cash savings. The Thunder won't benefit from Paul's remaining on court value based on their direction.

The problem of course is agreeing how much value negative value the Thunder need to take back (dead salary) or how much positive value they'll give with Paul and then aligning it with a team that has the right negative value back and can match teh salary correctly under the cap.

Those barriers are pretty high and probably make a trade near impossible.

[madmaxmedia]

It's about the taxes. The Thunder need to get under the cap as they are paying high taxes already. This is why they blew the team up. They were getting no results and paying too much in taxes. They want to get rid of Paul for tax relief, and you can't blame them. You can't expect an owner to pay high taxes for a mediocre team.

It's about money for sure.

How much money is Chris Paul worth for 3 years? Figure out what that number is, subtract it from his actual salary, and OKC needs to take that much dead salary back or offer enough picks to get to that value.

It seems most likely that if someone were to offer the Thunder 60m in totally dead salary for Paul that they would probably deal him for the cash savings. The Thunder won't benefit from Paul's remaining on court value based on their direction.

The problem of course is agreeing how much value negative value the Thunder need to take back (dead salary) or how much positive value they'll give with Paul and then aligning it with a team that has the right negative value back and can match teh salary correctly under the cap.

Those barriers are pretty high and probably make a trade near impossible.

I think its ultimately about the ideal/right trade partner popping up so it can be a win-win (which may or may not happen.) As you said, some team that could use Paul, and can send a smaller amount of bad money back. Its 2 teams trading overall negative assets, but the trade can still be a win-win for both teams.

Otherwise if its OKC having to give away assets to convince another team to take Paul's contract, that's not going to make sense for OKC either. They're going to be a decent team next year, so it's not like having CP3 is seriously hurting their lottery chances.

[tigerae]

It's about the taxes. The Thunder need to get under the cap as they are paying high taxes already. This is why they blew the team up. They were getting no results and paying too much in taxes. They want to get rid of Paul for tax relief, and you can't blame them. You can't expect an owner to pay high taxes for a mediocre team.

It's about money for sure.

How much money is Chris Paul worth for 3 years? Figure out what that number is, subtract it from his actual salary, and OKC needs to take that much dead salary back or offer enough picks to get to that value.

It seems most likely that if someone were to offer the Thunder 60m in totally dead salary for Paul that they would probably deal him for the cash savings. The Thunder won't benefit from Paul's remaining on court value based on their direction.

The problem of course is agreeing how much value negative value the Thunder need to take back (dead salary) or how much positive value they'll give with Paul and then aligning it with a team that has the right negative value back and can match teh salary correctly under the cap.

Those barriers are pretty high and probably make a trade near impossible.

I think its ultimately about the ideal/right trade partner popping up so it can be a win-win (which may or may not happen.) As you said, some team that could use Paul, and can send a smaller amount of bad money back. Its 2 teams trading overall negative assets, but the trade can still be a win-win for both teams.

Otherwise if its OKC having to give away assets to convince another team to take Paul's contract, that's not going to make sense for OKC either. They're going to be a decent team next year, so it's not like having CP3 is seriously hurting their lottery chances.

What I think will happen is they will wait either until December 15th or the trade deadline and see if they could get a trade partner. If not, they will likely end up biting the bullet and buy him out. Unless he's willing to take a back seat to Shai and help mentor him there is no reason to play and take quality minutes away from the development of the younger players.

They already got assets in forms of picks for taking his contract and were able to get Westbrook's supermax off the books, too. Just keeping him to potentially become a bad influence in the locker room if they do end up benching him down the line makes no sense.

[dougthonus]

They already got assets in forms of picks for taking his contract and were able to get Westbrook's supermax off the books, too. Just keeping him to potentially become a bad influence in the locker room if they do end up benching him down the line makes no sense.

Buyout is an option depending how much money Paul is willing to give up. I think it would need to be significant though for a buyout to go through.

[Heat3]

Breaking News yeah right. Of course that was their plan.

OKC miscalculated and figured they could dump him on Miami because he has name. Miami doesn’t want him. They wanted Westbrook. Oh well. I don’t see Miami changing its mind unless CP3 starts aging in reverse or his contract gets shorter and cheaper...

[MartyConlonJr]

Chris Paul is 34 years old this season and injury prone on a 3 year contract in a league(which extends into a major FA year in 2 years) where PG's don't really play past 33:

J.J Barea 35
Chris Paul 34
Kyle Lowry 33
George Hill 33
Garrett Temple 33
Goran Dragic 33
Rajon Rondo 33

The Rockets gave up unprotected 1st round picks to get out of his contract, and then OKC thought they had an asset that Miami should pay with valued assets of their own. They way overshot

[12footrim]

As many draft picks as they have moving forward in the future I don't know why they really want to trade him. They don't need to tank, and teams like Toronto and the Bucks didnt' get to where they are by tankings really. There is no one way, you can obviously draft guys like Giannis and Kawhi outside the lottery as well or use your stack of draft picks to get a star.

As it is now they have a competitive team with Paul, Galo, and Adams that can probably even compete for the 8th seed and they have a good young asset in Gilgeruous Alexander to try to grow. Tanking in this new loto reform probably gets you no where anyway. The sweeter spot is like 6-10 or whatever if you don't make the playoffs which is exactly probably around what they project.

[moocow007]

They already got assets in forms of picks for taking his contract and were able to get Westbrook's supermax off the books, too. Just keeping him to potentially become a bad influence in the locker room if they do end up benching him down the line makes no sense.

Buyout is an option depending how much money Paul is willing to give up. I think it would need to be significant though for a buyout to go through.

How much do you want in a buyout Chris?

Watch on YouTube

[Ammar19]

Sell him to the highest bidder. Do you as Oklahoma City want to pay this guy to take up your young guys minutes? You really think it’ll help your young guys playing 3 point guards, “sharing” ball handling responsibilities? Move him for anything and everything. Prefer expiring deals, but obviously smaller contracts that are easier to buy out and trade away could be better as well. Just get him out of there. There’s no way Paul wants to be there, there’s no benefit to keeping him around unless you think 30+ mill/year is worth “coaching” your young guys.

[Ballerhogger]

They had one shot to trade him and they blew it majorly . He’s not getting moved now with season starting