Official Trade Thread XIV: 6/14/10 - 12/22/10

[Hoopalotta]

Wizards trade: Andray Blatche
Grizzlies trade: Thabeet and Henry

McGee/Thabeet
Nene/Booker
Henry/Gee
Arenas/Young
Wall/Hinrich

[obye]

Thabeet ability's :
He is ... well ... tall ! THAT'S IT !

With Wall on the lines Wiz need talented young players and draft picks !
Trade Kirk and Arenas for "goods" and picks !

[JWizmentality]

Wizards trade: Andray Blatche
Grizzlies trade: Thabeet and Henry

McGee/Thabeet
Nene/Booker
Henry/Gee
Arenas/Young
Wall/Hinrich

[kirubel94]

the kings are badly looking for a PG, lets trade them hinrich , i dont know for who tho, maybe donte green?

[fishercob]

How bout this for some thanksgiving fun?

Wiz trade: Blatche, Thornton
Wiz get: Gerald Wallace

CHA trades: Wallace
CHA gets: Mayo, Thabeet

MEM trades: Mayo, Thabeet
MEM gets: Blatche, Thornton

Wiz get an all-star defender and role player who would fit extremely well with this group. We lose some financial flexibility and create a gaping hole at the 4.

Bobs gets younger and get a much needed dynamic backcourt scorer.

Memphis gets a wonderful hedge against Randolph leaving and a much needed value contract going forward, allowing them to keep Gasol and their talented core intact. Gasol as Blatche would play very well off one another.

Flame away!

[dangermouse]

Danny Granger would fit in like a dream. And he could be available down the line if Paul George blows up. However, it would be a couple of years away at the least, id rather someone younger to grow with Wall. Batum would be ideal, but I think we could find a Batum 2.0 in the draft like someone suggested.

And even though Beasley is playing well I dont think he is necessarily untouchable. He could be had but I think it would take McGee and i wouldnt be willing to go there. He could be a good sixth man combo forward for us, in the role that Antawn should have had behind Blatche and Caron.

Our SF situation could be remedied in the draft, the way we are playing we could be looking at a good chance for Harrison Barnes, or Perry Jones who I think will end up more of a PF so I dont think he fits in here longterm. Jan Vesely intrigues me but he would have to be bought out of his contract, and for that I think he drops a lot lower than where we will be picking.

[Wizardspride]

Our SF situation could be remedied in the draft, the way we are playing we could be looking at a good chance for Harrison Barnes

Not impressed with Harrison Barnes. Doesn't seem very athletic to me.

[dangermouse]

Getting way off topic, sort of... But if Kyrie Irving is available and is as good as is touted, we should take him. Would be a great tradeable asset to get someone we would really like.

[mohammed10]

Thabeet ability's :
He is ... well ... tall ! THAT'S IT !

Agree. We already have a non-scoring long 4/5 in Armstrong.

[Dat2U]

How bout this for some thanksgiving fun?

Wiz trade: Blatche, Thornton
Wiz get: Gerald Wallace

CHA trades: Wallace
CHA gets: Mayo, Thabeet

MEM trades: Mayo, Thabeet
MEM gets: Blatche, Thornton

Wiz get an all-star defender and role player who would fit extremely well with this group. We lose some financial flexibility and create a gaping hole at the 4.

Bobs gets younger and get a much needed dynamic backcourt scorer.

Memphis gets a wonderful hedge against Randolph leaving and a much needed value contract going forward, allowing them to keep Gasol and their talented core intact. Gasol as Blatche would play very well off one another.

Flame away!

Don't see Charlotte going for it. Wallace is the best player in that deal. I'd do it from a Wiz perspective but the hole at the 4 would be massive. But with the way Blatche is currently playing, maybe Yi isn't that much of a downgrade.

[Dat2U]

So looking at our roster, the untouchables are:

PG John Wall - franchise level PG and natural born leader. Woo hoo!
CE Javale McGee - potential double/double machine & NBA shot-block leader.

The supposed core of young talent is:

PF Andray Blatche - 20 ppg potential but plays incredibly soft. Not incredibly reliable thus far.
SG Nick Young - gunner off the bench, solid man defender. Never met a shot he didn't like.
CE Kevin Seraphin - raw, undersized powerful tough guy. Backup C may be ceiling.
PF Trevor Booker - best offensive skill is setting picks right now. Fringe rotational player at best.

The guy that we'd love to move but currently has no trade value whatsoever is:

SG Gilbert Arenas - health will always be an issue. Has handled himself well so far with one blip.

The guy the front office & coach loves and we likely won't trade b/c he's super smart is:

PG Kirk Hinrich - quality role player who plays too much. Probably shouldn't start.

The rest of the roster is basically filler and have little to no market value and they are:

PF Yi Jianlian - Very consistent career thus far. A flash here & there but not very good.
SF Josh Howard - Injuries & attitude derailed career. Hoping to make a comeback soon.
SF Al Thornton - see Yi. Also skillset is a bad fit with the current roster.
CE Hilton Armstrong - Only difference b/w Yi & AT is that Snuggles has never flashed any talent.
SF Alonzo Gee - Potential energy guy off the bench but just released by the Spurs for 2nd time.
SG Cartier Martin - NBDL graduate, nice shooting touch. Good guy to have fill out the roster.
CE Hamady N'Diaye - Future NBDL'er. Whether we send him there or cut him & he goes there.

So in my opinion we need to figure out how to add a third key piece to the Wall/McGee duo. I guess it can be any position but PG. It should be a young talent that can grow with a 22 yr old McGee & 20 yr old Wall. Blatche & Young are talented but flawed. I'm not totally ready to give up on Blatche because I think there's definitely something wrong physically but right now he cannot be relied upon. Nick has had a nice run but his role may be best suited as a gunner off the bench and those guys are typically replaceable. Seraphin is raw and Booker doesn't have a ton of upside. Maybe they are nice guys to fill out a bench or maybe they are better used as pawns in a trade. So what should we do next?

Right now I'd say we aren't looking at a very high lottery pick. There's too many terrible teams out there in the NBA. I can see us landing anywhere between 6-16 depending on health. The healthier we are the better we'll be. But we aren't even close to being the worst team in the NBA although we can certainly imitate one on some nights.

[Hoopalotta]

So in my opinion we need to figure out how to add a third key piece to the Wall/McGee duo. I guess it can be any position but PG. It should be a young talent that can grow with a 22 yr old McGee & 20 yr old Wall. Blatche & Young are talented but flawed. I'm not totally ready to give up on Blatche because I think there's definitely something wrong physically but right now he cannot be relied upon.

Right now I'd say we aren't looking at a very high lottery pick. There's too many terrible teams out there in the NBA. I can see us landing anywhere between 6-16 depending on health. The healthier we are the better we'll be. But we aren't even close to being the worst team in the NBA although we can certainly imitate one on some nights.

That's a mighty tall order without a top lottery pick. I honestly have no idea other than to say something useless like "draft well late" and don't even think it's likely that we can BOYD our way into another mid round draft pick this year to tide things over (there's just not enough sellers with real serious interest in getting something done unless we're willing to take on a real dog of a deal).

And really, when you look at how the CBA negotiations are likely to go down, we're not going to have as much cap space as we have assumed here. We are guilty of way, way overestimating our flexibility here. You've got an almost certain extension for McGee coming after this year and 2012 or 2013 cap figures of $58 million is unlikely. If there's salary roll backs, that will be offset by a smaller effective cap limit.

http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages ... izards.jsp

Throw in salary for draft picks, plug in $9-10 million for Javale and we might not be looking at anything more than what has traditionally been MLE type money )though that might get a better player under the new CBA). As things stand now with our roster as it is, unless a BOYD materializes, my opinion is that the best move would probably be to drop money on someone like Wilson Chandler after the lockout and hope he improves next to real point guards, but I have no illusions about that being some over the top move.

So, yeah, we don't have enough actual core pieces that we can hang our hat on for the length of Wall's rookie deal and beyond. Guys who will excite him about the future here.

To me, it's just completely obvious that you move Gil if you can. That solves a lot of the above problems and massively minimizes risk. Gil's done everything asked of him and been a trooper, but he's just not the right player with us so young, and history is not on the side of the team with middling cap space and mid round picks adding another centerpiece player. He's either going to artificially inflate our record without fitting in with 21 and 23 year old core players or he's just going to be a $20 million dollar hit on a team with a bad record anyway. And a team that basically stinks and is playing for tomorrow has no business dealing with this sort of injury risk; no business at all. People here never acknowledge that Gil getting hurt would outright murder us; they just completely ignore that aspect.

None of that is to trash Gil the guy or Gil the player. He's savvy and has improved in a number of ways, but that's not what we need to be, oh, say, spending 40% of our 2013 cap on. And mark me as unconvinced that Gil and Wall are forging a dynamic sort of symmetry too. In many ways that's more Wall's fault than Gil's, but that doesn't make it any better situationally as both guys have done their best work without the other so far. How much improvement there would it take to be worth $20 million a year? What sort of guard does Wall need to play with? Wall's just a very ball dominant player and his jumper's a work in progress, so I'd be looking for something more in a young Jason Richardson (I could see a Gil-light combo guard off the bench).

But Gil is not going to get traded for pure expirings. That was a complete fantasy. There's no team in the league to where you can say "well, what if we slapped Gil's salary on the books without taking anything off?" It's a disaster for just about everyone if you do that, especially with the CBA uncertainty. It's going to be something closer to Rip Hamilton or Jose Calderon or Baron Davis or Beno Udrih and Francisco Garcia. Even that might not be possible. Without that trade, the roster is realistically going to have one more semi-impact move followed up a by a whole lot of cheap filler. There's just not that much slack in the rope.

So that's pretty well we're I'm at. I don't think the absolute top of this draft is going to be too much better than 6th or possibly even the 8th picks, but I'd be trying to hit in that range and open up the cap space. Maybe you sign someone or maybe you wait around for a future disgruntled superstar type, but I see that formula as being more effective in the long term compared with the current status quo.

On the question of Blatche, there have been some instances of bad-tude-dude poking through, but with his contract being amenable, he could be a sixth man for us, so I'd rather keep him unless there's problems behind the scenes. I actually prefer his 'weak shots in the lane' to his jumper and his defense right now. Take a look at the shot locations: in particular, he's down on his "10 feet and in" percentage as well as his jumper.

http://www.hoopdata.com/player.aspx?nam ... %20Blatche

He's actually at a career high for shots at the rim, both in percentage and attempts. But his defense really needs to pick up. Dealing Dray now would seem to only make a hole for us at power forward.

[Shanghai Kid]

I would say let's hope that Gilbert keeps putting up decent numbers, and than a playoff team at the deadline may take a chance.

Certainly not a knock on Gil, to be honest I believe the team is better when he has the ball in his hands and when he runs the offense, but with the age difference he would fit much better on a veteran team going forward.

If we do trade Gil, I would seriously give Nick Young one more chance as our starter at shooting guard. I believe Wall will enough of an all around guard to make up for Young's deficiencies. In a rebuilding year, I would give him one last chance to see if he can start.

I'm just not a fan of Blatche. I think he's more of a bench player, but we have no other prospect to throw out there at PF so for now you just hope he gets better as the season goes.

Wall/Mcgee are indeed the untouchables.

[nate33]

And really, when you look at how the CBA negotiations are likely to go down, we're not going to have as much cap space as we have assumed here. We are guilty of way, way overestimating our flexibility here. You've got an almost certain extension for McGee coming after this year and 2012 or 2013 cap figures of $58 million is unlikely. If there's salary roll backs, that will be offset by a smaller effective cap limit.

http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages ... izards.jsp

Throw in salary for draft picks, plug in $9-10 million for Javale and we might not be looking at anything more than what has traditionally been MLE type money )though that might get a better player under the new CBA). As things stand now with our roster as it is, unless a BOYD materializes, my opinion is that the best move would probably be to drop money on someone like Wilson Chandler after the lockout and hope he improves next to real point guards, but I have no illusions about that being some over the top move.

I don't think the salary cap situation is quite so hopeless. Remember, regardless of what McGee's actual contract will be in 2012, he's only going to count for, at most, the cost of his cap hold. IIRC, that's just 300% of his 2011 salary, or $7.4M. So our 2012 payroll projects to be just $44.4M with a lineup including: Wall, McGee, Blatche, Arenas, Booker and Seraphin. Throw in a rookie salary for each of the next two seasons and it's about $48M.

It's hard to project the shape of the new CBA so we don't know if $48M is a lot or a litte. It'll depend on whether the thrust of the new CBA is geared toward a higher, hard cap, or a lower soft cap. Maybe they'll be some sort of Allan Houston rule that'll help us jettison Arenas.

To me, the real dilemma is whether we should focus on acquiring a big talent in 2012, or should we just take things one season at a time and try to acquire quality players on reasonable contracts as they become available. Should we sign Wilson Chandler and extend Nick Young this offseason and go into next year with the same basic lineup but with slightly better fits at swing man? Or do we stick with Cartier Martin and Alonzo Gee on one year contracts and keep our powder dry until 2012?

If we can trade Arenas for any crappy contracts that expire in 2012, it would sure give us a golden opportunity to make a huge splash.

[nate33]

One guy I've got my eye on is James Harden. He looked real nice in those two games that Durant was out, but he's been somewhat disappointing as a role player with a healthy Durant. I'm not so sure that OKC is going to commit major resources to retain him, and they'd surely explore trading him if they got a useful big in return.

If we traded Arenas for cap relief, might it then make sense to trade Blatche for Harden? I think Harden could be an 18 PPG type of player for us (as the starting SG), while also doing a respectable job in the rest of the box score.

Obviously, we'd need to address the hole at PF by some other means. Whether that's via the draft or free agency depends on a lot of factors to difficult to predict right now.

[mhd]

I suggested last year to extend Nick to a deal that is like Thabo's deal. Dallas is begging to find a player who can create his own shot. Nick Young on Dallas averages 18-20 ppg easily. I'd rather have Nick than Harden. Nick is a better defender, ball handler, and athlete.

[Ruzious]

One guy I've got my eye on is James Harden. He looked real nice in those two games that Durant was out, but he's been somewhat disappointing as a role player with a healthy Durant. I'm not so sure that OKC is going to commit major resources to retain him, and they'd surely explore trading him if they got a useful big in return.

If we traded Arenas for cap relief, might it then make sense to trade Blatche for Harden? I think Harden could be an 18 PPG type of player for us (as the starting SG), while also doing a respectable job in the rest of the box score.

Obviously, we'd need to address the hole at PF by some other means. Whether that's via the draft or free agency depends on a lot of factors to difficult to predict right now.

Blatche for Harden? Sheesh, I thought you were a big Blatche supporter. I like Harden, and yes - he can be an 18 PPG scorer at the 2, but he's short on versatility and is an easily replacable kind of player. Blatche is still a talent; isn't he - and a guy who can play either PF or C. If we trade him, we need to increase our talent level; not decrease it. Do you want Harden just because he fits a role? If so, that's not the way to go right now for the Wiz. A good GM can always find a solid 2 without giving up much.

Speaking of 2's from that draft, wasn't Gerald Henderson - the Dukee - in there? Larry Brown hasn't given him much of a chance to play. I'd be fine with trading Nick for him - maybe we get an extra 2nd rounder in the deal.

[mhd]

No way, Ruz. Henderson CANNOT shoot. With Wall at the PG, we need shooters and slashers. Young is a better defender than Henderson IMO too. Young's taller, has the better wingspan, and has more NBA expierence.

[nate33]

Blatche for Harden? Sheesh, I thought you were a big Blatche supporter. I like Harden, and yes - he can be an 18 PPG scorer at the 2, but he's short on versatility and is an easily replacable kind of player. Blatche is still a talent; isn't he - and a guy who can play either PF or C. If we trade him, we need to increase our talent level; not decrease it. Do you want Harden just because he fits a role? If so, that's not the way to go right now for the Wiz. A good GM can always find a solid 2 without giving up much.

Fair enough. Giving up Blatche may be too much to sacrifice. What about Yi and our 2011 1st (top 7 protected for one season).

I don't want to reach for Harden, so you are right that we shouldn't include Blatche. I just think he might be a good fit with a chance to surprise on the upside. It only makes sense if Arenas is traded though.

[verbal8]

Blatche for Harden? Sheesh, I thought you were a big Blatche supporter. I like Harden, and yes - he can be an 18 PPG scorer at the 2, but he's short on versatility and is an easily replacable kind of player. Blatche is still a talent; isn't he - and a guy who can play either PF or C. If we trade him, we need to increase our talent level; not decrease it. Do you want Harden just because he fits a role? If so, that's not the way to go right now for the Wiz. A good GM can always find a solid 2 without giving up much.

Fair enough. Giving up Blatche may be too much to sacrifice. What about Yi and our 2011 1st (top 7 protected for one season).

I don't want to reach for Harden, so you are right that we shouldn't include Blatche. I just think he might be a good fit with a chance to surprise on the upside. It only makes sense if Arenas is traded though.

What about Harden and Ibaka for Blatche?

It does leave the Wizards front-court very raw, but it also is an athletic front-court.