Alright, I figured out how to make this work with salaries. I know that it's still crazy, but I'm willing to try it anyway.
Portland would give up Zach Randolph, Joel Przybilla, Martell Webster, and the 2007 lottery pick. This would work best if Portland somehow landed the third pick in the draft, but could still work if they fell to their rightful spot.
San Antonio would give up Tim Duncan and James White. What, you don't even know who James White is? You can check the Spurs roster, he's there. But KnickerBlogger doesn't even have stats for him, and 82games.com says that he's played 0% of San Antonio's minutes this year for a total of 14 minutes, so I don't think the Spurs would be too upset about losing him.
If you want to stare at the actual trade proposal, it's at RealGM or ESPN's trade machine.
Why would San Antonio even consider this trade? Good question...
The Spurs will have quite a few free agents coming off the books this summer. Among these are three guys who play power forward or center. Are any of them good? Not really. The three are Matt Bonner, Melvin Ely, and Fabricio Oberto. Bonner and Oberto are restricted, so they might be back, and Ely is an UFA. If Przybilla can play the way he did last year, then he would be a better option than either Oberto or Ely was this year, and would be somewhat comparable to Bonner. The Spurs are also losing Michael Finlay and Jacque Vaughn to unrestricted free agency (if Finlay takes his player option). I think that Martell would be intriguing for them, because he could play 2 or 3 like he has in Portland, and he would be another good perimeter shooter, with the potential to be the best on the team. If all of the possible free agents left, and considering the contracts shuffled in the deal, the Spurs would have a $9,277,312 smaller payroll going into free agency in July, which would be after the draft. This would give them the chance to draft the best available player (a Corey Brewer or Joakim Noah or Brandan Wright or Jeff Green or Nick Young or Al Horford or some other player that makes himself look lottery-draft-able by then) and find a good available free agent (like Gerald Wallace or Rashard Lewis or Andres Nocioni or Morris Peterson or Vince Carter or Luke Walton or Matt Barnes or Chris Webber or Jerry Stackhouse or Derek Anderson) to round things out. I'm not sure how this would work exactly with the salary cap, but I think this would put them at $2,955,333 over the cap before their rookie signings. If they were to make another move to get under the cap they could legitimately go after any free agent available.
The last piece of this deal to discuss is the Randolph for Duncan move. I know that this doesn't look good for San Antonio from the front, because they'd be losing a great defensive presence and getting a...umm...well, they wouldn't really be replacing that defensive presence. But they would be adding a player who could be considered an even better interior scorer, which could work really well with Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, Brent Barry, and all the other outside scorers the Spurs hoard. As good as Duncan still is, his numbers are starting to slip a bit, and he can't hurt them at the end of games by missing free throws if he's not wearing a Spurs uniform.
Here's a possible Spurs lineup with this trade, with the draft pick possibilities and free agent possibilities added at the end:
PG Tony Parker/Beno Udrih
SG Brent Barry/Manu Ginobili
SF Bruce Bowen/Martell Webster
PF Zach Randolph/Robert Horry
C Joel Przybilla/Francisco Elson
SG/SF Corey Brewer, Nick Young
SF Jeff Green
PF Brandan Wright
PF/C Al Horford, Joakim Noah
SF Vince Carter, Andres Nocioni, Gerald Wallace, Rashard Lewis, Luke Walton, Morris Peterson, Matt Barnes, Jerry Stackhouse
PF/C Chris Webber
I think they could do a good job making my provisional depth chart a lot better with one guy from each of those two lists.
Of course, I don't think this would be too bad for Portland either:
PG Sergio Rodriguez/Jarrett Jack
SG Brandon Roy/Freddie Jones
SF Darius Miles/Ime Udoka/
PF LaMarcus Aldridge/Travis Outlaw
C Tim Duncan/Raef LaFrentz
Plus, Dan Dickau is still on the bench, James White is sitting there too, and James Freeland might come over from England via Spain next year.
Now I need to go to bed and dream of a championship next year instead of the one after. And sleep, so that tomorrow isn't terrible. At least I don't have students tomorrow.
2 comments:
No way the Spurs are trading Duncan. I realize that more dominant big men have been traded before (Kareem, Wilt, Shaq), but in all of those cases there were extenuating circumstances, and I can't imaging TD having a personality conflict with anyone. Although him being traded to the Blazers would test this theory.
Also, there's no way you want to trade Z-Bo and a top ten pick in this year's draft for Tyson Chandler. Right now the Blazer's best bet is to keep building through the draft, hope they land Oden or Durant, and wait for the right moment to trade Randolph to the Knicks (or some other team with a stupid GM). It worked for the Bulls, and they didn't even get a blue-chipper of the Oden/Durant caliber.
Interesting theory, but I agree with Ek and Mark that Duncan will never be traded. He's going to retire a Spur. He's brought 3 Championships to the city of San Antonio.
I do appreciate your ability to think outside of the box though.
Also, how sweet is it that the Braves swept the Phillies to open the year (what did you say Jimmy Rollins?) and the bullpen was great. It's going to be a great year.
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