OFFICIAL 2017 FREE AGENCY (Lakers sign Bogut)

[pjiddy]

[numero-ocho]

[Inspector Gadget]

[Inspector Gadget]

[Lakerz113]

[ChickenStu]

Bledsoe seems like a decent bet to end up in Cleveland. When you combine the fact that he is one of the best point guards that should be realistically available for trade with the fact that he has the obvious connection with LeBron, I don't think it's a stretch to connect those dots. The question will be if the Suns and Cavs can match up directly, or if they have to involve a third team. I don't have much doubt that the Suns would love to end up with Kyrie; they have been sniffing around on trying to acquire a veteran talent to pair with Booker all summer, even before the draft. The Suns, rightfully, have no desire to part with Josh Jackson. I wonder if something like Bledsoe and Chandler and Chriss (or Bender) could work, with Irving and Shumpert and Felder going to the Suns.

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=y8abkjp2

[Inspector Gadget]

[Lakerz113]

[Inspector Gadget]

[Lakerz113]

[pio2u]

Anthony Brown agreed to a two-way deal with the Minnesota Timberwolves.

[Lakerz113]

[pio2u]

[ChickenStu]

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yalv9os4

Updated version of the much-discussed Deng trade, at least by me! I've been thinking that the most realistic trade would be Deng/Brewer/Zu/'19 CHI 2nd/'20 LA 1st for Wade. But if we took Brewer out of it, we're only a few hundred thousand dollars short of making the salaries work under the league's trade rules. So instead of giving them another young player that we don't want to give up, or a bigger salary like Brewer, including a sign-and-traded Thomas Robinson here would work for both sides, so long as we made it worth it for T-Rob. I'm sure that he's only getting veteran's minimum offers, just like last year, and the vet. min. for a 5-year NBA vet should be just over $1.7MM, per Larry's CBA FAQ. If the Bulls (via the Lakers in a sign-and-trade) could give him a salary of $2.2MM this season, that's a nice raise over the $1,050,961 that he made last season. The Bulls would surely find this more palatable ($2.2MM for T-Rob) than having to take Brewer's $7.6MM this year. So that saves the Bulls about $5.4MM in "bad money" from my previous proposal.

When you take into account that we are allowed to send the Bulls $5.1MM in cash in the deal (again, per the CBA FAQ), the Bulls would really only be taking on $27.3MM in "bad money" going forward, since Wade's $23.8MM would be off their books for this season. That's less than the amount of money that the Nets took on with Carroll ($30.2MM). And the Nets got 2018 1st and 2nd round picks from Toronto. We'd be giving them a 1st and a 2nd too, but also a legit prospect in Zubac. While it is fair to question Zu's fit in our fast-paced offense moving forward, the fact remains that he's a 20-year-old who acquitted himself really well as a 19-year-old NBA rookie last season. Even if you could argue that TOR's '18 1st has more value than the Lakers' '20 1st (because you'd rather have the pick now instead of 2 years later, I suppose), the Zu/'19 CHI 2nd part severely trumps just TOR's '18 2nd round pick. (TOR's pick should be in the 50's, while the CHI '19 2nd should be a pick in the 30's, and likely in the top 35. Expected 1st round picks fall into the first few picks of the 2nd round every year. There's a big difference in value between an early 2nd round pick and a late 2nd round pick.)

It should be noted that if CHI preferred Thomas Bryant to Zubac, I absolutely would still do the trade.

Come on, Chicago. Step up to the freaking plate and make this happen. Your fans even like Deng, for heaven's sake!

[ChickenStu]

http://www.espn.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ycfk72dq

This is a 3-team trade that works, with the Bucks as the 3rd team. In this version, Wade ends up with the Bucks, and the Lakers take on the expiring contracts of Monroe and Hawes. There were reports today that the Bucks are still trying to shed either Monroe or Henson (not only to get under the luxury tax, but potentially to have room to pick up a more useful player to them than Monroe or Henson). With Parker not being an option for them until February, perhaps they would welcome a veteran scorer like Wade, as opposed to having a backup center like Monroe. The inclusion of Vaughn (to the Bulls) is what gets the Bucks barely under the luxury tax, an important point to consider.

The Bulls would still get the same players and picks from the Lakers, and the only difference for them is taking the $1.9MM owed to Vaughn this season. (He has a club option for next season.)

As for the Lakers, since I don't think Wade should logically have a role on our team anyway, we're probably better off with Monroe getting backup center minutes instead of Wade getting backup guard minutes (I'll say it again, I think we need to play Hart). And even if we ended up buying out the players we got, whether it's Wade or Monroe, I personally don't care; the key is getting rid of Deng without having to stretch him. But I actually think Monroe would be more useful to us than Wade would be. Playing against backups, Monroe is actually pretty capable. We could develop Bryant in the G League, and potentially have him come up if there are injuries to our bigs. Of course, we could just have him come up later in the season to get some seasoning, too.

Anyway, just wanted to put that out there to show that it could be possible to involve a third team in any potential Deng-to-the-Bulls scenarios, where Wade ends up with that third team. This might be the best match of all, since the Bucks actually have a large expiring, too, that they are willing to trade.

[yinoma2001]

ChickenStu, i have a hunch that the reason the Lakers were interested in trading for Wade is to get his early Bird rights in a larger effort to recruit LBJ. I still think we will try to revisit the Wade trade using JC/Brewer. Perhaps we were trying to dump Deng on them and Chicago rebuffed that effort.

If we can get Wade this year, i'd play him as a 6th man covering 3 positions off the bench. We could then re-sign him for a paltry deal (could we use the room exception in 2018 and still keep his Bird rights and then re-sign him over the cap in 2019 on a short term deal).
_________________
From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals

[av3773]

If it wasn't for Dolan it seems like on the surface NY would be a good spot for Kyrie if they could do a deal around Melo, Kyrie would go to a marquee franchise and be the obvious new main face of the franchise, they have a great young talent in Porzingis who pairs really well with Kyrie, he'd be in the east and even with just those 2 I think they can be in the playoffs

[ChickenStu]

[yinoma2001]

I think the Lakers will (should) go after trading for Wade. Correct me cap experts if I'm wrong please b/c i'm not sure if some of these assumptions are correct.

1. trade JC/Brewer/2nd rounder for Wade. Chicago gets Lavine insurance in case he's not fully recovered and/or too expensive to extend.

2. bring Wade as a super 6th man, Iggy role this season. He can functionally play PG/SG/SF on this team. With him on the team, i can see us flirting with high 30s, maybe 40 wins.

3. in 2018, re-sign him with the room exception. Sign LBJ/PG13. The wink wink would be that we would take care of him in 2019 when we have full Bird rights and can sign him over the cap.

4. in 2019, re-sign him on a short and FMV deal. We would still have the MLE to use.

So in 2017-18 we'd look something like:

Lonzo/Ennis/Wade
KCP/Wade/Hart
Ingram/Deng
Jules/Nance/Kuz
Brook/Zub/Bryant

In 2018-19:

Lonzo/Ennis/Wade
PG13/Wade/Hart
LBJ/Ingram
Jules/Ingram/Kuz
Zub/Nance/Bryant

Add a few ring chasers with the minimum.
_________________
From 2-10 to the Western Conference Finals

[yinoma2001]

[ChickenStu]

[governator]

[ChickenStu]

[yinoma2001]

[epak]

I'm on the track that wishes ATL does a trade for Deng, JC, 2nd for Bazemore