I'm not convinced that there will be a lockout. Billy Hunter knows perfectly well that it will hurt the players more than the owners, and I expect the union to make concessions. Also, I don't think NBA owners are out for blood like the NHL owners were. Maybe they should be, but IMHO Stern will ride herd on the hard liners.
Lockout or no lockout, Ainge's job is to find value and he's got to look under every rock and bush.
Incidentally, I think Rubio will be a star in the NBA. Beno Udrih has done fairly well, and Rubio is five times better than Udrih. So I would certainly consider giving up Rondo in a deal involving Rubio, assuming that (1) I knew I could sign Rubio, and (2) other value also came back (e.g. a player like Corey Brewer, who has been poorly utilized in MN).
Thing is, it's not worth it to just unload Rondo - you have to get rid of a contract, and you have to get assets. Rondo is proven and young - none of the other guys are both. He's a good building block for the future, so you only do it if you think Rubio will come here in 2011-12 (I think he would come to Boston), and the Rubio/pick/Brewer combo is better than Rondo.
I agree it's conceivable to trade Rondo to rebuild, but only if you're making a killing in the deal financially and overall talent wise. So you've also got to unload a bad contract - KG's is too onerous for any non-contender with a high pick, but Wallace has to go if we're giving up Rondo.
If we're doing it with Minnesota, they have cap room, so Rondo and Wallace for the T-wolves' first rounder (after they select him - I'm not sure they can trade the pick straight up), Brewer, the rights to Rubio and maybe Sessions (who Minnesota would have to get rid of). That would shave about $5-9 million off Boston's payroll. I'm not demanding the pick be Turner - I'm happy to have Ainge assess them and decide who's the best choice whether it's Turner, Cousins, Favors, Johnson or Davis.
More ideally, I'd make a decision this summer on whether to blow it up and rebuild around just Rondo. The big factors will be: 1) will Pierce will opt out? and 2) will Dallas be able to get anything else on the trade market, or might Boston be able to talk them into giving up Dampier's non-guaranteed contract and an expiring like DeShawn Stevenson or Caron Butler for Garnett and possibly Sheed (if it's Butler)?
If you could unload the KG/Wallace contracts, taking back only Butler and Damp's non-guaranteed money, waive Dampier, and renounce Pierce after an opt out, plus Ray, Robinson and the other free agents, then suddenly your cap situation is fine, now and in the future. Between Rondo, Butler, Perkins, Davis and 8 rookie minimum cap holds, the Cs would be at $31 million, and Butler's $10 mil would go off the books after one season, as would Davis and Perkins, leaving only Rondo on the roster in the summer of 2011. When Carmelo Anthony is available.
Unfortunately, there are big reasons not to do this even if Dallas was willing to do it.
Let's start there - Dallas wants the Damp contract as a way to acquire a youngish max contract player in a sign and trade. They can combine Dampier's expiring money with a young asset like Beaubois and cash so that a team like Cleveland, Miami, Toronto or Atlanta actually gets a young asset for their fleeing free agent, but doesn't have to pay a season's worth of money to an expiring. They lose the player they were already losing, but add a young asset and unlike with an offer of a traditional expiring, don't have to pay a lot of matching cash to a guy they don't want. They just decline Damp's option. And the free agent gets his Bird-rights max contract which is worth I think $25-30 million more over 6 years than a non-Bird max contract. So Dallas doesn't want to give up Damp's contract for an old player like Garnett.
Which means Dallas would only do the trade if they couldn't get a max free agent via the sign and trade route. Which means we wouldn't get one either even if we cleared out Garnett, Pierce and Allen. A player that decided not to go to Dallas, which already has Jason Kidd, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Terry, Shawn Marion and Caron Butler, plus a free-spending owner and no state income tax, with the benefit of the higher wage, is not gonna come to Boston to play with just Rondo, Perk and Butler.
And since we wouldn't be getting an impact free agent, based on the fact that we already owe Minnesota our 2011 1st, there's no big incentive to unloading the team right away. We would suck. We would be in the lottery. But we wouldn't have a lottery pick coming. It'd be like New York's situation this year - they suck and still don't have a pick to look forward to - just the hope of a free agent. I wouldn't be in a rush to break things up this year unless they could get a player like Wade as a free agent (and let's face it, he probably wouldn't do it to come here if he wouldn't do it to go to Dallas).
Best option for next year is offering Ray 2 years, $20 million. That way, when Garnett's and Wallace's contracts are finishing up, we wouldn't have Allen keeping us above the cap. The sad fact is, if Pierce opted out, he might extend for a lower per year figure but probably would want 4-5 years. I just wouldn't do that anymore, not with the potential to have a completely clean slate in 2012 while Rondo is reasonably young.
