Raef more valuable than Amare?

[Roy Hobbs]

I just read this quote on ESPN:

The hottest name at the trade deadline? A guy who hasn't played a game this season: Raef LaFrentz of the Portland Trail Blazers.

"If you asked owners in the league who they'd rather have right now, LaFrentz or Stoudemire, I think more than half of them would prefer LaFrentz," one executive told me. "That's how screwed up this thing has been. I guarantee you [Blazers GM] Kevin Pritchard has gotten better offers for LaFrentz than the Suns have gotten for Stoudemire."

That might have been confirmed Monday when the Suns' interest in trading Stoudemire cooled dramatically. Some of that has to do with the hope that new coach Alvin Gentry will inject some life into the listless Suns. But much of it has to do with the fact that the Suns haven't gotten a great offer for Stoudemire.

Meanwhile, sources confirm that the Blazers have been getting a steady flow of offers for LaFrentz, including two significant new ones Monday.

I understand that money matters in the NBA, but that's just crazy to me.

[wdleehi]

If only the Celtics still had him...


 

[Chris]

Its clearly hyperbole. 

[Fafnir]

Its clearly hyperbole. 

Maybe not, with the insurance coverage you don't have to pay for most of Raef's salary.

[Redz]

Arggghh...I hate this crap

They need to fix it.

[cordobes]

Teams have been losing lots of money. Some owners are not nearly as rich as they were just a year ago. The NOH/OKC trade shows how valuable has salary relief become.

[pearljammer10]

So dumb. The blazers are gonna strike it rich off of a guy who hasnt even played yet this season, while the suns wont get much in return for an all star...Unless Amare is traded to the blazers for lafrentz...hmmm

[Brickowski]

So dumb. The blazers are gonna strike it rich off of a guy who hasnt even played yet this season, while the suns wont get much in return for an all star...Unless Amare is traded to the blazers for lafrentz...hmmm

Or maybe they're going to strike it poor if the guys they get for LaFrentz don't produce a winner and cost them big bucks over the long term.  At least expiring contracts let you retool with less expensive players over the following Summer.

[JSD]

I'm still waiting for the day a crap player with "bird" rights gets a one year, max deal to be used as an asset come the trade deadline...

[Roy Hobbs]

I'm still waiting for the day a crap player with "bird" rights gets a one year, max deal to be used as an asset come the trade deadline...

"Base Year Compensation" makes it hard to do that, if it's a scrub you're giving a big raise.

If it's a scrub who is already coming off of a huge salary, then it's not as much of a problem.  You already saw deals like this happening with last year's Jason Kidd deal, when I think Keith Van Horn was given a nice chunk of change for nothing.

[birdisgod33]

any idea how Miami gets a $4 million exception in the marion - o'neal trade?  I thought that only worked when one team was under the cap in a trade

[xmuscularghandix]

if we had Raef on this team we'd go 82-0

[JSD]

I'm still waiting for the day a crap player with "bird" rights gets a one year, max deal to be used as an asset come the trade deadline...

"Base Year Compensation" makes it hard to do that, if it's a scrub you're giving a big raise.

If it's a scrub who is already coming off of a huge salary, then it's not as much of a problem.  You already saw deals like this happening with last year's Jason Kidd deal, when I think Keith Van Horn was given a nice chunk of change for nothing.

Roy, let's say the C's wanted to do this with Scal after his contract expires in 2010... How much could they give him for a single year?

[Roy Hobbs]

I'm still waiting for the day a crap player with "bird" rights gets a one year, max deal to be used as an asset come the trade deadline...

"Base Year Compensation" makes it hard to do that, if it's a scrub you're giving a big raise.

If it's a scrub who is already coming off of a huge salary, then it's not as much of a problem.  You already saw deals like this happening with last year's Jason Kidd deal, when I think Keith Van Horn was given a nice chunk of change for nothing.

Roy, let's say the C's wanted to do this with Scal after his contract expires in 2010... How much could they give him for a single year?

We can give Scal any raise we want, but to stay within BYC restrictions in the first year, we could only sign him to a 20% raise (i.e., a salary of $4,096,552).  Any larger raise, and it makes him difficult to trade.

[JSD]

I'm still waiting for the day a crap player with "bird" rights gets a one year, max deal to be used as an asset come the trade deadline...

"Base Year Compensation" makes it hard to do that, if it's a scrub you're giving a big raise.

If it's a scrub who is already coming off of a huge salary, then it's not as much of a problem.  You already saw deals like this happening with last year's Jason Kidd deal, when I think Keith Van Horn was given a nice chunk of change for nothing.

Roy, let's say the C's wanted to do this with Scal after his contract expires in 2010... How much could they give him for a single year?

We can give Scal any raise we want, but to stay within BYC restrictions in the first year, we could only sign him to a 20% raise (i.e., a salary of $4,096,552).  Any larger raise, and it makes him difficult to trade.

What about players coming off rookie deals?  Bynum has a huge jump from this year to next.