Some interesting news and notes this morning:
1) The market for Ty Thomas seems to be relatively strong, according to Yahoo! Sports. Teams seem prepared to offer 1st round picks of some value for him, most notably Charlotte. This surprises me a little considering his inconsistency and volatility, but considering he’ll be a restricted FA this summer he could be very valuable to teams at the qualifying offer of around 6mil if no one else will make him a substantial offer due to the uncertainty of the CBA negotiation. Two interesting tidbits here: Chicago remains determined to find a taker for Hinrich in the process, which likely leaves the door very slightly open for a last minute deal where the Cs come away with more than Hinrich and / or Thomas from the Bulls; and Charlotte’s offer for Thomas is apparently, Law, Murray and a 1st – this doesn’t include Augustin.
2) The market for McGrady seems to be clarifying, with a deal to the Knicks & Wiz seeming more certain. The ball sounds like it’s in Houston’s court, and I can’t imagine they won’t pull the trigger whether for Butler and Haywood, or just directly with NYK for Harrington, Mobley and Milicic or whatever. If this deal goes down soon, Ray Allen’s deal will become that much more attractive to teams on the fence about their financial future. Will it make a major difference? Probably not, but it would likely start the domino effect of deals for the next week if nothing else. Meanwhile, the Knicks are likely resigned to the fact that they cannot trade Jeffries or Curry, despite the fact that the Jeffries has player better of late. Could they get nervous this week? Any chance they’ll panic and give up a good young player or two to dump JJ?
3) It doesn’t sound like the Kings will trade Kevin Martin. As things get worse for the Cs, you wonder whether they’ll be tempted to take the likes of a Nocioni (tho I’d prefer Udrih) in order to get a young scorer. And I’m kind of shocked by the idea that if the Kings could clear $17-18mil off of their cap over each of the next two seasons – when they’re paying Garcia & Nocioni a stupid amount to back-up their myriad other swing players who are actually good (Greene, Casspi) -- to trade for a classy veteran, they wouldn’t. But I can understand the desire to try to fit Martin with Evans – if they can figure it out that’s a pretty interesting dynamic.
4) Three things caught my attention about the Baby for DJ Augustin rumor yesterday: a) Danny Ainge stating on WEEI that he hadn’t spoken to Charlotte (which in and of itself means nothing – it doesn’t mean that Leo or Ryan hasn’t), but that he “liked the player” in the rumor, b) Ric Bucher telling Ryen Rusillo in his podcast yesterday that that rumor was firmly planted in the e-sphere by Larry Brown, and c) Jared Dudley’s tweet about how much DJ wants outta Charlotte. It sure sounds like the Bobcats are ready to give up on him, and tho he hasn’t shot the ball that well this year, he is a very solid spot-up shooter and penetrator. And man could the Cs use some offense right now – with Pierce hobbled and Ray out of sorts, do we have any scorers on this team? Daniels? Anyone else? Now if the Bobcats go all in on Thomas (which I would certainly do over Davis), we can forget it.
Anybody else see anything out there?
Topic: Developments in the Trade Market (Read 6504 times)