Poll: Are you hoping for a trade before deadline?

[Who]

Actually...i'm praying for a trade!
Like this one: Ray for Mayo and a 1st.

Reportedly, Memphis is now interested in keeping Mayo and trying to make a move to shed salary so they can re-sign him without going into the luxury tax.

What salaries do they have to move to make that happen?

Are they putting any quality players on the market on the cheap?

[LooseCannon]

I'm guessing Memphis would also like to keep Marreese Speights, who is due a qualifying offer, so you're probably looking at Dante Cunningham or Quincy Pondexter as their best available players.

Right now, Memphis is reportedly trying to do a salary dump of Sam Young and his ginormous $1,184,750 to avoid paying luxury tax.

[bostonpatriot]

Memphis is basically half a million over the tax. It makes sense to dump someone like Young to get under the threshold - it'd net them quite a few millions.

With their top 4 players + Tony Allen, they'll have $9 millions to spend in the rest of the roster next season. I don't think trading Cunningham and Pondexter makes much sense, unless they play to fill every 8-15 spot with minimum salary players.

[bostonpatriot]

I'm hoping for a trade. Any kind of trade - either a win now move or a blow it up one. Standing pat doesn't seem to make much sense to me.

[LooseCannon]

With their top 4 players + Tony Allen, they'll have $9 millions to spend in the rest of the roster next season. I don't think trading Cunningham and Pondexter makes much sense, unless they play to fill every 8-15 spot with minimum salary players.

Those are the guys they would have to try to dump in the off-season to keep Mayo and Speights while minimizing the luxury tax, not guys they want to trade now.  So, they'd be going with a roster of M Gasol, Gay, Randolph, Conley, Allen, Mayo, Speights, Pargo, guys they draft, and cheap roster filler.

[Celtics18]

I'm hoping to see the core kept together with possibly a smaller trade to bring in some front court help now that it looks like we may be in trouble with the health of O'Neal and Wilcox (and, possibly, Stiemsma, too).

[Celtics4ever]

I voted blow it up.  I think we are pretenders not contenders who can't finish games.   I would not mind riding it as I love these guys though.  But the sooner we start to rebuild the sooner we will get rebuilt.

[bostonpatriot]

With their top 4 players + Tony Allen, they'll have $9 millions to spend in the rest of the roster next season. I don't think trading Cunningham and Pondexter makes much sense, unless they play to fill every 8-15 spot with minimum salary players.

Those are the guys they would have to try to dump in the off-season to keep Mayo and Speights while minimizing the luxury tax, not guys they want to trade now.  So, they'd be going with a roster of M Gasol, Gay, Randolph, Conley, Allen, Mayo, Speights, Pargo, guys they draft, and cheap roster filler.

I understood, but it just doesn't make sense to dump Pondexter to then sign "cheap roster filler". That's what Pondexter is, he makes $1 million per year.

[jdz101]

I've got to say yes.

I suspect Danny is just going to let these next two months slide and do major stuff in the offseason though.

[LooseCannon]

With their top 4 players + Tony Allen, they'll have $9 millions to spend in the rest of the roster next season. I don't think trading Cunningham and Pondexter makes much sense, unless they play to fill every 8-15 spot with minimum salary players.

Those are the guys they would have to try to dump in the off-season to keep Mayo and Speights while minimizing the luxury tax, not guys they want to trade now.  So, they'd be going with a roster of M Gasol, Gay, Randolph, Conley, Allen, Mayo, Speights, Pargo, guys they draft, and cheap roster filler.

I understood, but it just doesn't make sense to dump Pondexter to then sign "cheap roster filler". That's what Pondexter is, he makes $1 million per year.

If Memphis is willing to give away Sam Young right now, they'd probably be happy to get rid of Pondexter for a second round pick and replace him with someone who makes about $400K less (the approximate gap between the rookie scale third year option and the two-year veteran's minimum, more if they sign someone (such as a second round pick) to the rookie minimum.  The Grizzlies seem like the kind of team that would seek that sort of miniscule savings.

[tyrone biggums]

I voted blow it up.  I think we are pretenders not contenders who can't finish games.   I would not mind riding it as I love these guys though.  But the sooner we start to rebuild the sooner we will get rebuilt.

I understand that, but what will taking on bad contracts for late first rounders accomplish? You have three realistic choices

Choice 1: Do nothing outside of a minor trade or two to shore up weaknesses and let KG/Ray expire

Choice 2: Trade Jermaine O Neal's contract for a scorer and use Dooling/Daniels contract for a backup big such as Kurt Thomas.

Choice 3: Trade for an established star using Ray's contract + picks.

Its incredibly hard to blow up a team correctly, especially during the season. People are looking at making a hasty trade as a quick fix, I would propose that blowing things up in mid season by taking on bad contracts for late 1st rounders is just as much of a quick fix. This is why neither of these things will happen. What if Danny is telling the truth? Danny Ainge has positioned this team for the 2012 free agency class for a while now, granted outside of DH12 its not the absolute best but its a still a solid class.

I don't understand why 90% of this board is OBSESSED with taking on horrible contracts for late 1st rounders just to be in cap hell for the next 5 years. You have this rare opportunity to completely rebuild in free agency AND the draft while not bogging your team down in terrible contracts. How many teams can say that? The Celtics already have two draft picks in the 1st and hell worst case scenario they can package both and move up quite a bit I'm sure. So again, why do we want to take on players like Blatche? Isn't the argument against going into free agency that "Players do not want to play in Boston, so we will have to give a max contract to a mid level player" Despite the fallacy of this due to the Celtics having a star player at a reasonable contract already on the roster, you just need to put good athletic talent around him. Wouldn't it be just as damaging to this team to take on Blatche's contract and overpay McGee (RFA) then to overpay a free agent?

I would target Beasley or Josh Smith both can be acquired but the price for J-Smooth would probably scare a lot of people off. What I've learned that whether the move is good or bad, Ainge will not make a move based on fan polls, that's the right person to run this team.

[bostonpatriot]

With their top 4 players + Tony Allen, they'll have $9 millions to spend in the rest of the roster next season. I don't think trading Cunningham and Pondexter makes much sense, unless they play to fill every 8-15 spot with minimum salary players.

Those are the guys they would have to try to dump in the off-season to keep Mayo and Speights while minimizing the luxury tax, not guys they want to trade now.  So, they'd be going with a roster of M Gasol, Gay, Randolph, Conley, Allen, Mayo, Speights, Pargo, guys they draft, and cheap roster filler.

I understood, but it just doesn't make sense to dump Pondexter to then sign "cheap roster filler". That's what Pondexter is, he makes $1 million per year.

If Memphis is willing to give away Sam Young right now, they'd probably be happy to get rid of Pondexter for a second round pick and replace him with someone who makes about $400K less (the approximate gap between the rookie scale third year option and the two-year veteran's minimum, more if they sign someone (such as a second round pick) to the rookie minimum.  The Grizzlies seem like the kind of team that would seek that sort of miniscule savings.

They are willing to dump Sam Young because they'd "save" a few millions - 6 or 7, maybe? - and he's their 14th man. Every team would do the same thing. It's not about minuscule savings.

Maybe they'll ponder do the same thing with Pondexter if they are in the exact same situation by the next trade deadline - if that $400K amount is putting them above the tax. Before that? There's no chance. They aren't going to downgrade from Pondexter - a better and much more promising player than Young - to some random rookie to save that money de per se.

[LooseCannon]

They are willing to dump Sam Young because they'd "save" a few millions - 6 or 7, maybe? - and he's their 14th man. Every team would do the same thing. It's not about minuscule savings.

Sam Young makes $1,184,750, plus they'd save the one-for-one luxury tax.  If there's a playoff-caliber team that would downgrade its bench just to save $1 million, it's probably Memphis.

Maybe, with Darrell Arthur back next season after surgery, the Grizzlies would be willing to facilitate a sign and trade involving Speights.  Speights is a restricted free agent if he is extended a qualifying offer, so it may be worth coughing up a future draft pick in order to avoid not having to overpay him on an offer sheet in an attempt to discourage Memphis from matching.

[Marcus13]

I think every fan base in the league is hoping their team makes a trade to make them better.

I'd really like to get a piece for Garnett's expiring, but Im not counting on it.

[bostonpatriot]

They are willing to dump Sam Young because they'd "save" a few millions - 6 or 7, maybe? - and he's their 14th man. Every team would do the same thing. It's not about minuscule savings.

Sam Young makes $1,184,750, plus they'd save the one-for-one luxury tax.  If there's a playoff-caliber team that would downgrade its bench just to save $1 million, it's probably Memphis.

Maybe, with Darrell Arthur back next season after surgery, the Grizzlies would be willing to facilitate a sign and trade involving Speights.  Speights is a restricted free agent if he is extended a qualifying offer, so it may be worth coughing up a future draft pick in order to avoid not having to overpay him on an offer sheet in an attempt to discourage Memphis from matching.

Nope. As I said, the net amount they get is far larger. It's not only what you pay by being above the luxury tax - say, less than $2 million in this case - it's also what you pocket by being below the luxury tax threshold and being eligible for the tax rebate - it was close to $3 million last season but I think that increased quite a bit with the new CBA.

So at least they'll be saving $5 million by trading Sam Young for a TPE.