Spurs Get Jefferson, Panic Ensues (And Other Draft Week Chaos)

Early today on Sportscenter, I saw that the Spurs had acquired Richard Jefferson from the Bucks for the expiring contracts of Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto and Kurt Thomas. And, if I'm not mistaken, I think they also threw in a 25 dollar gift card to Best Buy. You know, just to sweeten the deal. This was clearly a financial move by the Bucks, as it gives them cap space for the free agent apocolypse that is the summer of 2010 as well as to resign players this year. This deal affects us in two ways. The obvious one is that our hopes for a wide-open Southwest Division next year were just shot. The second, more sneaky way it affects us is that now the Bucks have enough cap space to resign Ramon Sessions. Who, if you didn't know, is very, very, very good. So good that if we could somehow swap Brooks for Sessions straight up I'd do it in less time than it takes for Mcgrady to hurt something.

In other news, Chad Ford says that we've offered Mcgrady and Landry to the Wizards for their 5th pick. As you can see, I'm grabbing onto anything that gets us a chance at landing James Harden. Anything. And that includes eight word sentences in 3,000 words of rumors that will most likely never happen.

And since we're tossing out situations that'd never happen, I have a few guys I'd like to get this offseason. I'd love Zaza Pachulia as a backup center. I want a point guard, and if Sessions is unavailable, I wouldn't mind making a run at Bibby. Or, as unlikely as it may be, Rajon Rondo, since the Celtics seem to be shopping him. Why not throw Mcgrady and Brooks at them and see if we can land Rondo? I also wouldn't mind Mike Miller. After suffering through a year in Minnesota, also known as "Basketball Hell" and "The Place That Slowly Sucked Away Kevin Garnett's Will To Live," people have seemingly forgotten how good Miller is. If we could get him relatively cheap I'd take him over Wafer and probably even Artest. And, lastly, at least for now, Chris Bosh. I know it's highly unlikely, but we do know he hates it in Toronto. Instead of risking losing him for nothing, why wouldn't Toronto take Mcgrady's expiring contract, which would still give them money to throw around in 2010 and an actual building block for Bosh?

I'd also like Paul Millsap. If we can get him for the mid-level exception there's no need to chase after someone like Pachulia. I know, he deserves and is going to want a lot more than the (around) 5.8 million that is the mid-level, so we don't have much of a shot at getting him unless we choose not to resign Ron, but if he doesn't know how much he's worth, there's no reason we should tell him.

And there goes my hopes for getting Mike Miller. The Wizards are sending off their 5th pick along with a group of bad contracts for Mike Miller and Randy Foye. I love this deal for both teams. The Wizards get Mike Miller, who, in case you haven't heard from me already, is very, very, very good. They also get Randy Foye, and even though I don't know how he's going to coexist with Arenas, he's still a talented player that you don't want to pass up on. The Timberwolves now have the 5th and 6th pick in the draft as well as the 18th pick, which means they could be bringing in two difference makers and another solid rotation player to build around Kevin Love and Al Jefferson. Merits for everyone. Except us. I really, really wanted Mike Miller. Damn.

(Trading for the fifth pick was the most plausible way we could get into the top of the draft. Now, the T'wolves have ruined that possibility. -Billy)

So in one move the Timberwolves took away two of our best and options for find a wing player to replace Mcgrady: James Harden through the draft and Mike Miller. Damn you, David Kahn, damn you. But in other news the Hawks have just traded for Jamal Crawford and his huge contract, meaning that they won't have as much money to resign Bibby. Which means we could throw the midlevel at him just for the hell of it and hope he signs with us. And since we're sort of on the topic of Golden State, apparently Anthony Randolph just grew an inch and added 20 pounds over the offseason. We're all screwed.

Also, as promised, here's the immediate needs for the Rockets, courtesy of Hoops World. And come to the Rockets NBA Draft Party Thursday night at the House of Blues, we should be there.

Or we could trade Mcgrady's expiring contract for Rip Hamilton and sign Rasheed Wallace to the mid-level exception. Or trade Mcgrady and whatever other semi-expendable pieces the Pistons want for Hamilton and Rasheed in a sign and trade. Whatever it takes to get Rip and 'Sheed here and T-Mac all the way over there.

Billy posted about this, but we might get Amare and Barbosa for Mcgrady, Brooks and Landry. We could bring Barbosa off the bench and use him as a Manu Ginobili type player, allowing him to make the plays at the ends of games and have a starting five of Lowry (a better pure point guard than Brooks), Von Wafer, Artest, Amare and Yao. With Battier, Scola, Barbosa and White coming off the bench. That's a very, very solid rotation.

The Orlando Magic have agreed on a trade with the New Jersey Nets that will send Vince Carter to the Magic. The kicker is that Rafer Alston is the centerpiece of the trade. So we indirectly helped the Magic get a starting five of Nelson, Carter, Turkoglu, Lewis and Howard. That's the whole damned Eastern Conference All-Star Team. Looks like Cleveland still isn't going to be winning the East anytime soon.

That's all for now, but I'll keep adding paragraphs and thoughts to this as the days progress and more rumors/random ideas I think of start popping up.

Lottery Bound!

Thanks to a reliable source (a friend of mine with an ample amount of interest, and an even more ample amount of time) I was able to find this little tidbit. Search for the Rockets. If you're too lazy or aren't as blessed with your leisure time as we are, it says that the Rockets are shopping Carl Landry for a lottery pick. I'm all for it if it gives us a shot at landing James Harden. Or even DeMar DeRozan. And that's not just because he has four capital letters in his name. Or, as unlikely as it is, Ricky Rubio. A top 6 pick and I'm saying goodbye to Landry, anything less and I'll pass. Of course, the decision doesn't lie with me, so this paragraph was essentially pointless.

A Few Links

Just to keep you going during the offseason

-Billy said we need to trade T-Mac. I said we need to trade T-Mac. The Rockets are trying to trade T-Mac. I'm glad we're all on the same page.

-We're still in win now mode. Fortunately for us, there are some less-than-intelligent GM's in the NBA. Possibly even more fortunately for us, Daryl Morey isn't one of them. Good things happen when your management is smarter than everyone else's.

-James White, inspired by Trevor Ariza's stellar play in the postseason, is hard at work trying to become a contributor on the Rockets next year.

-More talk about trading Mcgrady.

-Hoops World is doing an immediate needs series for each team. We're not on there yet, but we should be by either Monday or Tuesday. Keep checking. I'll probably post a link to our actual article when it comes out, this is just a heads up.

-It's good to know Yao's enjoying his summer.

-Nothing to do with the Rockets, especially since we don't have a draft pick, but still a beautiful, beautiful thing.

-Hopefully not.

-Another Mcgrady rumor, but one that I don't like. Why the hell would we do this again?

-We're nearing the NBA Draft so there's probably somewher around 4,327 mock drafts available for you to read if you want to find them, but if you're really, really lazy, this one's just a click away. And the first five picks of this one. And this one. Let's try to maintain a hold on things until next Thursday.

That's all for now, keep checking back when you're bored. And I mean really, really bored.

Turkish Delight

A friend suggested this to me and I like the idea: we should trade for Hedo. Over the last two years he's shown us how special of a talent he is, and our fourth quarter problems would be solved. Because, like I've said so many times before on this forum, Hedo has no problem taking big shots. It would most likely have to be sign-and-trade, as Hedo wants to opt out of his contract this summer. So the Magic resign him and we trade for him. Or we move like hell to clear cap space for him. But the main problem with all of this is that if the Magic can resign Hedo, there's no real reason as to why they would trade him when they just went to the Finals without their starting point guard. Unless they have some unexplainable desire for a Tracy Mcgrady comeback in Orlando. And speaking of the Finals, we'll have a recap up soon. After that, it's on to the NBA Draft and the usually pointless jumble of trade ideas that accompany the NBA season ending.