Yahoo: Bobcats offering Wallace to Kings for Miller (Yahoo! Sports)

[HighTopKicks]

Well, I certainly wouldn't say the 'final' piece. Not unless Hawes and Thompson miraculously blossom into All Stars overnight and Udrih finds his inner Chris Paul. But the question many of us are asking is who do we expect to sign in 2010 that would be better than Gerald Wallace? Once you take out Bosh, Lebron and Wade (all of whom can and will find better situations elsewhere) the best of the bunch are borderline All Stars. Maybe (unlikely) we can pry Joe Johnson away from Atlanta, but then he plays the same position as Martin. Who else on this list do you think is reasonably obtainable and a growing young star? Maybe Rudy Gay?

To address your questions though...

First of all, I don't know why Charlotte is shopping Wallace. Cutting costs? Worried about injury risks? Trying to shake up the roster? I think it's an idiotic move on their part considering he's still very young and probably the best player on their team (though Okafor seems to be waking up lately) but that's their call. Why did Chicago trade Tyson Chandler for nothing? Why did Phoenix give away Rondo when they needed another PG? These are all questions I can't answer. Sometimes GMs make bad moves. Is this one of them? I think so, but only time will tell.

Is this a move to improve us now or in the future? I think the primary motivation is the future. Next season and the season after that most tangibly, and hopefully 5 years down the line as well if Wallace's health holds up. Wallace is one year older than Martin so he would fit in with the young core of the team. I would expect we'd get a little bit better this season if Salmons stays and not much change if Salmons leaves, but either way it won't be enough to really matter. Losing just puts us in better draft position at this point. Worst case scenario we turn it around in a big way and move ourselves up to 9th or 10th in the west and a drafting position around 10th or 11th again. We already figure to get better when Martin comes back anyway. And maybe all that winning would breathe some life back into Arco. That would be a gamble though. I don't think Wallace alone is enough to propel us out of mid-lottery range.

The Finals, well, that's looking pretty bleak regardless with LA, New Orleans, and Portland stocking up the way they are. The idea at this point is to return to putting a winning basketball team on the floor. Not aging vets from a previous era either, but young players who are developing at the same time. Then you just see what happens with the rest of the league and wait for your opportunity. We need at least one high draft pick (hopefully this year) before the Finals are even a remote possibility. But swapping out Salmons/Garcia/Greene for Wallace and sliding the rest to the bench is a step in the right direction.

As far as capspace, even adding in 11 million for Wallace would leave us about 15-20 million under the cap from what I can tell. And that's assuming Beno and Salmons are both still here. Kenny, Shareef, Bobby, Mikki, and Shelden are all gone by then. 15-20 million is plenty to add anyone not named Bosh, Lebron, Amare, or Wade. If we somehow end up with a top 5 pick this year and next that adds a lot of salary for sure, but that's not salary I would be afraid of. Hopefully it's associated with players that will take you deep into the playoffs. At that point hopefully we would already have the key pieces and we could abandon the "max contract free agent" plan all together. And lastly, as others have pointed out, Gerald Wallace would not be the one costing us cap space, it would be the mid-level deals we gave to Salmons, Udrih, and Garcia. I wouldn't have done that, but it's been done regardless so we just have to make the best of it. I don't think you turn down one of the best young SFs in the game because you've already committed 15 million plus to a trio of borderline starters. That's just compounding a mistake and making it worse.

Well thought out and stated, except for the salary cap issue. Since we're just under the Luxury Tax and $10M over the salary cap, the lose of the players you mentioned doesn't gain us a lot of cap space. 09's base salary including Brad, K9, MM & BB is $60M. Add two 1st rounders bring the total to about $65M. Trade Miller for Wallace saves $3M and buying out MM saves $4M. So, the total ends us at $58M, or $3M below the current salary cap, but your only left with a 12 man roster. So, that $3M will need to buy you probably 3 more players.

Now your left with Hawes, JT & K9 for your bigs, Wallace, Salmons, & Greene at the 3, Martin & Garcia at the 2 , Beno & BB at the 1, and 2 rookies. Now, you've got to hope for a top 3 draft pick to get another Big, and you can forget about drafting a star PG. And, if we don't get a top 3 pick we probably go PG with the 1st pick(best player available) & our 2nd which will probably be 25 or higher we'd have to go big.

Wallace would end up having to play PF with JT, so we couldn't trade Salmons. Hawes would be backed up by a very late 1st rounder or even 2nd rounder if there's one available. Our reserves would have to be 3 undrafted players because of only having $3M cap space. Unless we used our MLE which would put us over the salary cap, and cut into the cap space we would gain from lossing K9 in 2010.

And, finally, since we wouldn't be able to trade Salmon's, we'd have to resign him when he exercises his ETO next year. So, more than likely, the trading for Wallace will mean no Cap Space until 2012. And, no free agent signings above the MLE level, only draft choices to add to the roster for the next 4 years. That my friend is a pretty big gamble, and one I wouldn't take for a player who could be hurt and not just from concussions.

 

[HighTopKicks]

Lets break it down as best we can, and see what we would have left.
These are the commited salaries after the 2009/2010 season.

Martin: 11,100,005.00
Beno: 6,478,000.00
Salmons: 5,808,000.00
Hawes: 2,974,320.00
Garcia: 5,500,000.00
Thompson: 2,178,000.00
Greene: 1,116,840.00
1st R,4th: 3,008,400.00
1st R,24th 933,500.00

Total: 39,097,000.00



Projected cap: 60 to 61 million

Projected cap space: 20 to 21 million.

Gerold Wallace: 9,500,000.00

Projected cap space: 10 to 11 million.

There also a 1st round pick for that year that enters into the mix. There's no doubt that a very good player can be aquired for 10 or 11 million. But it won't be a Wade or a James etc. But, we probably wern't going to get them anyway.

I think you meant to say 2010/2011. That's the year K9's contract comes off the books. Also, expect Salmons to exercise his ETO, so if he's still here he'll make considerably more. Then, there's the fact that you've only have a 9 man roster, so there will be probably 5 more players eating into that $11M. So, after the 2010/2011 1st rounder, if you add 3 undrafted or vet minimun players, we'll only have arould $4M-$6M for free agency.

 

[bajaden]

I think you meant to say 2010/2011. That's the year K9's contract comes off the books. Also, expect Salmons to exercise his ETO, so if he's still here he'll make considerably more. Then, there's the fact that you've only have a 9 man roster, so there will be probably 5 more players eating into that $11M. So, after the 2010/2011 1st rounder, if you add 3 undrafted or vet minimun players, we'll only have arould $4M-$6M for free agency.

Well, I said after the 2009/2010 season. Which would mean you would be preparing for the 2010/2011 season. Your right, that with the picks from the previous season there would be nine players. However you would still have a pick for 2010 season which would bring the roster to 10. You then sign a free agent and now your at 11. The rest of the roster could be filled out with minimum salaries.

If you make sure that all your commited to is the nine players plus the frist round pick for 2010 and you'll be at least 18 to 19 mil under the cap. You then go after whoever it is that you want and you can virtualy use the whole 18 or 19 mil on one player if you want. After that you fill out the roster with cheap bodies.

Now of course I'm speaking without the Wallace senario. If somehow we make the trade for Wallace, which I doubt will happen, then everything changes.

 

[Uncia03]

Wallace would end up having to play PF with JT, so we couldn't trade Salmons.
...
And, finally, since we wouldn't be able to trade Salmon's, we'd have to resign him when he exercises his ETO next year. So, more than likely, the trading for Wallace will mean no Cap Space until 2012. And, no free agent signings above the MLE level, only draft choices to add to the roster for the next 4 years. That my friend is a pretty big gamble, and one I wouldn't take for a player who could be hurt and not just from concussions.

I'm sorry if I don't understand why you think we won't be able to trade Salmons. It appears as if your reasoning is because we'll only have JT and Spencer manning the 4/5 spots that Wallace will have to play the 4, with Garcia and Salmons manning the 3 spot. We can easily pick up some sort of hustle big coming off the bench with Houston's pick or our 2nd rounder. It seems as if there are plenty of slightly undersized hustle bigs to be picked up on the cheap. I mean, remember how well Justin Williams filled that role for us on the cheap?
And of course we can also trade salmons to pick up our 3rd big and shed some salary, which then in your proposed scenario would allow Wallace to play at the 3 where we should play him if he came over.

 

[HighTopKicks]

I'm sorry if I don't understand why you think we won't be able to trade Salmons. It appears as if your reasoning is because we'll only have JT and Spencer manning the 4/5 spots that Wallace will have to play the 4, with Garcia and Salmons manning the 3 spot. We can easily pick up some sort of hustle big coming off the bench with Houston's pick or our 2nd rounder. It seems as if there are plenty of slightly undersized hustle bigs to be picked up on the cheap. I mean, remember how well Justin Williams filled that role for us on the cheap?
And of course we can also trade salmons to pick up our 3rd big and shed some salary, which then in your proposed scenario would allow Wallace to play at the 3 where we should play him if he came over.

You have to understand that the initial premise was to get better by upgrading to Wallace thru the Miller trade and then moving Salmon. But, if your only going to back fill the Bigs with a

hustle big coming off the bench with Houston's pick or our 2nd rounder.

Then you end up downgrading the Bigs, to get a slight upgrade at the 3 but with a longer more expensive contract. And, at the cost of most of our cap space for the next 4 years. To say nothing of the fact that Wallace could end up being another SAR.

Now that's how I feel today, because I feel that the biggest need today is at PF. There is no reason to believe based on present performance that JT will be a capable starter at the 4 next year. And next year, Hawes may be no better than Miller is now. So, without knowing for sure that we have 3 capable bigs going into next year, I'm not willing to commit to a 4 year deal to upgrade the SF expecially since we don't know how Greene is going to develop over the next 2 years.

Finally, a lot of peope here are over estamating how much cap space we will have. Because we are already $10M over the salary cap, the lose of SAR, BJax, Shelden, & Douby offer no cap relief, do to the fact that all the players get a raise and we add new Draft choices every year. So, the $12.5M cap space from Millers expiring contract ends up only being $3M if we trade for Wallace, and K9's $9M in cap space will end up being less then $6M by the time we get to the 2010/2011 FA market.

Then in 2011/2012 Hawes rookie contract expires and will be expecting a big raise. And ,the following year JT and Greene come up for renewals. So, 2011's $6M in cap space may be the most we'll see until Wallaces contract expires.