Huge contract and all, I like the idea of Okafor for Thomas more than the idea of Dalembert for Thomas.
I'm not quite sure what the appeal is in Dalembert+Giddens for Nocioni+Thomas, though. Obviously financial, but it's not like Boston can throw in a good pick, and I like Nocioni's scrap. I'd say his contract is eminently moveable, so why settle for what looks to be pennies on the dollar for Nocioni just as we're hitting our stride?
Plus, even if it's a financial move, it doesn't help our cap space until 2011, because Dalembert is bigger next year than Nocioni by about $6M. Shoot, the total savings is only about $3M over the life of the contracts...we save under $3M this year (because the salaries are prorated), we lose about $6M next year, we save about $6.6M the third year, and the fourth year would be a team option on Noc anyway. So we hurt our cap space in the best free agent year in memory (where we might otherwise land a second-tier guy) and give up a talented and scrappy player with a longish but reasonable contract for two years of Dalembert.
If you're going to kill the cap space anyway, hold on to the scrappy guy and give me five years of Okafor. Seriously.