Demps: Paul Involved in Big Trade

sign melo in 2011 sign deron williams or paul in 2012 keep all our young players

I hear you Tommy. This should quiet him down till Dec, possibly the deadline. Its a good move for a team desperate for some sort of athleticism, especially on the wings.

How do we have cap space in 2012 for Deron if we sign Melo in 2011.

I’d way prefer Deron to Melo, as the gap between Felton ( who I like) and Deron is more critical than that between Melo and Gallo or Randolph, IMHO.

Would love them both, but how do you do max contracts for three guys + some other decently paid players?
Amare and Melo would already be signed for the max, so they wouldn’t be able to do what the three amigas did in Miami and all take a little less money.

This tells me that knee must be just fine.

felton comes off our books 2012 n bukke turiaf & mason come off next year so there goes our cap space but i like felton lets see what this system does for him

The only players under contract for 2012 would be:

Amare- at about 18.8 mil
Melo- at about 15 mil (assuming the max contract offer drops to about 14 mil)

That would leave them with around 16-20 mil in cap space, depending how much the salary cap drops. The Knicks would almost definitely have enough money to sign D-Will. Only thing is they might have to let Gallo and Randolph walk, since both of those guys will be restricted free agents. Nobody knows what the new agreement will be, so this is obviously all speculation.

I really don’t care but I just hope that the NO Hornets don’t go crazy trying to surround Paul with players he thinks will compliment him in his quest to win a titel. The reason why I said this we all have seen this before with LBJ and the Cavs. Wouldn’t it be something that Paul leaves anyway when his contract is up. I say let’s try to pry Melo from the Nuggetts and build from there.

“sign melo in 2011 sign deron williams or paul in 2012 keep all our young players”

YUP’er!

yeah, teams have to play the game though. CLE’s only chance at keeping Lebron was to surround him with a championship caliber team as quickly as possible. NO has to do the same.

Better locations like Miami and hopefully NY can hope to pry free-agents from smaller market teams with cap space.

They gave up their best asset (other than Paul) in Collison for an overpaid Trevor Ariza (who showed that he is not an efficient scoring option — 39.4% from the field) and the chance to dump James Posey’s salary? Sounds like Paul is as good of a GM as his idol (Isiah).

Good point.

I also get the feeling that during his famous meeting with Demps a couple of weeks ago, Paul told the team that either he or Collison had to be traded before the season started.

First of all… This headline is very misleading.

Second, i want to see how Anthony Randolph, Felton and Gallo pan out this season before we talk about what we need. Because the way I see it, we only have one starting spot gaurenteed for the long term. PF- Stat. Everyone else has something to prove. If Felton plays well then focus on getting First of all… This headline is very misleading.

Second, i want to see how Anthony Randolph, Felton and Gallo pan out this season before we talk about what we need. Because the way I see it, we only have one starting spot gaurenteed for the long term. PF- Stat. Everyone else has something to prove.

If Felton plays well then focus on getting Melo. If gallo has his coming out party then focus on Paul/deron. If randolph looks like 21 year old KG we hold onto him tight cuz Amare is probably gonna give us 2-3 solid years. Is Mozgov gonna b a guy that can hold down the center spot in the future?Etc
etc.

Figure out what we have. Then fill in the holes.

Is

Sloppy post. Typing from iPhone. My bad. Go Knicks.

This is a risky move for the Hornets. If Paul leaves, the Hornets have nothing except for a couple bad contracts, an average player in Ariza, and Thorton. I’m really not sure how good NO is. I wouldn’t be surprised if they made the playoffs, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if Paul got injured and they ended up in the lottery. On paper, their lineup looks decent:

Paul
Thorton
Ariza
West
Okafor

They don’t really have any depth though, and all of their players besides CP3, need to be surrounded by star players to succeed. I don’t think they have anyone besides Paul that can take over a game. Take Paul out of that lineup and its a lottery team. With Paul in that lineup its probably a playoff team.

lol. Ariza was a poor fit in Houston, he’ll do much better with a player like CP3 where he won’t have to create for himself.

I think it was a decent trade. Trade a backup for a legitimate starting 3 that still has room to grow.

A core of Paul, Ariza, and West is pretty good to begin with honestly. Ariza’s efficiency will improve bigtime with Paul, just like it did with Kobe and Gasol.

I think the Hornets are all in on CP3 anyway. If he leaves, they’re in a bad position anyway. Might as well try to do whatever possible to keep him happy and keep the team relevant, to give NO the best chance of retaining Paul.

I guess. I just feel like they could have gotten more for Collison. But if they dont pick up Belinelli next year they are pretty close to having the room to sign Carmelo themselves.

Pipedreamin you do have a point but players nor teams are going to wait to see how good AR or Gallo can be before we talk trades. You know that old saying about falling asleep at the wheel. So we have to strike while the iron is hot if the opportunity presents itself. If we wait and see and AR doesn’t look to be more than a good to great 6th man or Gallo either regresses or stays the same then the trade value drops signaficantly and we don’t have anybody of value that we can offer teams after that.

By the way TD, the title sucks!

I doubt that. Collison was no threat to his job, we’re talking about an All-World point guard here not Chris Duhon.

This is a bad move. How does a GM let a star player dictate anything, especially after a major injury and without winning a title or making a finals appearance? A new, sad day in basketball. Hornets roster is already depleted and you give up any insurance on paul leaving or reactivating an injury by giving up collison. Any team in the league is taking Collison > Ariza.
They didn’t need Ariza…a good player/bad contract. If he averages 20 ppg this season, I stand corrected but I highly doubt it.
Houston has a squad of bums. New Jersey and Indiana definitely filled out their roster and look a bit more rounded after this offseason.

I think Indiana got much of the best of this one. Collison is already good and has huge upside. If I was Paul I’d be more anxious to get out there. If you ask me they could have gotten WAY MORE for Collison than Ariza if they waited.

What is bringing in Ariza going to do for that team?

SMH they should trade Paul now before they have no control over where he goes like Carmelo.

One could argue that Collison’s value will never be higher than it is right now. He had impressive stats filling in for CP3, but look at the minutes he played. Lots of games at 44 minutes.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/c/collida01/gamelog/2010/

He maybe great, but Ariza is a sure thing and fills a need for the Hornets.

ariza isn’t enough. the cost/production ratio isn’t worth it. we had ariza for cheap b4 he got shine coming off the bench on a championship LA team. dude isn’t the truth

how has collison maxed out already… @ 22 yrs old?

lets see how the boy thrives starting point in an amply filled out roster, good coach and healthy organization.

let’s see how ariza does…again…year 2 of the hype with a worse team, coach, organization and soon to be headcase pg

Collinson was superfluous behind CP3. They leveraged him well.

I think Ariza will play at the level he did in the first 1/2 of last season running alongside CP3. I think Houston will also miss his ability to create. Plus he is a very solid defender.

They also just rid themselves of Posey’s contract, freeing up $ for a West extension (2011 player opt-out).

The Bellineli move is also a good fit, since they’ll need a 3 pt shooter to replace Peja when they dump his contract at the trade deadline.

i dont understand why people are getting all hyped about CP3 still. i know he is a really good player but we have a above average point guard on our roster already, and who knows he might do just as well as CP3 would have done in dantonis system. i think we will get melo in 2011 which leaves our starting line up as

Felton

Melo

Danillo

Amare

Turiaf if we renue his contract which is doubtfull

with AR coming off the bench as the 6th man.

if we can assemble this team we will win about 55 games give or take a few.

i honestly dont see the need to go and spend draft picks and our young talent on trying to get a top teir point guard when we have a very capable one on our roster.

Ariza has some interesting stats from last year. He was solid for LA in the 2008-09 playoffs. You know what you are getting.

14.9 ppg
5.6 boards
3.8 assists
1.8 steals

That’s not too shabby, for your solid backup PG and shedding a contract. I’m not implying that Collison is maxed out. I’m just saying his trade value may never be higher. He could be an All-Star or he could be an average NBA PG. No one knows. Demps took what he felt to be the best offer, no doubt.

Houston got Hill, our 1st round picks in 2011 and 2012 to get rid of Jeffries. We got McGrady and Houston 1st round pick in 2011. Jeffries’ contract was about equal to Posey.

Good point, at least they traded him when his trade value was at its highest

Hopefully Mozgov will be our starting C by the time the 2011/12 season rolls around. Personally, I would try and trade Gallo or Randolph for a true SG and picks. Maybe we could get someone like Eric Gordon, Marcus Thorton, or James Harden. That would leave us with a starting lineup of:

Felton
Gordon/Thorton/Harden
Melo
Amare
Mozgov

6th man- Randolph or Gallo

I don’t think Melo fits all that well at SG. He isn’t a good defender, but he is at his best when he can use his strength. He would have trouble guarding quick shooting guards.

very good point Trent!

that’s a very real threat to NY’s future plans! A deal between NO and DEN that would bring CP3 and Melo together.

BTW a deal could be done either way. Either send Paul to DEN or send Melo to NO. just look at both rosters and it’s very easy to construct a trade that would do exactly that and be acceptable to both clubs.

Of course, nobody on this blog wants to hear about that scenario ( including myself) but you can bet it has crossed a few people’s mind in DEN and NO.

If indeed Melo loves NY the way it has been reported then we have nothing to fear. But we’ve heard that tune before.

Let’s hope this time the tune plays out in our favor.