You’ve likely read it here and here and here:
The Cavs are in the market for the Phoenix Suns’ Amar’e Stoudemire according to those reports. OK. I get that. They’re so close that they can taste. An NBA championship or two over the next couple years will likely be enough for LeBron James to stay put.
On some level, dealing with the Suns makes sense: Danny Ferry and Suns GM Steve Kerr have a relationship dating back to their Cavs days. You think that Pau Gasol trade from the Grizzlies to the Lakers wasn’t helped by the fact that Jerry West had ties to both teams?
Will the Cavs do something? I wouldn’t put it past Danny Ferry, given the trade he pulled off at the deadline last season. But a source close to the team said Saturday that they’re not looking to do anything before the deadline.
Do you believe it? It’s pro sports. What’s true one day isn’t necessarily so the next.
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
Steve Kerry?
Yeah, John Kerry’s younger, more handsome basketball playin’ bro’ ..thanks for pointing that out..
i hope..cause “Z” only got a little more in the tank..i just hope amar’e ego is not too big for lebron and cleveland.
I hope the Cavs don’t mess up what has been built.
Stoudemire is a fan favorite, and a notorious underachiever. He could do for the Cavs what Iverson has done for the Pistons.
It’s never going to happen. Who’s been spreading these incredibly silly rumors, Ferry himself? His main ally and partner-in-rumor-crime, Windhorst? If Kerr actually accepts a Ferry ridiculously sub-par package for a perennial all-star named Stoudemire, I hereby publicly vow to allow Dwayne Wade to give me the exact same case of herpes he gave his wife. I’ll even let Wade give it to me right there on George’s home kitchen table, with the audio to be posted on a future blog entry.
By the way, Stoudemire is a great playoffs player, far from a “notorious underachiever.”
Did I spell Wade’s first name correctly? I know Stoudemire is now demanding that people spell his first name with some kind of wacky apostrophe, I think I may have screwed up Wade’s first name. In light of my vow, no pun intended.
it’s never going to happen? why not? alan, you were talking shaq the other day. amare is an easier score than shaq just because of salary alone.
the suns have turned into the clippers practically overnight. the owner has lost so much money in this recession if it’s not the cavs getting stoudemire then someone else with a big contract is going. and i don’t believe that steve nash is untouchable either.
the cavs should get rid of lebron james and mo williams to the lakers for luke walton and derek fisher
the bulls sould trade ben gordon for lakers derek fisher
the lakers should trade kobe brynt for ray allen and paul piece
Because Stoudemire has major long-term value, terje. At the end of O’Neal’s current contract, he’s done. Literally. I mean, already O’Neal is getting to skip games just so he can rest and meditate about the giant alimony he’s paying.
Phoenix is nothing like Cleveland, and Phoenix will always have the ability to attract a top-tier unrestricted free agent anytime Phoenix wants. Giving away Stoudemire for nothing substantive in return except cap relief and somebody with that evil word “potential” would alienate the Suns fan base more than anything they’ve had to do in the past, like that packaging first-round picks with Kurt Thomas just to get somebody to take Thomas, and then selling additional first-round picks just to sell them. It would be like their 80s drug scandal all over again, the JailBlazers of the Southwest.
If Kerr is supposedly such a good long-time buddy of Ferry’s, then why hasn’t Ferry bought any of Kerr’s first-round picks he’s had to sell annually, and why won’t Ferry acquire O’Neal now? I don’t get it. O’Neal is likely ripe for the taking in exchange for the $20 million or so in Cleveland’s expiring contracts, plus an iffy prospect like Hickson. Or even throw in an average everyday one-trick pony like Gibson, who cares. If Kerr gives something like this any consideration, Ferry would be a bloody fool not to take advantage of it.
Something has to be done about those gaping holes that are Ilgauskas and the corpse of Ben Wallace if they want to assure themselves a championship now. If Varejao decides to move on, and with Wallace and Ilgauskas continuing their declines, they may never have this opportunity again.
Kendrick Perkins doesn’t toy with Shaq, Pau Gasol doesn’t post-up Shaq, if Andrew Bynum makes it back, Bynum doesn’t post-up Shaq. If Brown is such a defensive maven and guru, as the local media makes him out to be, then they’ve gotta get Ilgauskas outta there for the playoffs. Problem solved.
And when Ilgauskas’ shots aren’t falling on offense, he can’t pass the ball if his life depended on it. If O’Neal isn’t scoring, he is an outstanding passer. Not only that, the only time you’ll see O’Neal doing one of those ridiculous Ilgauskas tip drills to himself 16 times during the same offensive possession is when O’Neal gets himself 16 groupies in his hotel room at the same time.
I just don’t get it. If Shaquille O’Neal is ripe for the taking, as he just may be, don’t you take him?
i’m taking shaq. i’m guessing that would involve the precious eric snow money.
the thing with stoudamire is that kerr isn’t into his defense and the owner of the suns is apparently interested in getting cash back instead of having a winning team. they gave it a shot and it’s not working out. kerr didn’t sign up to work at a flea market but that is where the suns are heading. i think amar””?e is gone.
That’s a good point, terje, I wasn’t even thinking along the lines of Snow’s expiring contract, I was thinking along the lines of Varejao’s. But Varejao is dicey, since there’s no guarantee he’d even stick with whatever team would acquire him if they’d want to re-up him.
If I were Varejao, I’d play overseas next season. No tax issues eating up your money, plus he gets far more money and years he and his agent had looking for, especially after seeing what Jorge Garbajosa’s agent negotiated when he recently went back.
Receiving Snow’s contract is basically like receiving free money, since the insurance company is paying most of the tab for whoever acquires it.
Come to think of it, if Ferry can’t acquire a short-term major impact player while holding in his hand the Snow, Varejao and Szczerbiak cards, plus the Cedric Simmons trade exception card, then that guy has reverted back to that exact same retarded poker player who signed four role players to multi-year Howard Hughes-like contracts, and then took it upon himself to crash his Top-Siders through Varejao’s parents’ patio door and then his Dockers through their downstairs bedroom windows. I hope this time he sees the light and doesn’t blow it.
Oh, and George, that Jerry West thing. The guy had already retired, so please, enough with the conspiracy theories that he had anything to do with being wily and then screwing one of his former associates on purpose. What is West, some invisible really sneaky NBA brokerage house?
Only the local media thinks that Ferry’s “friendships” with other guys when he played now benefits the Cavaliers. Windhorst, for example, started rambling and rambling and rambling on about Ferry’s purported friendships with Billy King, and then with Steve Kerr. As if all three slept together in the same bed like The Three Stooges. Nobody else in their right mind believed it would make a difference, and it didn’t. Ferry didn’t get Andre Miller, King got fired, and Kerr dealt with Seattle and Portland in gift transactions. It’s all business. No doubt Ferry tried, but was rejected like a bad date.
im agreeing with alan’s like of thinking here. i dont think it would cost much more than Wally, Snow and a future second round pick (and i think the cavs have 2 in the next draft). however, a couple problems. im almost positive that insurance doesnt pick up snow’s salary for the new team if he gets traded, so he would be in effect a regular expiring contract for trade purposes. the plus though is that snow is being paid by NBA TV as well and that salary is offset from his NBA player contract (not in addition to). in other words, if Snow makes $10 as a player and NBA TV is paying him $2, then the cavs (or whichever team/insurance) only has to pay him $8. so if he is traded and insurance wont pick up the balance, his salary is at least partially offset by NBA TV.
the other problem is that the cedric simmons trade exception cant be combined with anything else in a trade. that being said, there is nothing stopping TWO trades from being done to get around that – 1 being just the simmons trade exception for X player and then a second trade involving the rest of the trade.
With all due respect, Mike, you’re wrong. The insurance picks up the tab no matter where Snow’s contract ends up. That’s why Raef LaFrentz’s expiring contract is the most valuable piece of gold out there.
It would be like if, before the season, Ferry came out of retirement and went to play for the Bulls. Then, during the preseason, Ferry did one of his patented “I am the single worst stiff in the NBA and I’m out here only to shoot a three-pointer or to elbow somebody in the face.” At that point, during a slow white man scrum, Ferry then gave Szczerbiak gave an elbow straight into his massive eyebrows. Wally’s eyebrows then fell off his forehead and directly into his eyes, thereby tearing out his retinas and blinding him for life. An NBA basketball game-related injury. At that point, Szczerbiak’s contract would have become like LaFrentz’s contract: free money, free cap relief and the most valuable trading chip in the NBA.
And the Simmons trade exception can be used in any trade. It’s not much of a trade exception, but it could be the way to get a trade done. It’s not like a sale at Best Buy, where you can’t use a special Best Buy rebate in combination with a sale price if you buy a Samsung TV.
alan:
“• $1.6 million trade exception. The Cavs have it left over from sending Cedric Simmons to the Bulls last year. It cannot be combined with other assets in a trade, but can be used on its own to take back a player making as much as $2 million for nothing. Often large trades can actually be made up of a number of smaller deals put together, and this is where an exception can come into play.”
http://www.cleveland.com/cavs/index.ssf/2009/02/nba_insider_cavaliers_have_tra.html
i think we are both mistaken on snow’s situation. i think there are two issues with snow: 1) an insurance disability claim, and 2) injured player exception. you are right that insurance should pick up his contract if traded, but the new team can not apply for the injured player exception. thats what i was thinking of. only the cavs can do that. so in other words, only the cavs can get snow’s contract off the books altogether. the cavs’ incentive to keep snow is to apply for the injured player exception to get his salary off the books while insurance picks up the balance due at the same time. if he is traded, the new team cannot get snow’s salary off the books for cap purposes by the injured player exception, but insurance should still pick up the payment.
news-herald.com/articles/2008/09/14/sports/doc48cca2f89ce6e382288561.txt
i was wrong about the insurance thing. i was mixing that up with the injured player exception which the cavs can claim but if snow is traded the new team cannot.
i was right about the trade exception. that cannot be combined with other assets in a trade.
I know that, Mike, but it’s semantics. You can throw in money and/or draft picks as part of the trade, or work around it and do some legal funny business by circumventing the rule and technically do it in separate trades. That’s why they had to technically do that Cleveland/Seattle/Milwaukee trade as some separate transactions, to skirt that trade exception rule, even though it was really all one transaction. It doesn’t even make sense to have that rule, it’s such an easy loophole, almost a rule just for the sake of having a rule, every team gets around it.
Hey, George, what’s up with the trades? Heard any good rumors that Ferry himself has generated? I don’t read Windhorst anymore, I just read you for the local stuff, I’m sure Windy has already huddled with Ferry to spin some tall tales. But I’m asking you, the new eager kid on the basketball block. I wonder if they’ll do the right thing by the fans and go for it all both this season and next, or if Gilbert’s separate financial woes are going to result in no added Cavaliers salary for next year just to wipe out a lot of added payroll and avoid paying luxury tax on top of that added payroll. They’d have a plausible prepared explanation with “we want to keep our chemistry,” thing, but it would be false.
Considering what Oklahoma City gave up today, nothing but two expiring contracts, Ferry couldn’t acquire Tyson Chandler? Baloney. All he had to do was ask. Chandler would have been great for the Cavs and would have fit right into Brown’s defensive philosophy. But Chandler’s contract extends several years out. So now with Terry Porter gone, and the Suns supposedly going back to running, if Ferry doesn’t acquire O’Neal, or if he doesn’t acquire another major talent who has salary going beyond this season, then something is fishy in a major way.
Get to work, George. That’s why you get paid the big bucks. What’s your beat report?
alan – thats what i said before. there are “easy” ways around that rule but its a dumb rule.
theres a rumor that the cavs are seriously in talks for jamison from wash.
OK, mike, I didn’t understand what you were trying to say. My mistake.
Chandler would have been great. Jamison has some big games but for some reason is the last guy I want to see on the Cavs. He’s a tweener.