re: Rudy Gay?

quote:

---

Lots of teams would love to have Gay and willing to take his contract and would have plenty more to offer in a trade than the Hornets

---

It's going to have to be a decent amount in terms of expirings, though, as they're $4m over the tax currently and $2m over for next season. Lopez is on a very good contract (can be treated as an expiring if they want) and they would love the cheap labor of the draft pick. Again, though, that leaves us completely dismantling our team if we want to keep EG/Ryno.

And it takes even more salary than he listed in that hypothetical trade:
Gay

for

Lopez
Aminu
Henry
Rivers
Mason

works and gives them up to $11m in expirings (if they want to let Lopez go). Again, I'd much rather wait until next offseason to make this type of deal since we'll have the cap space to take on a player without sending much of anything back.

And then you have to choose whether you would want
Vasquez/EG/??/Ryno/Davis, Lopez, Smith, Rivers, a few minimum type players, the pick and $16m to spend on FAs

or

Vasquez/EG/Gay/Ryno/Davis, Smith, a few minimum players, no pick and $8m to spend on FAs. That's a very exciting starting 5 but you're in trouble with depth. Giving up Lopez is big. We really just need to be patient this season.