re: What are the odds of LeBron to NOLA, and would that work?

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But I think Houston is nearly impossible

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This was posted on Clutchfans and thought it was interesting:

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We still have a couple of issues in a trade scenario. One, if Lebron is leaving then Cleveland isn't going to want to take on big, long term money for anything other than young talent with good upside. Most likely they would go the tank route if Lebron leaves and so they'd be interested in draft picks. Secondly, the salary that we have to send out in any trade has to be within 25% of what we are receiving (i.e. Lebron).

Anderson and Gordon are obviously our biggest trade chips just because they have salaries that we could aggregate to get to the needed amount. Cleveland, of course, would have no interest in absorbing the 2 yr/$42M remaining on Anderson's deal.

Based on that, this is the best hypothetical deal that I could come up with while remaining somewhat realistic. This isn't intended to be an actual proposed deal but rather just a demonstration of the kind of things that Morey could do. By no means am I implying that the other teams in the deal would definitely agree to these moves.

The idea behind this deal is to include a 3rd team so that Anderson's contract stays in the deal and counts for outgoing money from the Rockets but it prevents Cleveland from having to take on his contract.

The other little twist is that I've included additional incoming salary for the Rockets. What?

It's a trick that NBA teams often do when they don't have enough salary to match. The idea is to blow up the total amount of outgoing salary so that the 25% margin that you have covers a larger amount of money. The Rockets did this in their deal to acquire Tracy McGrady.

By including additional incoming salary it allows to more easily match Lebron's salary. The downside of doing this is that we end up taking on more total salary and our luxury tax bill gets even higher. But hey, it's just money and it doesn't effect the salary cap.

For a 3rd team, I picked Chicago. Why? Because they have a ton of cap space ($40M, I believe) and they are early in a rebuild so they won't be signing any high priced FA. Teams are obligated to have a payroll of at least 90% of the cap each season. If you are below that floor then the league ends up charging you the difference anyway. See the idea? You've got to spend a certain amount anyway so if you take on Anderson then you get some additional compensation and he helps you get to the salary floor.

The other reason that I picked Chicago is because they have a salary that they'd like to get rid of so I'm using that as the additional salary that we are taking on. That allows us to increase the total amount of salary and it minimizes the amount of additional salary that Chicago has to absorb. Under this scenario they are taking on the difference in the two salaries rather than the total amount of Anderson's deal.

The additional player that I included in the deal is Christiano Felicio. He's a young undrafted big from Brazil that showed some promise and Chicago ended up giving him a 4 year $32M deal. He averaged under six points in 17 minutes/game this year and that $8M/year salary isn't looking good. The interesting think is that he does have potential and could possibly be a backup big in the Rocket's system. He's just way overpaid at $8M/year.

Here's the deal:

Houston: OUTGOING - Anderson $20,4M, Gordon $13.5M, Onuaku $1.5 (total outgoing : $35.4M) + 2 1st round picks. Feel free to include a 2nd round pick or two if you like.
INCOMING: Lebron $35.6M (opt in) + Felicio $8.47 (total incoming : $44.07)

Cleveland: OUTGOING: - Lebron $35.6M (opt in)
INCOMING: Gordon ($13.5M) + 1st round pick. If you added any 2nd rounders then include some here

Chicago: OUTGOING: Felicio $8.47
INCOMING: Anderson $20.4 + 1st round pick. If you added any 2nd rounders then you may include some here.


Houston gets their guy in Lebron and they still retain their MLE and retain their Bird Rights on Capela, CP3 and Ariza.

Cleveland - If Lebron is leaving, Houston is the only likely destination where Cleveland gets anything in return. LAL or Sixers would sign him for straight cap space. This allows Cleveland to get a frist rounder and they could easily flip Gordon for an additional first or a young player with upside.

Chicago - This is the most questionable one. They are going to have to add salary to reach the floor amount so why not get compensated for it? They further get rid of a bad contract. It's an additional $11.5M/season for the next two years. In 3 years they end up saving $8M since Anderson's deal is a year shorter. Who knows, once he's an expiring, maybe they can even flip Anderson for something in return.

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Hans Schoren-Laskey is reporting that preliminary talks have begun between LeBron and the Pelicans organization.

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would love to see you try to draw up hammer would absolutely love it.

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Big playoff game a few years back we took the lead late by drawing up a hammer action out of a BLOB. Also have hammer actions in my regular 4 out stuff. It’s legit one of the easier actions to draw up Boom so I can draw it up here and post it. You want floppy with a backside flare? How about PnRoll and Replace? Hawk PnR? UCLA stuff? I’ll draw up whatever your little heart desires.

What was the school? I will need to verify this state championship. I have access to all the Lhsaa tapes your little heart desires.

I have a hankering it was class C.

Wow you must know some class c coaches who lurk here and know your identity. that is quite the cap tip

Not really lol. What you think about Bron to Spurs?

This is so simple, he is headed West to LA.

He will drag it out and attempt to keep it under wraps, but he is headed to Lakers and I for one LOVE IT.

Can't wait.

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This is so simple, he is headed West to LA.

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Bron hasn't shown any interest playing with a young team. I don't see it starting now.