If you trade the #1 pick, the only players you better be looking at are:

Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, and Dwight Howard. Even still, you'd have to give up probably Deng, Tyrus Thomas, and Gordon or Hinrich, so I'm not sure that would really help the team much. I'd rather just wait for the 2010 free agency period and try to clear cap space to sign LeBron, 'Melo, or D-Wade.

But since that's not too likely, I think our best option is trading for a 2nd-tier player (i.e. Brand, Okafor) that would work really well with our #1 pick, Deng, and Noah. Everyone else on the roster would be available for trade.

Maybe I missed it, but I hadn't seen this anywhere yet.

Knicks: Only guy I'd be remotely interested in is David Lee.

Nuggets: Iverson, Anthony, Camby

Clippers: Elton Brand, Chris Kaman, Corey Maggette (Hinrich, Gooden, Tyrus, Gordon for Brand, Maggette, Knight would be sick)

Sonics: Bulls probably like Collison, but other than Durant (who they'll never deal), Watson is a nice player.

Suns: Obviously Nash and Stoudemire, but they aren't moving. Barbosa, Diaw, and Bell are intriguing.

Magic: Don't see anything feasible.

Hinrich will be on the Clippers.

Thankfully those teams must not have the NBA package, because if they saw Kirk play every night there's no way they'd want him!

If Shaun Livingston is healthy, Hinrich is a great counterpart to him. He can do some ball handling, but he moves better without the ball and can guard a PG. Just get his Brand in return.

Exactly.

One other alternate path if you do move Hinrich is to look for a big expiring contract within the next 2 years.

If you can move Hinrich's deal out of the way, then hypothetically, you can move into the 2010 offseason with Gordon, Deng, and Nocioni as your 3 big contracts, since Gooden expires this year and Hughes expires in 2010.

And of course, 2010 is the Wade/Melo/Lebron/probably others year where the 2003 draftees all expire. Move Hinrich, and we may well be able to pull off a deal. The Cap by then should be somewhere in the neigbhorhood of $60 million. Nocioni at about $8 million, Deng at about $12, Gordon at about $10, that's only $30 million. Throw in a couple million for each of the draftees and such, don't sign Tyrus or Thabo until after that offseason, and there's potentially $15-$20 mil in cap space.

I'd rather go for Kaman instead of Brand

It would be nice if We can do Gordon/Tyrus/Fillers for Joe Johnson

Why would the Hawks do that? A Bibby/Gordon backcourt would be small and terrible.

hence the 'would be nice' (meaning on our end) . I know they would not do that. If they didn't have so many young pieces already I'm sure we would have a package that would consider for Johnson.

I'm trying to imagine Hinrich on each of those teams. Denver? Hinrich would look silly in that lineup. I don't think Hinrich could play a Phoenix offense, other than those two fast offenses, the rest seem logical for the other team. Well as logical as wanting Hinrich on your team gets.

I think any and all of those teams would be looking to reform the style of play they went with if they picked up Kirk.

I've long thought Kirk's best qualities were his half court defense, even against guys bigger than him, and his solid if not spectacular offense. If you put him next to a guy, say, like AI or Nash, he might work pretty well, because he doesn't have to be the main guy, he can handle the ball some, he doesn't have to worry about creating shots for himself because the other guy is doing that for him, and he takes some of the defensive pressure off of the other guard.

I really believe this is the way to go. We can still be competitive with who we have without breaking the bank with current guys, allowing us to pursue some of the big time players that should be available in 2010. And, in a huge market like Chicago and with the tradition our franchise has (plus the talent), it wouldn't be terribly hard convincing Lebron or Wade or Bosh to want to be the star here.

Can you imagine this team?
PG - Rose
SG - LeBron
SF - Deng
PF - whoever
C - Noah

Now that Isaiah isn't running the Knicks... I have a feeling they are going to have the pick of the litter in 2010.