http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=3491156

I'm offically done with Paxson. What a freaking joke. A SECOND ROUND PICK IS ALL IT TOOK? Jesus Christ!!!!!!

Do you understand how the NBA works? They did this deal because it pushes them down out of luxury tax territory. The Bulls were holding zero expiring contracts and were over the cap. The LA Clippers were, right now, the only team in the NBA that could make this move, where they take on Camby's salary without having to send a contract back.

They still could have featured Hinrich in a deal and it would be better than what they got in return for the former Defensive Player of the Year.

They clearly were looking to clear money with this deal, the Bulls couldn't help them. Not only do they save Camby's contract money, they save an equal amount in luxury tax money and get a sizeable trade exception that they can use in the future in order to possibly complete a deal. They essentially traded Camby for $30 mil over the next two years. I personally would have avoided giving Camby away like that, but he is getting kinda old and they have a VERY expensive team considering they aren't really close to competing. That was the easiest and best way for them to save money.

^

LOLZ.

I think the bigger stroy (at least for Bulls fans) is now the market won't be able to dictate the value for Deng and Gordon. Memphis is the only team that has the cap to go after RFAs, and it would be huge 180 if they started trying to spend money.

Only options left for Gordon and Deng are Sign and Trade, One year tender, or an extension.

Hopefully Pax and the agents aren't foolish enough to do the tender. It is an awful solutions for for both sides. Deng and Gordon would have no security for the future and Pax would be losing them for nothing after the season. Not to mention the players would be playing selfish ball and trying not to get hurt so we would be dealing with the same spiff as last season.

The deal was done because the Nuggets were able to lose a big contract without taking one back. The Nuggets had to cut salary to prevent themselves from paying Luxury tax and the only way to do that is by making a deal with a team who is under the cap who can absorb the contract in its entirety.

The Bulls could have offered Hinrich or Hughes but they didn't want that, they wanted to dump the contract.

Yes, but in that deal the Nuggets are taking on a long term contract and would have to pay luxury tax. They didn't want to do that so the only way they could get under that luxury threshold was by dealing Camby to a team under the cap so that they didn't have to get equal contracts in return.

The only way for the Bulls to get involved in this deal would have been to send either Hinrich or Hughes to either the Clippers or to the Grizzlies in exchange for a draft pick and thus allow the Bulls to get under the cap enough to take on Camby. Since the Clips just signed a PG, drafted a SG, and were desperate for a PF, and the Grizzlies have no interest in spending money, I think it's pretty obvious that hopping in on this was impossible.

I heard Dunleavy talking about there off-season and he said if you would have told them that they would replace Brand and Maggette with Davis & Camby they would have been happy and considered it an upgrade. They still are a better team, but I think the Clippers still have a trick or two left up there sleeve (or at least something going on).

Than again, Elgin Baylor is the worse GM in the history of GM's.

The Clippers I believe have about $3 million in cap space that they can still spend...but their biggest problem is, they have currently only 8 players under contract.

Man, I don't know, he's got some pretty amazing competition in that field. Isaiah is amazingly bad, McHale has been pretty damn awful, and Chris Wallace should probably get mentioned for basically giving away Pau Gasol. There's several more in this classic old article from Bill Simmons: Atrocious GM Summit.

My question is, why aren't we being more proactive in trade discussions? If we go into the season looking like we do now, we are in a world of hurt. Like I said before, there is NO WAY you can make Rose,Kirk,Thabo,Hughes, and Gordon (Assuming he stays) all happy with their minutes next season.

I think the answer to that is very simple...Deng and Gordon. The reality of the situation is...it's really hard to trade either of the guys we'd really consider moving for salary reasons (Hinrich or Nocioni) until we have some idea of what is going to happen with those 2 RFA's. If you trade Hinrich, and then Gordon rejects a contract offer and signs a 1 year tender...then we're a year away from a Rose/Thabo/Hughes back court and 2 years away from Rose/Thabo. If you trade Nocioni and then Deng signs the one year tender...hell then we're just flat out screwed. And Deng/Gordon's agents would know that too. You trade one of those 2 guys first...and suddenly you're left with little choice but to meet the contract demands of the other guy.

Yep, they have some moves to make (lots of minimum type of contracts). Can the Clippers have an exception (ie, lets say they sign a couple more players and reach the cap limit, can they than use there MLE?).

Isiah got fired after a couple years after suck-i-tude. McHale doesn't even belong in that class. Sure you can knock him for the KG deal (I still absolutely love Al Jefferson and liked the move they pulled off in the Mayo trade to get Love and Mike Miller). Hoewver, he did draft KG, bring in Flip Saunders, and turn the Twolves into a team that contended for the Western Conference title for a number of years (had they been in the East, they would have likely made it to the NBA finals at least once, if not a couple times).

Wallace is completely hand-strapped by piss poor management and hasn't been on the job for near the amount of time the Elgin Baylor has. Baylor has been the GM of the Clippers since 1986 (22 years) and during that span the Clippers have had 3 seasons with a record of .500 and above and made the playoffs just twice in his tenure (TWICE). Two times in 22 years. There isn't another GM in any professional sport with that kind of track-record.

Clips move to sign Kelenna Azubuike out of Golden State, adding another player to the shuffle of players between Oakland and LA.

Isaiah was a major reason for one of the worst cap situations in recent memory, and Scott Layden was just as good at that before him.. Anyone paying $115 mil in payroll for 15 wins is in the team picture. Garnett is the ONLY thing that McHale has ever done right, and to steal a line from my Dad, even a broken clock is right twice a day. Outside of that he drafted scrub after scrub, cost his team 3 first rounders so he could overpay Joe Smith under the table, overpaid guys like Troy Hudson, and spent a lot of money bringing in guys like Olowakandi, Jaric and Ricky Davis. I like Al Jefferson too, but had he dealt KG 2 years earlier like he should have instead of trying to limp into the playoffs 2 more times he could have gotten A LOT more back. They had ONE team that had any chance to win anything with KG, the only year they ever got out of the first round, that's pretty sad. The best complementary player Minnesota had through KG's prime was Sczcerbiak for crying out loud. In my book that's worse than never going anywhere, you had the superstar to build around, which is often the hard part, and still couldn't contend regularly. Given the opportunity to manage for 22 years those two and many others would be just as awful if not worse, except Sterling doesn't care/is too cheap to replace him.