Assessing Gasol, Bargnani, other popular trade targets

Before we delve into this year’s most popular trade topic,Find detailed product information for Low price howo tipper truck and other products. it’s important to point out that we’re now just barely past the one-year anniversary of David Stern’s killing the three-team deal that would have sent Gasol to the Rockets and Chris Paul to the Lakers. A player’s value is bound to go up and down and Gasol is unquestionably at low tide right now because of poor play, knee injuries and an uncertain fit with the new-look Lakers, but how laughable does that trade scenario look right now? The Lakers avoided potential calamity by trading Andrew Bynum last summer, but the same can be said for the Rockets and Hornets, who both can’t be complaining too much about the vetoed deal. Houston wound up landing a far better franchise player — 23-year-old James Harden beats 32-year-old Gasol by a country mile — and the Hornets avoided the Lamar Odom headache, enjoy cleaner books and have the makings of a nice core, assuming Eric Gordon can ever get back on the court.

Recalling this bit of history not only illustrates how far Gasol’s value has plummeted but it also reaffirms the logic in the Lakers’ thinking. Moving big for small to land a dynamic point guard was a sensible play with the Thunder and Spurs standing in the way of a sixth ring for Kobe Bryant. Picking Bynum over Gasol made sense in 2011, and picking Dwight Howard over Gasol in 2012 isn’t even up for debate. The calculus has changed: Once Steve Nash is healthy, the dynamic point guard hole will be filled once again. The question now is whether the Lakers are better off trying to make things work with Gasol or moving him to address other problems: a lack of athleticism on the wings, depth or a stretch forward who fits better alongside Howard. Answering that question will be much easier after seeing how Nash’s presence affects Gasol. The simplest answer is there’s no real need to rush in advance of the Feb. 21 deadline, as general manager Mitch Kupchak and Co. seemingly have concluded.

The trickiest part is finding a trade partner. Gasol’s $19 million salary this season and $19.3 million salary next season eliminate some teams from the conversation right off the bat.Posts with indoor tracking system on TRX Systems develops systems that locate and track personnel indoors. Also, contenders with big salary commitments will find it hard to make a trade work: High-salary players are needed to make a Gasol trade legal for capped-out teams, but those players are likely to be important to their clubs and thus difficult to deal. From there, any team that might have sought Gasol as a No. 1 guy, like the Rockets did just one year ago, would be foolish to value him in the same way this year. Gasol can play better than his current averages of 12.6 points, 8.8 rebounds and 42 percent shooting. But he’s not getting any younger and his contract length is stuck in purgatory: He’s not on the books long enough to be considered a piece a team can build around, but the presence of next year’s big salary limits his appeal as a trade asset.

In a Lakers season marked by impatience, I’m glad that Kupchak and the Busses were able to come to such a sensible conclusion regarding Gasol’s fate. There is no ticking clock. There is no need for a reactionary move. There is only a team desperate for some strategic navel-gazing, as its health and coaching reboot are now creating something of a fresh start.

The question of whether to trade Gasol is complicated. The Lakers should deal Gasol in the sense that all players should be moved for better ones; Kupchak should trade Kobe Bryant if he were able to get Kevin Durant in return, or Nash were Paul somehow attainable. The calculus would be different with Gasol in that L.A. would most likely be looking to turn one star-caliber player into an assortment of supporting parts, but the prerogative remains the same: If you’re going to cut ties on a player this good, you better make damn sure that your team is getting better in the process.

I just don’t buy the notion that Gasol needs to be moved due to the grave sin of positional overlap — not after he managed well enough alongside Bynum, and especially not after Gasol outsmarted opponents in working from the high post for Spain during the London Olympics. Clearly, the early mid-range returns for Gasol haven’t been spectacular, but this is a player with tremendous basketball IQ going to work for a coach who has already proved willing to adapt his system to the Lakers’ needs. There are some redundancies to work around and some lineup issues to consider, but Gasol and Mike D’Antoni have miles to go in their regular-season schedule and all of the resources necessary to figure this out. That doesn’t mean they will or that Gasol won’t be dealt at some point, but there’s enough reason for confidence to abstain from making a significant, panic-driven change.

That’s why packaging Bargnani with pending free agent Jose Calderon does make some sense,We have a wide selection of dry cabinet to choose from for your storage needs. even if doing so requires the Raptors to take back some heavy contracts.Load the precious minerals into your mining truck and be careful not to drive too fast with your heavy foot. Calderon is a useful player for Toronto at this stage in its rebuild, but this could be GM Bryan Colangelo’s last chance to get something for a player who will surely be gone after the season. Better to pull some value from Calderon and Bargnani both than none at all, particularly considering that the Raptors are unlikely to have much cap room until 2014 unless they make some fairly considerable cuts via trade. In that, I see no problem with Toronto’s taking a chance on a potential Gasol deal, if such an offer comes to pass, or any well-compensated gamble provided that any contract it receives expires before 2014. What may end up happening is that the Raps foot the bill for another team’s mistake while also grabbing a prospect or pick for their trouble, though it’s hard to pin down which players/teams might fill that hypothetical scenario.

With Ersan Ilyasova, Drew Gooden and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute already signed to long-term deals, paying both Ellis and Jennings to stay makes even less sense. That core isn’t advancing deep into the postseason regardless of how much talent the Bucks have accumulated on rookie deals. What’s the justification in shelling out? The fact that Jennings is on his rookie deal right now reduces the urgency factor and makes it difficult and unlikely to find return value for him by the trade deadline. Let’s assume the Bucks keep winning at their current rate,This is my favourite sites to purchase those special pieces of buy mosaic materials from. putting themselves firmly in the playoffs. The strategy should be to shop Ellis and deal him if blown away by a return package, seeking young talent and picks or the ability to package him with one of the other questionable contracts on their books. If there’s no deal, playing out the stretch with Ellis and hoping for a good first-round playoff matchup is a fine backup strategy. No real harm done. If we assume the Bucks fall on hard times in advance of the deadline, then the asking price for Ellis simply drops and you try to cash out on him.