Chris Bosh For Amare Stoudemire is a Bunch of Bull

I bought a Jamario Moon jersey today, one of those black numbers. I don’t care if he’s traded, getting one of those for fifty bucks is a good deal. Talked to the guy behind the counter there about the Raptors too.

He thinks there’s one more deal in the works. He pointed me towards Chicago, where one of the papers—the Sun Times, where Rick Telander and Roger Ebert still write—has a pretty delicious trade rumour posted.

What is it? Oh nothing special, but likely something like this: http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=bw75h4

For those who haven’t clicked it yet, it’s another Amare to Toronto scenario, one where Bosh ends up on the Bulls, Tyrus Thomas (and some others) end up in Phoenix and the Raps net Amare. 

I don’t really believe it’s true or likely to happen, but I’ll still throw my two cents in: it’s a stupid trade and the Raptors would be dumb to make it.

This season Amare’s looked good, but not as good as he has in previous years. He’s been healthy, but he just underwent microfracture surgery a couple years ago. He’s not much more expensive then Bosh but his deal expires in 2011. That’s a lot of buts.  

I think it’d be fun to have him on the Raptors in a complementary role, but trading him for Bosh just doesn’t sit right. You’re taking on salary, you’re committing longer and I’m not really sure how much you’re gaining; Bosh’s PER is 22.4, Amare’s is 20.1. 

Just look at the predictions down there by that trade. By giving up solely Bosh for Amare, the Raps are projected to lose seven more games. That’s a pretty big hit for a team already near the bottom. If Amare’s deal expired sooner, maybe I wouldn’t mind; they could take that hit and use the pick  to start to rebuild faster. But it doesn’t. It’s out in 2011, the year after all the big free agents are out there. 

It honestly seems worse and worse the more I look at it. Trading for Amare is committing to him, taking away from building around Bargnani and Calderon and limiting yourself in the future.

This isn’t to say it’s an all-around bad deal. Phoenix would like it; it clears up their cap and opens some room to build. Chicago likes it, since they get a solid 4 to solidify their lineup (with Bosh, one suspects they’d make a good playoff run). But for the Raptors, it’s getting 50 cents on the dollar.

Which is why I don’t like this proposed deal at all. Which is fine, since it won’t happen anyway.

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