Knicks Trade Stephon Marbury for......the Oklahoma City Thunder?
With the apology out of the way, let me get to the real article.
For those of you who have never used the NBA Trade Machine on espn.com, I would highly advise that you do it. I have become addicted to it, mapping out different scenarios that would help my teams become better, and without having to worry about figuring out the salary cap numbers and trade restrictions for myself.
Even though the knowledge-gathering effect is very real and important to me, I enjoy causing utter chaos, so I decided to try to make some of the worst trades I could possibly make. The only rule that I will adhere to is that there are no rules outside of which the Web site already enforces. So no-trade clauses, and sheer logic, will be completely ignored here.
New York Knicks and Oklahoma City Thunder:
Knicks Get:
Chris Wilcox, Damien Wilkins, Kyle Weaver, Earl Watson, Nick Collison, DJ White, Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, Jeff Green, Chucky Atkins, Mouhamed Sene, Robert Swift, Desmond Mason, Joe Smith
Thunder Get:
Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, Malik Rose, Quentin Richardson
This trade may seem insane and stupid because of the low quality and high cost of the players going the way of Oklahoma City, but in reality, the only reason this trade is included is because it manages to trade away every single player that can be legally traded on the Thunder for four players.
In fact, the only player who could not be traded on the Thunder was Nenad Kristic, who can’t be traded because he was acquired as a free agent less than three months ago.
This 14-for-4 trade is not something I would ever expect either team to accomplish, but it sure was fun continuing to tack on extra players to the deal to see how many I could include for just those four players.
Cleveland Cavaliers and Boston Celtics
Cleveland Gets:
Kevin Garnett
Boston Gets:
J.J. Hickson, Ben Wallace, Eric Snow
This trade may not have the catastrophic effects on number of personnel as the last trade did, but it is no less ridiculous.
The Cavaliers get a big man who is scoring 16 points a game, and averaging nine rebounds, and in exchange Boston is getting a combined 7.3 points per game from Hickson and Wallace, as well as 0.8 assists a game.
What of Eric Snow’s numbers you ask? Well, unfortunately for the Cavs, Snow was due to make $7.3 million this season, but was forced to retire because of an arthritic left knee. The Cavs are currently trying to get that money taken off as a salary cap hit, but have not been able to do it yet.
To add to the stupidity of his inclusion, under NBA rules, the team who would trade for his contract would not be able to cash in on that insurance policy, so they would be stuck with the cap hit the contract brings. So the Celtics would be paying him $7.3 million to be Cleveland’s assistant coach, and also an analyst for NBA TV.
Chicago Bulls, Toronto Raptors, Miami Heat, and Cleveland Cavaliers
Chicago Gets:
Dwayne Wade, LeBron James, Chris Bosh, Jamario Moon
Cleveland Gets:
Larry Hughes, Michael Ruffin
Toronto Gets:
Andres Nocioni, Drew Gooden
Miami Gets:
Luol Deng, Joakim Noah, Cedric Simmons
Ever wondered how easy it would be to make the Trade Machine give your favorite team one of the three biggest free agents of 2010? Well, this trade gives the Bulls all three, and also gives them Jamario Moon!
Can you imagine a Bulls team made up of Chris Bosh at center, LeBron James at small forward, Tyrus Thomas at power forward, Dwayne Wade at shooting guard, and Derrick Rose at point guard? This is an NBA 09 junkie’s dream. In addition you would still have Ben Gordon, Aaron Gray, Kirk Hinrich, and Thabo Sefolosha on your bench! The team would be unstoppable!
As for Toronto, can you imagine them starting Andres Nocioni in place of Bosh and Gooden in place of Moon? I think that the fans of the team would kidnap the GM and burn him at a stake in the middle of Toronto if he allowed this to happen.
Same thing goes in Miami, who would get Luol Deng (injury prone), Joakim Noah (an energy guy with little discipline and no rebounding skills), and Cedric Simmons (nothing). I think Shawn Marion would probably be willing to forfeit the rest of his contract if he could get out of that mess.
New Orleans Hornets, Boston Celtics, Phoenix Suns, and Utah Jazz
New Orleans Gets:
Steve Nash, Deron Williams, Rajon Rondo, Bill Walker
Boston Gets:
Hilton Armstrong
Phoenix Gets:
Ryan Bowen, Peja Stojakovic, Julian Wright
Utah Gets:
Morris Peterson
It is pretty obvious what I was trying to do with this trade. New Orleans already has Chris Paul, and I wanted to see if I could add three more elite point guards to their mix, and these were the three names (Nash, Rondo, and Williams) that I was most easily able to add.
Bill Walker was thrown in merely to keep Boston under the cap, not because I think it went along with the “ha-ha” nature of loading New Orleans with point guards. He obviously doesn’t, since he is averaging a point a game.
Hilton Armstrong will get 4.8 points a game and 2.8 rebounds a game in Boston, and the three combined players in Phoenix would get 18.4 points a game, 7.9 rebounds, and 2.3 assists. The points and rebounds they would get would be pretty good, but the huge drop-off in assists would kill their offense.
Morris Peterson would bring his lethal six points a game and 2.4 rebounds to Utah, and he only averages 9.4 assists fewer per game than Williams does.
At the risk of causing brain damage to the readers of this article, I will stop the insanity at these four trades. I will more than likely do another article or two on this topic, and if you want to know how I came up with these logic-defying trades, go ahead and visit the Trade Machine, which can be found by clicking on this link:
So feel free to play GM, or at the very least, play the role of the guy who hoards a bunch of talent to his own team at the expense of the rest of the league. Good luck!
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