New Jersey Nets NBA Trade Rumors: Why Amar'e Stoudemire Is Leaving Phoenix

The New Jersey Nets may be halfway through their record-setting season of misery and ineptitude, but help is on the horizon.

That help comes in the form of Phoenix’s free-scoring, rebound-grabbing, 6’10” power forward Amar’e Stoudemire.

While Stoudemire says he is only “50-50” about wanting to stay with the Suns, a trade to the Nets makes a lot of sense for everyone involved.

The Nets need an upgrade over Yi Jianlian; they need a big man who can complement Brook Lopez and play around their other big building block of the future, Devin Harris.

Stoudemire fits the bill nicely. He's averaging 21 points and 8.5 rebounds a game this season, and he is a career 54 percent shooter with a dominant inside game. He ranks  inside the top five scoring forwards in the league and is similar to another 2010 free agent, Toronto's Chris Bosh.

Yi Jianlian, by comparison, is posting 14 points and seven rebounds in 2010, shooting just 41 percent from the field. Even better is the fact that Stoudemire has publicly said he isn't opposed to a move to New Jersey, regardless of their current 4-44 record.

Phoenix meanwhile is displaying caution of their own. They know Stoudemire could leave at the end of the season, but they're also aware that if they don’t move him by the Feb. 18 trade deadline, they run the risk of getting nothing for him if he plays out the rest of the season under Alvin Gentry and then bolts in the summer.

Negotiations are likely to continue up to the All-Star break next weekend, although it remains to be seen whether any contract offer would compete with the three-year $57 million given to the LA Lakers' Pau Gasol in mid-December.

Should Phoenix decide to pass on extending Stoudemire's contract and re-signing him at $17.7 for the 2010-11 season, the team will be looking to dump salary and pick up a combination of high draft picks and young talent.

The Nets can help on all fronts. Whether you estimate the salary cap for next season will be as high as $54 million or as low as $50 million, the Nets have the most cap room available, expected to be somewhere in the region of $20 to $25 million.

In terms of current NBA-ready young talent, the Nets could offer second-year guards Chris Douglas-Roberts or Courtney Lee in any package that gets sent out west.

Both are fairly similar players and, for the purpose of a deal, are pretty much interchangeable.

Lee is more your prototypical 24-year-old guard—6’5”, 200 pounds, with good hands and a smooth outside shot. CDR, at 6’7” and 210 pounds, can double up as a small forward and has essentially the same skill set as Lee but with an edge in rebounding and a better high post game.

The Nets have a team option on Lee for just over $1.1 million for 2010, rising to $1.8 million in 2011 and $2.6 million in 2012. Douglas-Roberts is set to make just over $850,000 next year and a touch over $1 million in 2011. Whichever guard the Suns chose, they would have considerably more salary cap room to work with going forward.

Combine either Lee or Douglas-Roberts with Yi, who is set to make $4 million next season, and the Suns are two-thirds of their way to getting what they want at a price they can afford.

That’s where the Nets’ wild card comes into play. The Suns inevitably want draft picks on top of any combination of players. Luckily for them, the Nets have 10 of them over the next three years—five in the first rounds and five in the second.

The Nets have two first round picks in the 2010 and 2012 drafts thanks to the Jason Kidd trade and the restructuring of the Marcus Williams trade, respectively, and they also have their own first round pick in 2011.

Only two of the Nets’ 10 picks have protections. One is a second round pick in 2010 which is essentially meaningless because it only comes into effect if the Nets finish in the top 10 this season, and the other is the first round pick of the Warriors in 2012 if they pick inside the first seven spots.

Consequently, the Nets could package Chris Douglas-Roberts, Yi Jianlian, and a first round pick in exchange for Stoudemire.

The Suns would get a talented young guard better than Leandro Barbosa to groom behind Jason Richardson, a forward who could take over from Grant Hill in a year or two, a first round draft pick, and around $12 million of cap space.

The Nets would have a legitimate All-Star scorer in Stoudemire, and with Brook Lopez and Devin Harris already in place, New Jersey would be just one piece away from having a team that could actually contend with the lower-ranked playoff teams in the east such as Miami, Charlotte, and Chicago within a year.

With a one-in-four chance of drawing the No. 1 overall draft pick—and a guarantee of at least a top four pick—the Nets could then either draft a top-tier guard or an imposing big man.

If they were to draw the top pick, they would get Kentucky's freshman point guard John Wall. If it was the second, third or fourth pick, they would have the chance to snag junior guards Evan Turner (from Ohio State) and Wesley Johnson (from Syracuse), or Georgia Tech's Derrick Favors.

Imagine a Nets team with Stoudemire, Lopez, Harris, and Wall. Regardless of the fifth starter, you can't tell me they'd put up an 8-74 record then.

It makes a lot of sense for Phoenix to shift Amar'e within the next fortnight. And when they do, you better believe that he's going to be coming to New Jersey.

Laugh now, hoops fans. Because next season, the joke's going to be on you.