KG

[IrishHand]

Any contender that's willing to give up $20M in salary which includes enough "stuff" for Minny to pull the trigger.

Right now, Minny has all the power...if/when KG opts out next summer, he can threaten to simply sign with some team for the midlevel in order to force Minny to do a sign-and-trade - a situation in which they'd get a lot less than they can get now. If KG decided he wanted to play for Miami right now, there's nothing he can really do. If he decided that in 10 months, he can make it happen...and given the positive history and goodwill he has with Minny, one has to imagine they'd accomodate his wishes if they could get any sort of fair return.

Also...imo, "signing" KG isn't an option for any team next summer...it's all in the context of a sign-and-trade, for the reasons I noted in my above post. If KG decides he wants to be on the Lakers (for instance), next summer Minny takes Bynum and Odom's expiring contract and then sign-and-trades KG to the Lakers (with his new 4/yr $80M contract) along with spare parts. Same thing with Marion and Atlanta's 1st, or Josh Howard and Devin Harris, or any other of a half-dozen teams that are or would become championship calibre with KG suiting up for them.

[Assani Fisher]

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As for the suggestion that the Wiz could sign him, not an option. Even with Jamison's silly $16M salary off the books in 10 months' time, the Wiz are still at $51M for 08/09 - and that assumes they don't sign a FA this summer or trade for any salary in a Navarro trade. With the cap around $56M, assume $58-59M next year, they'd only have 7-8M in cap room. More to the point, Arenas is opting out and will command a max salary when he re-ups there. His jump from $13M to $16M will kill a chunk of that cap room.

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thanks for the analysis. Yeah I'm probably just being a homer. However I will note that they're looking to dump salary(by packaging Thomas) in any deal involving Navarro, not add it.

[DesertCat]

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Also...imo, "signing" KG isn't an option for any team next summer...it's all in the context of a sign-and-trade, for the reasons I noted in my above post. If KG decides he wants to be on the Lakers (for instance), next summer Minny takes Bynum and Odom's expiring contract and then sign-and-trades KG to the Lakers (with his new 4/yr $80M contract) along with spare parts. Same thing with Marion and Atlanta's 1st, or Josh Howard and Devin Harris, or any other of a half-dozen teams that are or would become championship calibre with KG suiting up for them.

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But if KG wants to be on the Lakers, won't he want to play with Odom and Bynum? Without them, the Lakers are a two man team without any bench or depth. For the Suns, Marion is gone anyways, but otherwise trying to work a sign and trade to gut the team you are going hurts your chances at a ring.

I'm betting he's smart enough to see this and take much less than market to get a deal done that doesn't cost his new team too much in terms of talent.

[IrishHand]

I would guess that both Kobe and KG would tell you that if they had even a marginal surrounding cast (say, Derek Fisher, Luke Walton, some midlevel signing next summer, either Farmar/Crittendon if either develops into a solid rotation guy in the next year.

The Kobe/Shaq surrounding cast was pretty bad - Fox, Shaw, Horry, George, Fisher, Madsen, Medvedenko, Walker.

If you have two top 10 players, you can do some damage. I don't want the Lakers to trade Odom/Bynum for Garnett for long-term reasons, but I definitely think it improves them considerably in the short run. Two of the most dominant two-way players in the NBA - one on the wing and one in the post?

Not likely - I agree that Phoenix is the most intuitive destination, possible Golden State.