Direct duel yesterday:

Kevin Love 28p 11r 7a
Serge "CWs lover" Ibaka 14p 9r 0a

The Thunder should have traded Ibaka and not Harden anyway. Harden is probably the best SG in the league right now. Never seen a guy so easy getting freethrows.

Can we throw a handful of late 1st and 2nd round draft picks at Charlotte for Henderson?

Flash wrote:
No. Agreed that Harden is awesome but he wasn't being fully utlized because Westbrook & Durant take all the shots. Ibaka is a better fit. He's averaging 3 blocks per game!

Here's what I came up with for a D-Will trade. Not the best deal but it would give us lots of depth on the wings. Had to get Jan Vesely in the trade because you can never have enough white europeans on your team.

espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=clwly57
- Wizards send protected 1st round pick or 2 2nd round picks to the Nets, or something along those lines.


PG: Rubio/Barea
SG: Shved/Brooks/(Roy)
SF: AK47/Ariza/(Budinger)
PF: Love/Cunningham/Vesely
C: Pek/Steamer/Amundson

That's pretty balanced and give lots of depth on the wings regardless of whether Roy & Budinger contribute anything this season. Still a little thin on backup big men, could possibly trade Ariza for a big man if Budinger comes back in late January or early February.

wolfenstein wrote:
Derrick Williams + picks for Henderson and Biyombo. Done and done.

Flash wrote:
What about IBlocka's five blocks???

IBlocka is one of the best defenders in the league, while K-Lav is way below average. Love is an ok shooter overall, but has been terrible this year (less than 20% from three!), while IBlock is a high percentage shooter. And he's killing it from the free throw line and three point line this year. Talk about handpicking stats from one game here.

And Harden is ball dominant like Durant and Westbrook. IBlocka is a WAAAAY better fit with those two guys than Harden. And IBlocka has a way better contract than Harden. It is just foolish to say they should have traded him and kept Harden instead. That would have killed their team. Instead, they are one of the top 3 teams in the NBA this year, if not the best team.

I was thinking Harden and Ibaka had about the same contract. They should have traded Westbrook then a kept a core of Durant, Harden and Ibacka.

You're right CW. Ibaka is a superior defensive player to Love, but he is not a good scorer like Love. And with Ricky and Kirilenko we have two great defenders whose strenght is not scoring. So it wouldn't be good to replace Love with Ibaka scoring wise for this team, as I said earlier.

Flash wrote:
Yeah, as some of us have said on this site before, I agree they should have traded Westbrook. Wasn't there a rumor about a Rondo for Westbrook offer? Pretty sure there was... and that would have been waaay awesome for OKC. Durant, Harden, Rondo, and Ibaka would be just simply unstoppable in every facet.

"The Memphis Grizzlies have held preliminary trade talks over the past few weeks centered on Rudy Gay, according to sources.

John Hollinger and Jason Levien have recently joined the Grizzlies' front office, while Chris Wallace's level of influence on personnel decisions is unclear.

Gay signed an $84 million contract in 2010 and is making $16.4 million this season.

Gay's name also surfaced in trade rumors before the 2012 NBA Draft."

What do you think `bout this guys. I'm not so sure, though...

Surely a trade theoretically would be possible, but we have to give up something... And me personnaly I'm not willing to give up AK! So there wouldn't be many trade possibilites.

Mathematically this would work:

Gay for Williams, Luke, Shved (+ evtl. Pick)

I'm not sure, the Grizzlies would make this one, but with Luke they would get a solid Backup PG (better than Bayless for sure) and with Shved an interesting option at the 2, so they could start like: Conley - Shved - Allen - Randolph - Gasol (I'm not sure if that's that intersting for them)

For us in the meanwhile, I'm not that sure as well, that a Gay-trade is good. But we could go like:
Rubio-AK-Gay (or other way round)-Love-Pek

This would one of the best perimeter defending teams...

But it's not really realistic though, plus we wouldn't have any money to resign any Center!

Not interested. He makes way too much money for a trade to work and he'd have to play SG full time even though he's a SF/PF. I wouldn't want to give up Shved anyways, unless it was a trade that absolutely made the team better.

If they want to trade Tony Allen for Ridnour or WIlliams, then I"m interested. The Grizzlies would have no reason to do that though.

Lol @ Derrick Williams' trade value, or lack thereof. The rest of the league has already written him off as a bust.

KAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHNNN

We probably couldn't even get Henderson + Biyombo for Williams + something. If that type of trade somehow IS available, we need to jump on it asap. But I doubt it.

Man, what a waste of the #2 overall pick.

College Wolf wrote:
I actually saw some good things out of Williams last night. He's not a star but he's a solid roleplayer for sure. I would still make the trade for Henderson, plus Biyombo if you can get him. Henderson would plug a huge gap at 2 though, since Shved is a 25-30 minute/night guy and isn't the most physical defender.

wolfenstein wrote:
Drafting "solid role-players" with top 2 picks is a recipe for disaster.

The entire draft was just such a wasted opportunity...

He's ok, he's certainly not in the Flynn/Wes category of complete bust, but I really haven't seen anything solid about his role-playing. He's not even the best backup PF on the team. Dante CunningHAM is clearly better and he was a 2nd round pick