Por-tor-no

[draftedraptor]

Toronto gets :
Felton (expiring and struggling to adapt)
Batum (expiring)
Camby (expiring)
Hornet's first round pick 2013

Portland:
Kaman (expiring and wants out)
Eric Gordon (expiring and wants out)
Bayless (expiring)
Toronto's first round pick 2012,2013

Hornets:
J.Crawford (wants out)
L.Barbosa (expiring)
A.Johnson
Portland's first round 2012, 2013


Why for toronto?
Batum!!!! lets face it we are not going to draft anyone better with our 10-14 draft pick this year.
Big expiring veteran contract in Camby. We can re-sign for cheap or use the cap space on a free agent. Good mentor for Jonas.
We are free to trade Calderon now for draft picks as Felton is an able replacement.

Why for Portland?
potential all-star in Eric Gordon.
Kaman is perfect big alongside Aldridge if Oden cannot come back.
Bayless can come good as a starter and is cheap.
Toronto's draft picks

Why for Hornets?
keep the potential number 1 draft pick for 2012. get portland's 2012 and 2013 picks. rebuild mode.
Crawford is a combo- guard with lot of experience. Barbosa is expiring capspace.
A.Johnson can play starter or bench roles with solid numbers.


http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMa...radeId=74y92fc

[Miekenstien]

nope with our 2012 pick in there.

[Shantz]

Hornets get robbed in this deal. If Crawford were to opt-out of the last year of his deal (which would be likely in my opinion) then New Orleans gave up a promising young SG who is restricted, and a free agent center (who has said he desires to stay long term) for 2 months of Crawford and Barbosa (who play the same position), Amir (who would be a nice pick-up) and 2 middle draft picks.

Also, a team cannot trade 2 consecutive first round picks at any time. This means that Toronto and Portland cannot include their 2012 and 2013 picks.

I'm also of the thinking that giving up our draft picks are not an option.

[draftedraptor]

You can find plenty of articles speculating Kaman's exit. Here is one . It is 14 million in cap space saved and the team is going nowhere at the moment anyway. I mean when Jack is your best player might as well tank and starover with draft picks.

Losing eric gordon is pretty bad but there is no guarantees he will stay and his injury situation doesnt look good either. He probably still thinks he is only there as a part of CP3 deal. He rejected an extension although hornets want him long term. In crawford they get a quick fix for losing gordon and they can fill in that gap over the long term even if crawford leaves.

C you think of someone better in this year's draft at 10-20 better than Batum?

[mcHAPPY]

Teams must have at least 1 first round draft pick in consecutive years.

Portland is not trading Batum and unless he is offered max or near max he is not going anywhere.

[Shantz]

I agree, Kaman could easily walk, but Gordon can't. New Orleans holds all the power in contract negotiations with Gordon as they can choose to match any contract he is offered. We have seen in the past situations where this has dropped a players market value simply because no other team would jump at raising his value (see: Rondo). With Gordon's injury this year it is possible that New Orleans could get a steal, just as easily as it is that he could sign a massive contract. Either way we are getting into speculative what-ifs.

But the fact remains that a team is not able to trade 2 consecutive first round draft picks.

Also, why are you saying in the 10-20 range of the draft? Currently the Raptors are tied for the 5th worst record in the league. Here are the odds for their picks:

1st: 8.8%
2nd: 9.7%
3rd: 10.7%
4th: 0%
5th: 26.1%
6th: 36%
7th: 8.4%
8th: 0.4%

If the Raptors finish where they are now there is no possibility that they drop to 10, and I can't see any possible chance of dropping anywhere near 20. The lottery only lets teams drop a maximum of 3 spots from where they finished in the standings.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_Draft_Lottery