Who wants Jose

[white men can't jump]

I wonder about Phoenix. Supposedly they are willing to deal Dudley who has 12.75M on his contract after this season. Would Phoenix take Calderon and pay an extra $3-4M this season to save $12.75M over the next few years? That is about a $9M swing.

Something simple like this that Hollingers numbers add 6 wins:

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=b9m75e7

Toronto: Gay
Memphis: Dudley, Davis, 2nd rd pick from Raptors, (I would imagine a big trade exception would come of this)
Phoenix: Calderon, 2nd rd pick from Raptors


Raps can then follow it up with something like this:

http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=9wr7jdw

Toronto: Gasol
Lakers: Bargnani, Kleiza, Anderson
Memphis: Meeks, Jamison (using TPEs)

Lakers save a tonne of money this year and next (especially next with SUPER luxury tax). Memphis adds depth currently lacking and replaces a shooter in Meeks. Neither Meeks, Jamison, or Gasol have been happy with D'Antoni's playing time.

I like my crazy trade better. 4-teams...Toronto, Memphis, Boston, LAL

Toronto gets: Pau Gasol, Paul Pierce, Darrell Arthur
LA gets: Bargnani, Gay
Memphis gets: Amir, Courtney Lee, Alan Anderson and Antawn Jamison
Boston gets: Jose, Fields, Gray, Jordan Hill

There are certainly lots of parts that could change, but basically it goes like this at the core. Toronto gets Pierce and Pau. LAL gets Bargs and Gay, who could both thrive in the D'Antoni system. Gay would get more open looks, and Bargs would move from a 1st option to something like 5th behind Kobe, Dwight, Gay and Nash. Probably the right role for him. Boston gets to dump salary with only Fields adding some commitment (but he has a year less than Lee). If they're going into tank mode, I expect whatever trade they make will look like something similar. Memphis gets Jamison, Lee and AA, who can all shoot. Lee and Amir are long-term, but they break up Gay's deal into a smaller total with 2 parts that both have pretty good value contracts should they need to move one again, and both could be good role players on a team like Memphis.

Toronto suddenly looks like this:
C: Gasol, JV
PF: Ed, Arthur, Quincy, Kleiza
SF: Pierce, Ross, Pietrus, Kleiza
SG: Demar, Ross
PG: Lowry, Lucas

We'd need a spare part or two thrown in somewhere in the deal, probably jsut a big body (Robert Sacre for hometown marketing?) to replace Gray. Fans will hate to lose Amir, but will probably learn to love Arthur for the same reasons. Pau takes the load off JV and starts at C. It's easy to cut Arthur out of the main 3 bigs rotation if JV and Ed keep developing as hoped. Pau and Pierce will both still be very attractive trade pieces next year (as long as they're both healthy enough) with their experience and huge expiring contracts. So if things aren't working, or even if they are but changes need to be made with a long-term focus, it's easy to fix.
Again, while I trade machine'd this, it could look a bit different, but for some reason, this kind of deal is much more appealing to me. It would basically give us 2 legit, albeit declining, 1A (or 1B now) type players...Guys who in their prime were borderline franchise players, and both have championship experience. This is something our team badly lacks. It wouldn't hinder the development of any of our young players (even with Pierce, Ross' minutes should go up if we unload AA and/or Fields). It wouldn't destroy flexibility. And it would also have a chance to instantly make us a playoff team, and give our young players firsthand experience. Obvious issue is we lose some depth...but like I said, some of the parts could change, and we could always find end of bench players in the offseason. THe only real concern is not having a competent backup for Lowry.

Here it is:
http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=a2hjvq2