Seems like Colangelo wasn’t ready for his summer vacation. Word on the street is that the Raptors and Mavericks are in talks to swap Marcus Banks for Matt Carroll. Yes, a post dedicated to two over-paid players, one of who’s only NBA skill is salary filler to satisfy CBA salary rules during player transactions.
At first glance, I liked this trade if only to jettison Banks from the Raptors, but then it dawned on me: why the hell do we want to trade a dud who has two years and $9mill left on his contract for a dud who has four years and $16.7mil left on his contract.
As pissed as we are with Banks right now, imagine how we will feel about Carroll at the end of 2011 when he will still have two years and $7.5mil left on his contract?
The timing of Banks’ expiring contract couldn’t be coming at a better time. With the salary expected to shrink significantly over the next two years, teams (especially the broke ones) will be looking to get under the CAP in an effort to control losses, avoid the luxury tax and such.
It’s all very technical, but needless to say, when the cheap/poorly run teams need to shed some salary, BryCo will be there, with an ear-to-ear grin and demands bordering on sodomy to ‘liberate’ said team from the grips of the luxury tax (or help minimize financial losses).
Anyways, back to Banks…
I have thought about what it would take to get rid of the guy, and two scenarios come to mind:
1) We can’t keep Bosh, so we S&T him, along with Banks, for pieces (much like the last two Marion trades)
2) He gets traded for an equally bad contract, or for a better player with a longer or bad contract.
I’d say Carroll falls into the latter category, but since he isn’t a better player, I’ll take a pass – hopefully BC is too drunk on his golden summer touch to wave his wand and make this deal happen (or hopefully it is expanded to net us a good player or a first round pick or something useful – which is a different conversation).