NBA FanHouse is reporting the Denver Nuggets are looking to trade JR Smith and since the Kings need shooting guard depth and a shooter to put around Tyreke Evans, does it make sense for the Kings to go after him?
Let’s take a look after the jump.
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The Chicago Bulls have a deal in place that would move Kirk Hinrich and the 17th pick to the Washington Wizards, freeing up enough cap space to pursue two maximum-salary players on this summer’s free-agent market, sources with knowledge of the Bulls’ plans said Thursday.
Since it’s a good-faith deal for the time being, there remains a chance it could fall apart. But according to one source, the Sacramento Kings are prepared to make a similar deal with the Bulls in the Wizards’ stead if that were to happen.
Friend of the website, Dan Feldman from Piston Powered, decided to kick around the idea of the Kings and Pistons swapping draft picks and veteran small forwards. He asked me to talk about the Kings end of the made-up trade:
“Tayshaun Prince seems to be the perfect mentor for guys like Donté Greene and Omri Casspi. A year under his tutelage could be invaluable. With the strides Donté Greene made between his rookie and sophomore years, being shown the ropes by Prince could help him go from very good role player to 10-year starter. For Omri, Prince could help curb some of the confidence in practice every day and make him learn how to be creative and crafty in the way he attacks the best defenders in the league.”
You can read the entire post here with more of my analysis and Dan’s words on the idea.
Also, here’s video of the Cousins-Favors workout from the Kings:
Okay, so the morning has arrived and nothing has come from what we knew going to bed last night. Here are some reactions from other media types along with one quick note to start from Adrian Wojnarowski’s Twitter feed:
Kings front office, do whatever Arn Tellem wants. Can’t risk Tyreke’s decision-makers getting ticked off over something so meaningless.
Now, onto the links:
- First of all, Tom Ziller wrote a great goodbye to Kevin Martin. Ziller has been a Martin guy before just about everybody. Their careers have ascended together in this symbiotic relationship. He was telling you how good Kevin Martin was in relation to most other players before it became a fashionable thing. People pretend they knew about Kevin all along but Ziller has a legit claim to that knowledge. If you were capable of trademarking or owning the rights to those kind of things, everybody would be sending TZ royalty checks.
Every ending in Sacramento is sour. Webber, Bibby, Richmond, Peja, Artest, Wells, Miller, Orien Greene, Ike Diogu. I always thought Martin would survive that, like Bobby Jackson did, that the fans were so endeared to his game he’d go out only when it made perfect sense. At this point, that’s not the case. This is an impatient separation (with blame to both Martin and the organization). And time won’t change that. But whining about it won’t reverse it either, will it?
- Rahat from Red 94 (Rockets blog for the TrueHoop Network. Go ahead and check. He’s in the drop down menu above. Go check.) gives bullet points throughout the day on what was going on with the Rockets. He offers this bit about deal with the Kings:
For the Kings though, this was just an absolute grand-slam. Petrie has to feel ecstatic about adding a big, physical piece like Landry to that young nucleus.
- Matt Moore form Hardwood Paroxysm think the Kings are making out well in this deal just like I do.
And if the reports are true, he was having trouble adapting to deferring to Evans. EVEN THOUGH EVANS IS BETTER. That’s key here, hence the caps. Evans is a better player, right now, than Kevin martin, even with Martin’s scoring ability. Because Evans’ impact is felt not only in points, and in assists, and in rebounds, and in steals, and in defense, but in the overall flow of the offense. Evans makes things happen. He’s a game-changer. Martin? He’s a shooter. A scorer. A nice little gunner that’s going to add a lot to Houston, because that’s what they need. But he’s not the savior. Evans is the savior. And if Martin had even an itch of uncomfortableness about that being the case? Gotta go. I expect Petrie to turn this into either a deal with Chicago or New York by the end of the day that will get them more cap space and more assets. And in the meantime? They’re going to be running the pick and roll with Evans and Landry. Ye Gods. Landry will be a revelation for Kings fans, who are going to learn it’s nice to have a guy who, you know, stays on the floor and will kill anyone that gets in his way. Landry’s a machine/dog/beast. A Robo-dogbeast, if you will.
- Tom Martin from Dream Shake on acquiring Kevin Martin:
1. Kevin Martin Is No Joke
I think we know how good Martin is. He’s a helluva shooter, is an incredibly efficient wing, and just turned 27. This is the best single player that the Rockets could have acquired, now and in free agency. He’ll be the perfect complement to Yao once he returns. Martin’s only shortcomings lie in defense, where he’s pretty average. Then again, this is a team featuring Trevor Ariza and Shane Battier, so we should be fine nonetheless. It’s not as if we gave up any defense in the first place.
- And one more link from Ziller on what the Kings are acquiring with Carl Landry:
Like that Martin, Landry isn’t renowned as a defender or passer. He can’t touch Roy or Duncan, obviously, in either category. But he is a really, really good scorer. And efficient! I’ll repeat: we’re basically trading for the forward version of Martin.
That’s all for right now. Will have more updates throughout the morning as we figure out what’s going on with this New York aspect of the deal.
According to Woj at Yahoo, the Kings have traded Kevin Martin, Sergio Rodriguez, Kenny Thomas and Hilton Armstrong to the Rockets for Tracy McGrady, Carl Landry and Joey Dorsey.
From the Twitter account of Ric Bucher, the Knicks might get involved for McGrady and Sergio.
We’ll see as details unfold by 3pm tomorrow.
According to Sam Amick, the Grizzlies are interested in acquiring Sergio Rodriguez:
Because the Griz are under the salary cap, they could simply take Sergio on while the Kings would save the remaining money from this season.
The Kings in theory would get a trade exception for the equal amount of Sergio’s contract if they’re not getting anything in return from Memphis. But with the Kings being so far under the salary cap, the trade exception really doesn’t do them any good during the off-season retooling. Trade exceptions are best used by teams over the salary cap, which don’t have cap flexibility.
If the Kings ended up using their salary cap room, they would have one year from the trade to use this trade exception. After that it expires. This deal seems to be a clear way to save a few dollars for the Kings the rest of the season. I love what Sergio does on the court but he’s not such an integral part of the future of this franchise that he can’t be spared for a team fighting for playoff contention.
Marc Stein is reporting that if the Kings are having doubts about Kevin Martin, the Mavericks are willing to strike up a deal.
One hypothetical trade scenario could see Dallas offer Howard, Drew Gooden, J.J. Barea and cash to the Kings for Martin and Nocioni. That, however, is a lot of long-term salary for the Mavs to add. It’s also not known if a combination of payroll relief, Barea and the opportunity to resurrect Howard’s career would ultimately be enough to satisfy Sacramento even if Dallas was willing to take on Nocioni as well.
I still think it’s insane to deal Kevin Martin right now unless you’re getting someone like an Al Jefferson in return. It takes more than four games to determine if this backcourt duo can play together.
But this deal would shed a lot of long-term salary the Kings are committed to and if they decide not to pick up team options on Josh Howard and JJ Barea, it would shed another $17 million off the cap this summer.
I still say keep Martin for now.
All right, so we all know the rumored deal, which is probably nothing more than just that – a rumor.
The deal would be for the Kings to send Kenny Thomas back to the 76ers and move Andres Nocioni to the Boston Celtics. In return, they’d receive J.R. Giddens and Samuel Dalembert.
Sounds pretty sweet, right? You get an allegedly big-time shot blocker to come push Spencer Hawes to his fight or flight instincts and have yourself a legitimate three big man rotation.
Here’s the problem: you’re giving up way too much to get the deal done.
This has nothing to do with the fact that the Kings had a rumored deal of Emeka Okafor in return for Kenny Thomas the other day. Those discussions don’t affect this feeling at all. The problem is that you’re passing up on your deepest position, making it instantly thin and hoping that a high-risk, little reward “defensive” presence inside gives you more depth where you need it.
Initially, this seems like a no-brainer. The Kings are nearly gluttonous at the wing when healthy and even with the two big injuries to Kevin Martin and Francisco Garcia, they’re still running four deep with the versatility of Nocioni, Casspi, Greene, and now Udoka. And with Nocioni being your biggest and longest contract of the four players (and likely the most coveted by a title contender desperate for a veteran wing player), it seems absurd to deny unloading Nocioni when you’re getting a defensive center in return.
However, this really has nothing to do with this particular deal and has more to do with the theory of making this trade in general. According to Sam Amick, the deal is mostly dead because the Kings are weary of Sammy’s remaining two years for almost $25 million and that doesn’t even include his 10% trade kicker that would push it closer to $28 million. Also, the Celtics are apparently good at the wing and want nothing to do with Andres Nocioni even if it means giving up a couple of bench players of no value to them.
I have a problem with the idea of trading Andres Nocioni for anything other than someone of Emeka Okafor’s caliber. Now clearly, they are not nearly equal level players. But when you combine his shorter deal with the expiring contract of Kenny Thomas, the team the Kings would be trading with is getting a fairly big return in these economic moments.
Tom Ziller had a great breakdown of what Sam Dalembert could mean to the Kings. And in it, he had this seemingly throwaway line about Andres Nocioni:
“Given that the financial commitment is relatively short, and the price relatively small (no knock on Nocioni — again, he’s a bit superfluous here), it’s something any team in Sacramento’s position should consider.”
I agree with Tom in theory here but the problem I have is calling Noc “superfluous.”
Nocioni’s defense has been pretty much spectacular and he’s easily been the best wing defender for the Kings this year. Even though it looked ugly the night Kevin Durant put up 37 points in Arco, Nocioni made him work for every single basket and KD got bailed out quite a bit by the refs and their quick whistles. Andres did a great job of playing off-the-ball denial and making Durant work hard just to get the ball, let alone get it in the basket.
Now, the thinking here is the Kings depth at the wing makes trading him for a guy like Dalembert something to consider. But when you trade someone like Nocioni and only get a player like Sam Dalembert, who has been replaced by a John Hollinger dream child in Marreese Speights before he even really proved he could play, you’re instantly cutting your depth at a young position. And you’re cutting it with too much of a risk in return.
Omri Casspi has been great off the bench but as a rookie, especially an international rookie, (historically) he’s going to have big ups and downs throughout his first season. On top of that Donté Greene is basically a rookie himself because he was under (not) used during his first season and is still starting from square one. As of right now, the Kings are a game over .500 and in the playoff hunt after nine games.
Are they going to realistically make a push for the playoffs throughout the entire season? Probably not. In fact, their schedule gets pretty tough after the month of November and we’ll actually get to see just how good/tough this young team really is. But as long as you’re still in the hunt and the trade deadline still hasn’t passed, why rush a trade in which you’re not really getting any better? There’s usually one surprising team that makes a big playoff push every season and the Kings haven’t been eliminated from that, no matter how big-pie-in-the-sky that idea is.
The Kings can get much better in trading Nocioni and I don’t think he should be a mainstay if you can use his contract space in better ways (by grabbing a REAL defensive presence through a trade, not someone who still commits unnecessary goal tends at the age of 28.
While in theory Andres Nocioni is superfluous, in reality (under these circumstances) he still fills a big role in helping the young guys. Keep him until you can flip him for something better.
You may now proceed with grilling me on this issue.
From a Marc Stein TrueHoop Post:
*The Kings have interest in securing another big man to join Spencer Hawes and the fast-developing Jason Thompson in their frontcourt rotation and have pondered the merits of gambling on Dalembert for some time. And trading for Philly’s out-of-favor center certainly makes more sense than a deal for New Orleans’ Emeka Okafor, who has four years and nearly $40 million left on his contract through the 2013-14 season. It’s believed that Sacramento, even if these three-way talks go no further, will continue to field offers for Nocioni, given the Kings’ desire to have cap space in the summer of 2011 and the promising early development of rookie Omri Casspi.
The deal in question/rumor would be the Kings sending Andres Nocioni to Boston and Kenny Thomas back to Philly. The Celtics would also send Tony Allen and Brian Scalabrine to Philadelphia and the Kings would secure J.R. Giddens and Samuel Dalembert.
If you’ve read any of my stuff on Talkhoops before then you can probably guess I’m not the biggest Samuel Dalembert fan. I’ve always described him as the worst good defender. He just finds ways to screw up on defense despite being a better than average defender. He is probably the all-time leader in goaltends because he can’t help himself. He just HAS to grab the ball or knock it away, no matter what the rules say!
Personally, I think this team is clicking right now and Nocioni is a big part of it. I’m intrigued by the prospect of grabbing Giddens to see what he has but at the same time, his career path has taken a turn from sure star to toiling on the bench of an NBA team for a reason: he has a bad attitude. You can get more for Nocioni than a dumb defender and a young guy who’s ego is bigger than his game. Not to mention, I’d want no part of paying Dalembert $13 million next season.
