Wednesday, February 11, 2009

NBA Weekly: Amare Stoudemire Trade Rumors, Jermaine O'Neal To The Heat?, Al Jefferson Out For Season, & More

Amare Stoudemire: It's quite apparent that Amare Stoudemire is on the trading block and numerous teams are lining up potential deals so that they can acquire him. So far Miami and Chicago have tossed out potential deals to the Suns. The Miami deal would send Shawn Marion back to Phoenix along with rookie Michael Beasley. While Chicago's deal would send Tyrus Thomas, along with the expiring contracts of Drew Gooden and Cedric Simmons, and possibly Joakim Noah to the Suns. Phoenix is not interested in Miami's deal because they would rather have Tyrus Thomas than Michael Beasley, so it seems like the Miami deal is not likely. Thomas has been actually playing pretty damn well lately and now has a double-double in four straight games.

It's also believed that there are two other teams who have made better offers than both Miami & Chicago, one of which I believe to be the Portland Trailblazers, who reportedly have offered to send LaMarcus Aldridge, Jerryd Bayless, and Raef LeFrentz’s $12.7 million expiring contract to the Suns for Amare. If I'm the Suns I'd pull the trigger on that deal immediately. You get a replacement for Amare, a future replacement for Nash when you let him leave in 2010 as a free agent, and the cap space from Lafrentz' expiring contract.

Now supposedly there are two offers better than the offers of Miami & Chicago, so if Portland is one of them, then who is the other offer coming from? I know Detroit, Toronto, New York, & Golden State have thrown their names into the mix, but I can't see either one of them offering all that much. Toronto wants to put Bosh & Amare together, so stop thinking that Bosh trade to the Suns is likely. I'm thinking there must be a mystery team out there that has yet to come forward. Taking a quick look at the rest of the teams in the NBA, I can't really see a team where a trade for Amare makes sense without completely breaking up the core of a team that is already pretty solid. I still think the Suns should take that Portland deal ASAP.

Jermaine O'Neal: Word on the street is that if the Heat can't get Amare Stoudemire from the Suns, that they are seriously thinking about trading for Raptors center Jermaine O'Neal. That trade would send Shawn Marion & Marcus Banks to the Raptors. I'm not a fan of this move for the Heat on the court, because I don't think you trade for Jermaine O'Neal unless you think you can ride him to an NBA title this season. I don't think the Heat, even with O'Neal, are going to be able to compete with Boston, Cleveland, & Orlando over this season and next season when O'Neal's contract expires. Now notice that Jermaine O'Neal's contract expires in 2010, which means the Heat would have about $22 million of cap room to go after one of the bigger free agents after they sign Dwyane Wade of course. Since Pat Riley usually makes good moves, I'm thinking that is the reason they don't mind grabbing O'Neal right now. They can stay competitive this season and next and then will be in good shape to sign 2 players from the big free agent class of 2010.

Miami Heat: In addition to O'Neal, the Heat are also rumored to be interested in trading for Tyson Chandler of the New Orleans Hornets and Kings center Brad Miller. Both trades would include Shawn Marion as well. Not sure why the Hornets would want to move their best low post defender, since that would basically eliminate them from having any chance to beat the Lakers or Spurs this season.

Al Jefferson: Bad news for the T-Wolves who will have to play the rest of the season without Big Al Jefferson, after Jefferson tore the ACL in his right knee. Jefferson is one of only three players averaging 20 points and 10 rebounds a game this season and had he been on a better team would most likely have been an All-Star. Kevin Love should see even more minutes now that Jefferson is out, which isn't such a bad thing for Minnesota, but this team is already thin down low and I would expect their poor defense is going to get even worse. It's really a shame that Jefferson went down, because this T-Wolves team actually had a chance to become the first Wolves team to ever win 30 games without Kevin Garnett. They actually still have a chance to do so, but would have to go 13-18 without Jefferson to accomplish that.

Other NBA News:

- All signs point the Nets hanging on to Vince Carter, but if he is traded it will most likely be to a Western Conference team, possibly Dallas. VC heaed to Dallas would certainly be intriguing, since Vince has surprised me and others by sharing the basketball this season a lot more than originally thought. The last two seasons, Vince has had the highest assist per game averages of his career. Carter could also help ease the loss of Jason Terry, who is out for a while with a fractured finger.

- Larry Hughes could soon be headed back to the Wizards for Etan Thomas & Mike James. Looks like it would just be a move to dump Hughes by the Bulls.

- The Lakers traded Vladimir Radmanovic to Charlotte for Adam Morrison & Shannon Brown. I guess Radmanovic was buried pretty deep in Phil Jackson's doghouse.

- Mo Williams was named to replace Chrish Bosh in the All Star Game and also J.R. Smith will replace the injured Rudy Gay in the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest. You can check out more on the Slam Dunk Contest below:




For more info, see the official Sprite Slam Dunk page: http://www.nba.com/dunk

Posted by at
Labels: , ,

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)