ducks
02-09-2008, 11:10 PM
Was Dallas making its own hard push for Shaq?
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailyd...dime-080209-10
The Suns didn't just believe that Dallas was making its own hard push for Shaq before Wednesday's trade. It was likewise suggested out here that Mavs owner Mark Cuban was in Miami earlier this week working on the deal.
Yet even if that last part is true …
Dallas never offered Josh Howard to the Heat and never would have. Think about it, people. If the Mavs are skittish about losing Brandon Bass and/or DeSagana Diop along with Devin Harris in a Jason Kidd deal, as we've already established, you think they'd suddenly be prepared to part with Howard in a Shaq deal?
The Mavs, according to plugged-in sources, were willing to go one of two routes with the Heat. The primary option was encouraging the Heat to buy Shaq out, with the promise that the Mavs would use their full mid-level exception to sign O'Neal in an attempt to reduce Shaq's remaining salary-cap number in Miami starting next season. The only other way it would have worked for Dallas required Miami to take back Erick Dampier in a trade. The Heat, not surprisingly, weren't interested in either option.
• Teams talking trade with the Mavs these days naturally try to convince them to make all the complications go away by turning the rights they still hold to Keith Van Horn into an expiring contract, as described in Box 3.
The Mavs could actually make a trade for Kidd much easier if they were willing to throw a signed-and-traded Van Horn in to satisfy salary-cap requirements. That would amount to Van Horn getting a three-year deal with only the first year guaranteed … at a healthy $11.7 million. Package Van Horn with Harris and perhaps more salary-cap filler and the Nets would get good cap relief along with an on-the-rise point guard to replace Kidd, and Dallas would have its mega-trade answer to the Gasol and Shaq deals.
Only one problem.
Although he still refuses to address the prospect of trading for Kidd without chastising or mocking any reporter who dares to ask, Cuban did tell ESPN.com very clearly that "we won't use [Van Horn] in any deal for anyone."
Reason being: If Dallas did so in the scenario described above, Kidd would cost them nearly $40 million next season thanks to the luxury tax.
• One unintended consequence of the Suns acquiring O'Neal is that it might further complicate Dallas' ability to trade for Kidd. The Mavs, as stated above, were hesitant to part with Bass or Diop before Phoenix got Shaq. With the Lakers getting Pau Gasol and the Suns adding size for the first time in the Steve Nash Era, this probably isn't the time to go small.
• Sources say that the Suns' original arrangement with the Heat called for Phoenix's medical experts to fly to Miami to covertly examine O'Neal on Wednesday in Florida as opposed to bringing Shaq to the desert.
But those plans changed when the advanced nature of the trade talks were revealed online Tuesday night by The Miami Herald, leading some at US Airways Center to believe that the deal was leaked to the newspaper in hopes of locking the Suns into the trade.
Phoenix still had the right to back out of the deal Wednesday had Shaq's physical examination scared the Suns off. Kerr has said he was prepared to do just that "unless I felt really good about it from a medical standpoint." But it would have been a much bigger scandal if the trade had been aborted after O'Neal was flown in.
• Suns fans are still so stunned by the prospect of O'Neal in purple and orange that they probably haven't even realized yet that the biggest winner tied to the trade so far is the guy loathed in Phoenix more than anyone not named Robert Horry.
Seriously. Who could be happier about what's happened in the last week than David Stern?
In a span of just over six months, Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers have been resurrected. O'Neal's move to the desert, meanwhile, means three of the game's all-time icons -- Shaq, KG and Allen Iverson -- have all been traded in a span of 14 months … in an era when big transactions and all the accompanying speculation and analysis tend to get folks more revved up than the games do.
In other words … does anyone ever remember Tim Donaghy?
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailyd...dime-080209-10
The Suns didn't just believe that Dallas was making its own hard push for Shaq before Wednesday's trade. It was likewise suggested out here that Mavs owner Mark Cuban was in Miami earlier this week working on the deal.
Yet even if that last part is true …
Dallas never offered Josh Howard to the Heat and never would have. Think about it, people. If the Mavs are skittish about losing Brandon Bass and/or DeSagana Diop along with Devin Harris in a Jason Kidd deal, as we've already established, you think they'd suddenly be prepared to part with Howard in a Shaq deal?
The Mavs, according to plugged-in sources, were willing to go one of two routes with the Heat. The primary option was encouraging the Heat to buy Shaq out, with the promise that the Mavs would use their full mid-level exception to sign O'Neal in an attempt to reduce Shaq's remaining salary-cap number in Miami starting next season. The only other way it would have worked for Dallas required Miami to take back Erick Dampier in a trade. The Heat, not surprisingly, weren't interested in either option.
• Teams talking trade with the Mavs these days naturally try to convince them to make all the complications go away by turning the rights they still hold to Keith Van Horn into an expiring contract, as described in Box 3.
The Mavs could actually make a trade for Kidd much easier if they were willing to throw a signed-and-traded Van Horn in to satisfy salary-cap requirements. That would amount to Van Horn getting a three-year deal with only the first year guaranteed … at a healthy $11.7 million. Package Van Horn with Harris and perhaps more salary-cap filler and the Nets would get good cap relief along with an on-the-rise point guard to replace Kidd, and Dallas would have its mega-trade answer to the Gasol and Shaq deals.
Only one problem.
Although he still refuses to address the prospect of trading for Kidd without chastising or mocking any reporter who dares to ask, Cuban did tell ESPN.com very clearly that "we won't use [Van Horn] in any deal for anyone."
Reason being: If Dallas did so in the scenario described above, Kidd would cost them nearly $40 million next season thanks to the luxury tax.
• One unintended consequence of the Suns acquiring O'Neal is that it might further complicate Dallas' ability to trade for Kidd. The Mavs, as stated above, were hesitant to part with Bass or Diop before Phoenix got Shaq. With the Lakers getting Pau Gasol and the Suns adding size for the first time in the Steve Nash Era, this probably isn't the time to go small.
• Sources say that the Suns' original arrangement with the Heat called for Phoenix's medical experts to fly to Miami to covertly examine O'Neal on Wednesday in Florida as opposed to bringing Shaq to the desert.
But those plans changed when the advanced nature of the trade talks were revealed online Tuesday night by The Miami Herald, leading some at US Airways Center to believe that the deal was leaked to the newspaper in hopes of locking the Suns into the trade.
Phoenix still had the right to back out of the deal Wednesday had Shaq's physical examination scared the Suns off. Kerr has said he was prepared to do just that "unless I felt really good about it from a medical standpoint." But it would have been a much bigger scandal if the trade had been aborted after O'Neal was flown in.
• Suns fans are still so stunned by the prospect of O'Neal in purple and orange that they probably haven't even realized yet that the biggest winner tied to the trade so far is the guy loathed in Phoenix more than anyone not named Robert Horry.
Seriously. Who could be happier about what's happened in the last week than David Stern?
In a span of just over six months, Boston and the Los Angeles Lakers have been resurrected. O'Neal's move to the desert, meanwhile, means three of the game's all-time icons -- Shaq, KG and Allen Iverson -- have all been traded in a span of 14 months … in an era when big transactions and all the accompanying speculation and analysis tend to get folks more revved up than the games do.
In other words … does anyone ever remember Tim Donaghy?