EDIT: After second thought, I decided I'd just stick with my post instead of being a pussy. If you disagree, please discuss. The biggest indicator that this would work would be how desperate New Orleans is to save money. That's how I crafted this idea, I also tried to balance out talent ratios the best I could. If New Orleans is going to shave salary, they are going to have to make some difficult roster decisions because there aren't many teams that would be interested in their overinflated contracts.
Picks
Cleveland
#30, #46
New Orleans
#21
Toronto
#9
Trade http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=odog9e
Cleveland
Incoming: Chris Bosh, Antonio Daniels
Outgoing: Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, J.J. Hickson, #30 pick
Toronto:
Incoming: David West, J.J. Hickson, Peja Stojakovich*, Cleveland's #30 pick
Outgoing: Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani, #9 Pick
New Orleans:
Incoming: Andrea Bargnani, Ben Wallace, Sasha Pavlovic, Toronto's #9 pick
Outgoing: David West, Peja Stojakovich*
*Could interchange Peja Stojakovich for Tyson Chandler
Salaries
Cleveland
Incoming: $20.6M
Outgoing: $20.3M
Toronto
Incoming: $23.7M
Outgoing: $19.5M
New Orleans
Incoming: $24.2M**
Outgoing: $28.5M
**Sasha's contract is only guaranteed for $1.5M. Actual NO incoming = $21.2M
Analysis & Reasoning
Again, I crafted this trade to save New Orleans money while at the same time giving them some talent, potential, and breathing room salary wise for the next two seasons. In this economy how many teams are going to take on some of these contracts without also getting talent in exchange? It's tough to find cheap talent that teams would be interested in parting with. New Orleans is about $8M over the salary cap. This trade saves them over $7M. Yeah, David West seems like a dealbreaker, but there were talks about involving West with Detroit. This trade nets NO $7M in savings, a developing talent in Bargnani, and a nice possible choice in Toronto's 9th pick. New Orleans has a young frontcourt in Bargnani and Chandler. You have a couple of defensive minded veteran forwards in Ben Wallace and James Posey. They could draft a nice shooting/combo guard to play with Chris Paul with either their pick or the one they gain from Toronto. This gives them some young talent to work with, refreshing their roster and giving them some breathing room financially.
Toronto loses Chris Bosh, Andrea Bargnani, and their #9 pick in exchange for another All-Star in David West, veteran forward Peja Stojakovich capable of shooting the 3. They also gain a young promising big man in J.J. Hickson and Cleveland's first round draft pick. Not bad of an exchange if Chris Bosh legitimately wants out of Toronto. I've read reports that Bargnani's willingness to sign a contract extension will be directly linked to what Chris Bosh does. Giving up the draft pick may seem off limits, but if Chris Bosh (and probably Andrea Bargnani) are leaving, they need to sweeten the deal to get someone like David West who is inked to a three season deal starting next season. You could also make the argument that getting someone like J.J. Hickson in the trade is equivalent to some of the talent that could be taken with the 9th pick.
Cleveland obviously acquires Chris Bosh and a bad contract in Antonio Daniels from New Orleans as part of the salary shredding for NO. Giving up Ben Wallace and Sasha have been talked about as they are our biggest assets not in the starting lineup. J.J. Hickson is a developing big man with lots of upside, but he's got to be used in this trade to balance things out better. Giving up our first rounder isn't that significant because we address our aging frontcourt with Chris Bosh and still have a second round pick to pull another young talent to work with along with D-Block. Perhaps the biggest element of this trade is that we pull Bosh without touching our starting lineup. While Antonio Daniels isn't exactly prime time talent, he is another PG and his salary does come off the books after next season.
Again, this is all dependent on New Orleans' willingness to get as close to the salary cap as possible while still getting some talent back and setting them up nicely for the summer of 2010 with Wallace's expiring. Why would New Orleans get involved with us? Well, we do have pieces that offer them salary relief immediately and a huge salary leverage in Wallace's contract. Also, Toronto and Cleveland are not in their conference. How many other teams (Chicago, Miami, Golden State, etc) could offer Toronto someone like David West?
Alright, now feel free to bash, flame, whatever. I'm not scared...okay, maybe a little! :chuckles: