Well Cuban is already making moves. They just traded Antoine Jamison to Washington for the 5th pick, Stackhouse, and Laitner(sp?). The sticking point is of course that the Lakers want Novitzski (sp?), but Cuban said straight up that ain’t gonna happen. The buzz is though that Walker, and Laitner (who both come off the books), Nash (sign and trade) and the 5th could go for the big guy.
That’s buzz, but I don’t see it happening. That is no way, shape or form a fair trade. Nash is overrated - he can’t defend and he needs the ball in his hands to be effective. But the ball is never going to be in his hands, it’s going to be in Kobe’s. And he’s 31. He’s basically what the Lakers thought Payton would be this year, but for twice the price.
Plus, it pretty much gives the Mavs the Western Conference for the next two to three years.
What’s even scarier is that he re-upped with the Lakers. You get a whole new year with him on the team. If you hated his attitude and play as a starter, just imagine what you get next year when he spends a lot more time riding the bench.
This is likely all about age. Shaw wants money. Big money. $30 million per year. Do you want to pay that to a 32 year old, continually physically pounded center who is clearly showing a higher propensity for injury, especially considering the drop off in scoring he had this year. All the consecutive years of deep playoff runs may be catching up to him and prematurely aging his body. This is about the age that previously dominant centers start to tail off. Trading him now isn’t a bad idea. He probably has a couple of great years left, but the money you save and the pieces you can get back probably will pay longer dividends.
As for Kobe, waive him. (Well, not really). I know they want to keep him because he is younger and so dynamic, but I firmly believe that a team with Kobe as the focal point won’t be winning titles. In fact, I’ll say right here, that Kobe wins no more titles without Shaq. The only way it happens is if Kobe somehow ends up with another ultra-dominant post (think Yao in 2 years.) Kobe does some great things, but he does so at the overall expense of team success. So, while he can put up great numbers and carry a team quite far, I do believe that he can’t put a team over the championship hump.
Well, Mullinator, the Lakers management is a bunch of fools. Kobe is not a player to build around. He should have been cut loose. Now I kind of hope he winds up going to the Clippers and the Lakers get a chance to build around someone else. But the big news iiiis:
Shaq traded to Miami for Lamar Odom and Brian Grant.
ARE. YOU. FUCKING. SHITTING. ME??? Smokey the Clown and some “power forward” who gets worked in the size challenged East?
In what universe is that a freaking fair trade? They couldn’t even get Wade out of the bargain? MOTHERFUCKERS!
This is just a rumor now, but it best not be reality.
Goddammit, Kupchak is such a fucking tool. Did anyone else notice that the franchise started losing focus once they spurned the Logo? (And whose fault is that, I wonder? I’m looking in your direction Phil Jackson you fuck. And yours Jerry Buss for not having a fucking spine, you pig fucking cum stain.)
How do you fucking run out Jerry West? The best GM of the past 25 years? Notice what Memphis is doing since he got there?
Dammit. I bet Jerry West is chuckling right now.
It better not be true.
hoooooooooooowwhhhhuuuuuuuuuuuut!?!?!
Ugh, poor (you know what I mean), poor Shaq.
fuck I was hoping he’d go to Dallas and win a ring and tell Kobe to fuck himself.
I just heard about it on ESPN News. Not seeing it on ESPN.com yet - although I do notice that the Jazz are giving Boozer $10 million a year. Good for them, I like Kirilenko and I like Sloan. I hope he wins a ring before his time is up.
Of course, they just said that Brian Grant and Lamar Odom don’t make enough to reach Shaq’s salary, so maybe the Heat will have to throw in Caron Butler. That would be cool, I suppose.
It’s still a retarded trade, though.
It doesn’t really seem to do anyone any good. Is Butler any good, I can’t remember. I’d like to see the Heat come out on top of this one. They better keep Wade, they wouldn’t be that stupid.
Well, I definitely don’t want that.
Butler did well his first season but regressed somewhat last year - I suspect because Odom took his position and Wayne was handling the ball more.
Anyway, on second thought, I find it hard to believe that the two GMs would be unaware of the salary cap requirements so maybe Grant and Odom would be enough together.
Goddammit, this trade would make Miami the favorites in the East, I think. At least up there with Detroit and Indianapolis and leave the Lakers scrambling for that 8th spot against Utah, Denver and Houston. Not good, my friend, not good.
Good if you hate Kobe. 
Even with Shaq though, the Heat wouldn’t go higher then 3 or 4 seed.
Not a chance. Who is going to take them?
Indianapolis? Not likely. Detroit, maybe, but they got lucky beating a damaged Lakers team and getting all the calls going their way. I don’t think they’re as good as they look.
Plus, the Heat don’t have prima donnas like Kobe hogging the ball and would actually toss it into Shaq 40 times a game when he’s shooting 66%. Y’know? Plus with Eddie Jones and Wade they’d have the young athletic players that can keep up and the outside shooting to spread the floor.
This would be Miami’s starting five in 2005 assuming the trade goes through:
PG - Wayne
SG - Jones
SF - Butler
PF - Um, I’ll get back to you.
C - Shaq
Now, to be fair, I don’t know what their bench would look like, especially after losing Alston.
But I’d like to point out that I was right about Detroit coming out of the East this year and I know I would have been right about the Lakers winning if Malone hadn’t gone down in Game 2. That and combined with semi-decent officiating.
So there. 
As an aside, ever get the feeling we’re the only two Dopers who care about basketball?
Yeah, you’ve been a lot more accurate then me, but I’m redeeming myself this season, I swear.
Yep, except for, like, 3 Kings fans that stick their heads out during April.
Marcus Camby was munching a slice of pizza in front of my office building yesterday, for about 15 minutes. I was tempted to go beg him for $5,000 bucks, because it’s a drop in the bucket for him. He had what bodyguard though, so I restrained myself.
Tall guy, and less skinny, looks like he put on a few pounds.
That’s awesome. I saw Shaq here in DC once when they were playing the Wizards. The man is freaking huge. I mean, I thought I knew how big a 7’ 1" 350 pound guy was, but I didn’t. He’s scary big. I would wet myself if I had to face him on the court.
My greatest predicting triumph came in 2002 right before a Knicks-Mavs game. I told my friend (a big Knick fan) that Dallas was going to put up at least 110 points on the Knicks and that the Knicks would be lucky to get 90. So he gets all defensive and wants to make a bet on this. So I say OK and slap down 20 bucks on the table.
So this is the bet, the Mavs have to get at least 110 and the Knicks can’t reach 90. So things are going well for most of the game. Suddenly, things start looking grim in the fourth quarter and the Knicks are up to 89 points with something like two minutes to go and Dallas has just cracked 100.
Fortunately, the Knicks can’t score the rest of the game and Dallas breaks 110 with a last minute basket.
w00+ - 20 bucks for me. Barely. But I still get to rub that in his face.
Does anyone else get the feeling the following scenario plays out?
Lakers continue shopping Shaq, asking for a star, another good young starter, a role player, and a good draft pick (think Nowitzki, Daniels, Najera, and a pick) from about 5 different teams.
Each team realizes they are treading perilously close to ARod contract danger (one stud player taking up so much cap that the rest of the team is comprised of popcorn vendors).
Each team decides to pass on the current deal.
The Lakers get more and more desperate. Kobe is still floating around but won’t commit until Shaq is guaranteed to be gone. Shaq continues grousing for a trade.
At least two teams (Clippers, Knicks) make secondary movest hat both improve the team and match what Kobe is looking for.
The Lakers, now desperate to retain Kobe, dive into a trade to get rid of Shaq just to appease Kobe and in return get something like Jamaal Magliore, David Wesley, PJ Brown, and cash. Certainly serviceable parts but nothing like prior offers and requests.
Kobe signs with the Lakers, pleased as punch to have his own team.
The Lakers then go on to fulfill my predictions from earlier in the thread and get the 5th seed in the playoffs where Kobe’s poor shot selection knocks them out of the first round.
Of course the above would be funnier if they traded Shaq and Kobe still signed elsewhere.
First off, A-Rod’s contract wasn’t the problem in Texas. Unless he was the one that forced the Rangers to give $13 million to do nothing, along with all of the other terrible pitching signings they made. Rodriguez was the only good free agent signing they made.
Second, I’m starting to think your scenario of the Lakers getting crap for Shaq is the most likely.
And if they got rid of both of them I wouldn’t complain, except the resulting lottery pick would be worthless since Kupchak can’t evaluate talent properly. Anyway, cap space = good.
Last, I still don’t want Kobe to have this team. Let Kobe go away and keep Shaq. Bah.
In which case I’d like the Lakers and hate whichever team Kobe ended up on.
I guess it’s pretty clear that we both agree that if the Lakers want to win more titles, appeasing Kobe isn’t the way to go.
As for the ARod contract, I agree that mroe problematic was the signing of awful pitchers for large sums of money. But, ARod was the first illustration I thought of when it comes to the usually trainwreckish idea of so overspending for one player that the rest of the roster suffers.
So what’s the prediction coming out of the west this year if the Heat trade goes down as it is right now (Odom, Grant, pick)?
I’ll go with the Spurs.
Except they didn’t overspend from a value standpoint (they overspent in the fact that they WAY exceeded the market price for him). There’s an interesting Baseball Prospectus article that analyzed the whole thing. I’ll quote the relevant conclusion here:
They’re talking over the three year period, not just in any one season. And they only list free agents and people not still on their rookie contracts.
Anyway, A-Rod was the only smart thing the Rangers did - aside from bringing in Buck Showalter.
I’ll say Minnesota unless San Antonio gets some consistency from their shooters.
Sacramento’s had their run of respectability, Dallas is still too soft, Utah doesn’t have the parts, Houston’s probably a year away from getting it together and Denver is maybe two or three years away from being a serious contender.