Joe Johnson to Dallas

[The Miles]

This Joe Johnson/Atlanta ownership mess had me thinking about a way to backdoor the whole situation and get Johnson here.

The Mavs make two trades with the Hawks and then two with the Suns:

A. Trade Keith Van Horn to the Atlanta Hawks for Boris Diaw thus creating a $14,566,970 Trade Exception.

B. Trade Devin Harris for Tony Delk and those two 1sts.

C. Trade $12,375,000 of that TE w/the two 1sts to the Sun's for Joe Johnson in a sign and trade.

D. Trade Boris Diaw to the Suns for part of that TE.

-Atlanta gets a young PG that was the 5th pick just last year and an expiring Van Horn to use as trade bait. They have to fill a minimum salary anyways, this works for that. Devin Harris, Josh Childress, Josh Smith, and Marvin Williams is a very talented set of youngsters. Van Horn/Harrington expire allowing them to attack the FA market again next year for a big man.

-Phoenix gets what they were going to get all along.

-Dallas can then not worry about Finley nearly as much, basically trading what they would trade for Pierce minus having to take back Raef's contract:

-We start Jet and Joe in the backcourt, Joe is the playmaking type of SG that allows Jet to play SG at times. Josh and Dirk at F, Damp at C.

-Use the MLE wisely to fill the backup PF and C spot. Songaila and Hunter works for me, Dallas can use DA as the backup PG and give minutes to Joe and Marquis there. Delk is simple expiring salary filler, expiring and perhaps they just buy him out immediately.

PG-Jason Terry | Darrell Armstrong | Joe/Quis/Christie
SG-Joe Johnson | Jerry Stackhouse | Doug Christie
SF-Josh Howard | Marquis Daniels | Rawle Marshall
PF-Dirk Nowitzki | Darius Songaila | Josh Powell
CT-Erick Dampier | Steven Hunter | DJ Mbenga | Pavel Podkolzin

That would be your 15 man rotation. If you could get lucky enough to trade Fin for expirers, do it and immediately cut whoever it is. You are going to have to pay it anyways. Doing that, and using amnesty on Bradley, would save the Mavericks around $85,000,000 which covers Joe's contract and $15,000,000 of the LT payment.


You lose Devin but Joe is 24, versatile, and makes us better right now. You don't have to take back all the crap you would with a Pierce trade (Blount/Raef contracts).

[Thespiralgoeson]

That would be absolutely beautiful. In some ways, JJ is even more appealing than Pierce, because he's the same type of player, only Dirk would still be "the man" here. The moves are realistic enough, I like the way you think. However, even with their recent fallout, I simply don't see the Suns trading JJ to a WC contender.

[Drbio]

Very creative.....not likely, but very creative.

[dirno2000]

A couple of things:
1) Do you really think PXH would trade Joe Johnson here?
2) Where are you getting that $85MM savings? If you trade Fin for expirers you take back matching contracts and that cuts your savings from ~$51MM to ~35MM since those contracts are still on the cap after you cut them. and using the amnisty clause on Bradley only saves you $4.5MM. Since he's retiring due to injury, his contract comes off the books in one year anyway.

[echo]

That isn't going to happen but I love the idea! Love Joe Johnson's game and I think he was the best available SG in free agency this year. Phoenix doesn't scare me much without him. The worst thing that could happen is the deal with Atlanta is voided and Phoenix keeps him.

[Thespiralgoeson]

Originally posted by: echo The worst thing that could happen is the deal with Atlanta is voided and Phoenix keeps him.

I couldn't agree more.

[The Miles]

1) Do you really think PXH would trade Joe Johnson here?

I have no idea to be honest but the ownership situation is so messed up in Atlanta that it is the perfect time to strike. Joe could very well be happy as the #2 option in Dallas. There is no shame in that, going from a #4 to a #2 while being on basically the same level of contending teams might be appealing. He is closer to home here than he would be in Atlanta or Phoenix. Would Phoenix? Well, they seem intent on honoring his wishes. It is worth a try.

2) Where are you getting that $85MM savings? If you trade Fin for expirers you take back matching contracts and that cuts your savings from ~$51MM to ~35MM since those contracts are still on the cap after you cut them. and using the amnisty clause on Bradley only saves you $4.5MM. Since he's retiring due to injury, his contract comes off the books in one year anyway.

First off, I thought we would be on the hook for all three Bradley seasons so that changes the number by $10,000,000. However, the general concept is explained in two scenarios:

Basic Facts:

Finley owed-$51,796,875
Finley w/LT=$103,533,750


Scenario 1
-Use the amnesty clause on Michael Finley

The team would cut Fin and putback $51,796,875 ($103,533,750 / 2). Then from that, since they must retire Bradley, you subtract what it costs to buy him out. In this case, you say $4,500,000, which LT inlcuded is $9,000,000 total. That means that the Mavericks walk away from the scenario having saved $42,796,875.

Scenario 2
-Dallas trades Finley for expiring contracts and uses amnesty on Shawn Bradley

The team would trade Finley. For this example, we will use Penny Hardaway. Penny is owed $15,750,000 and would cost the team $31,500,000 overall. So, Finley w/LT ($103,533,750) - Penny w/LT ($31,500,000) is $72,033,750.

That is short of what I said earlier, $85,000,000, because I wasn't aware of Bradley. Dallas simply doesn't use the amnesty clause but still saves $30,000,000 more in Scenario 2 than Scenario 1. And that savings, $72 mill, is enough to cover the entire Joe Johnson contract.

[dirno2000]

I have no idea to be honest but the ownership situation is so messed up in Atlanta that it is the perfect time to strike. Joe could very well be happy as the #2 option in Dallas. There is no shame in that, going from a #4 to a #2 while being on basically the same level of contending teams might be appealing. He is closer to home here than he would be in Atlanta or Phoenix. Would Phoenix? Well, they seem intent on honoring his wishes. It is worth a try.

Never hurts to ask but I’d be shocked if the moved him to a conference rival without getting a player of value to weaken that rival. They’re sending him to Atlanta because it’s an NBA wasteland.

Scenario 1
-Use the amnesty clause on Michael Finley

The team would cut Fin and putback $51,796,875 ($103,533,750 / 2). Then from that, since they must retire Bradley, you subtract what it costs to buy him out. In this case, you say $4,500,000, which LT inlcuded is $9,000,000 total. That means that the Mavericks walk away from the scenario having saved $42,796,875.

Scenario 2
-Dallas trades Finley for expiring contracts and uses amnesty on Shawn Bradley

The team would trade Finley. For this example, we will use Penny Hardaway. Penny is owed $15,750,000 and would cost the team $31,500,000 overall. So, Finley w/LT ($103,533,750) - Penny w/LT ($31,500,000) is $72,033,750.

The way you’re calculating the savings in scenario 2 assumes that they’re either going to keep Fin (the only way you spend $100MM ) or trade him for an expiring contract…we know that’s not the case. If they don’t trade Finley for the expiring contract they cut him and spend ~$51MM. Your savings is roughly $20MM plus the $4.5 you save with Bradley.

Are you saying that Cuban would be willing to keep the payroll around $90MM if he could get Joe Johnson instead of Michael Finley?

[Lebanese_Fan]

Dreams may come true. I hope this will.

[The Miles]

The way you’re calculating the savings in scenario 2 assumes that they’re either going to keep Fin (the only way you spend $100MM ) or trade him for an expiring contract…we know that’s not the case. If they don’t trade Finley for the expiring contract they cut him and spend ~$51MM. Your savings is roughly $20MM plus the $4.5 you save with Bradley.

Well yeah, there are only 3 overall scenarios:

1. Keep Fin (cost s$102 mill)
2. Amnesty Fin (costs $51 mill)
3. Trade Fin for expirers (costs $30 mill)

As for Joe/Cuban, I have no idea. I would hope that he would.