another chance for the thunder to get a good young guy cheaply

But I know we would have to give them a first rounder….and/or the expireing contract that we have as well

10 out of 15 of NY’s roster has expiring contracts. Hill and Jeffries’ contracts along with Douglas, Chandler, and Gallinari are the 5 that the Knick will not have to worry about resigning. I see NY keeping those players as cheap rebuilding pieces.

Also NY does not have any 1st rounders (Utah has NY’s 1st round pick), only two 2nd rounders . NY will have to negotiate contracts with at least 7 players. That would be 9 to 12 contract negotiations if NY deals Hill and Jefferies.

From the OKC point of view. I think Presti is pretty happy with Mullens and Ibaka and wouldn’t want to give up his picks that easily.

Did anyone see the chris bosh story on nba.com? It is basically saying okc has one of the stronger pushes to get bosh by february if it chooses to do so. I’m not so hot on losing green as they proposed we probably would have to do, although its hard to deny bosh being an upgrade. What does everyone else think about this?

right now Green has played well, but he can’t rebound well enough at the power forward spot and would be a good trade piece to have to land a superstar. I think Jeff Green, DJ White, Etan Thomas, and 2 first round picks would work.
Then We could have
Russel Westbrook/ Eric Maynor/ Kyle Weaver
Thabo Sefolosha/ James Harden/ Kyle Weaver
Kevin Durant/ James Harden/ Thabo
pf Bosh/ Serge Ibanka/ Nick Collison
c Nenad Kristic/ Nick collison/ BJ Mullins/ Serge Ibanka

Linkified NBA Bosh Story!

Good read. They even propose the question to a few Thunder players. Durant seems kinda against it.

I changed my mind a bit. Why trade all those assets when we can just sign him in the off-season???

Keep green around for chemistry reasons. Make bosh the final part of the puzzle, not a replacement for one of the core pieces… Sorry I couldn’t link it from my blackberry. Ha

its going to be pretty crowded downlow because Nenad and Collison still have to get minutes, then there is Serge and DJ.
you’d have to free up minutes

PG-Westbrook, Maynor
SG-Thabo, Harden, Weaver
SF-Durant, (1st round draft pick)
PF-Green, Ibaka, White
C-Bosh, Krstic, Mullens

i would miss collison though. he’s just really came off the bench strong this year and sparked things when we needed it in certain games… at this point, he seems to be playing better than krstic in my opinion. he’s got an accurate, soft touch on the offensive end, hustles his butt offand is playing killer D, and lets not forget the 1-2 drawn charges that could very well be the deciding factor of a tight game sometime. sure, krstic can shoot, but collison isnt the worst shooter and should still be able to draw out defenders if needed, which is krstic’s only real strength in my opinion. so i say keep allowing ibaka to come in at center and add more of a banger style to coincide with bosh, but collison could be a nice change of pace also to round things off. it’s just hard to see ibaka becoming a solid PF to me just do to his very rough ball handling. he reminds me of a potential dwight howard type center with the solid shot blocking, solid rebounding, but restricted to pretty much under the basket offense with a short jumper here and there. also, through looking at next year’s draft, there are a few potential spots i think could be wisely filled… damion james (texas stud SF who scores 17.7 ppg and 11.2 rpg, lord knows we could use some extra rebounding power, plus jan vesely (czech rep.) would be fantastic addictions in my opinion. the mock draft i was checking out had us taking dexter pittman (texas) first in the 1st, then jan with our second 1st round pick. they had damion right after us going to houston, i say we dont miss the opportunity to pick up a needed SF with potential and waste it on pittman..this is all considering we dont waste both our first 2 picks for bosh. hopefully we can give dj white(still just not too sold on white)etan thomas, krstic and our 2nd round pick for bosh, but i’m guessing they’ll want one of the 1st round picks, in that event, i’d probably take the more versatile vesely.
what i’d like to see:
PG: westbrook/maynor
SG: sefalosha/harden/weaver
SF: durant/vesely/(possibly damion james)
PF: green/collison/vesely
C: bosh/collison/ibaka

i forgot to add mullens, so i guess we’d have to just work on ibaka’s handling and add some more range to his shot (which isn’t too bad as of now) and put him at PF afterall. if he gets to where he has a dependable dribble and can drive the lane/baseline with his power, who would stop him? i see a lot of upside in mullens too (i watched him in his d-league stint). he crashes the boards hard and can shoot really well. got a pretty nice hook shot as well which will only improve over time, and at 7’0", that could be a nice weapon to have. so my revised lineup would be:
PG: westbrook/maynor
SG: sefalosha/harden/weaver
SF: durant/vesely/(possibly damion james)
PF: green/ibaka/vesely
C: bosh/collison/mullens

Kristic seems the obvioius choice to leave, one sided player, Collison can play power forward and center, the versatility is needed.
I think thunder trade Kristic for a second round pick and sign Craig Smith, a guy who can rebound and score well downlow, does a lot in short spurts
draft a sf in draft, and sign craig smith

someone asked in a thread a few days ago about going after Al Jefferson and i said i would pass on it, but then i went and looked both at the stats Al is putting up but also i remembered the fact that even today it hasnt been a full year since he hurt the knee as that was early february last year. Chris Bosh is not a center, but back to Al. If you look at his numbers this year, they are improving with each month to the point that right now he is up to 21.1 pts 11.6 rebounds a game on 51% shooting. I am usually very against making deals that add long term salary to this team and my worry in what i am about to suggest is messing with the chemistry of this team, but if Minnesota wants to deal Al I would be interested, though they probably wouldnt take my deal.

Collison, Harden/Green (i think they would want Harden cause they need a scorer more than anything and have Love unless they want to move Brewer down to the 2 and let Jeff play his more natural spot at the 3), our lower number 1 pick for Al and their pick (unprotected). This move is basically salary cap neutral next year cause we eliminate Collison’s year remaining. It would also let us dump Kristic if we could for whatever or maybe they want him instead of Nick, either way.

This move would give us a player with legit center size, who can score on the block and also a shot at a top 3 pick this year. If it is Harden that they want i would want Evan Turner who i think is a Brandon Roy/Caron Butler type player who can play the 2 w excellent size, rebounds and is great all around. there is always the possibility you land a Wall and if you do you have to take him and let him and Russ figure out playing together.

What people need to also remember about Bosh is that if he signs a max deal this offseason he is going to be making over 20 mil a year for a good portion of that deal and by the time he is 31 under that deal he will be getting upwards of 25 mil a year. With all the young players we already have and need to sign to spend 25 mil on bosh means either other players will end up gone or Bennett will have to pay serious luxury tax. At a minimum say Green, Russ and KD are all here in 3 years they will be taking (15 KD, 9 Jeff, 9 Russ) 33 million. Maybe it is bias against Bosh but i dont think he is a worth 20+ mil for most of his deal.

Bosh has it all, he is a fantastic leader, a great scorer, good passer, rebounder, and okay defender. Al Jefferson is a bad defender and a black hole on offense, and he isn’t the leader Bosh is. Brendon Haywood is very injury prone, a bad scorer, and is kinda slow.
Bosh is the answer. Just look what Bosh did with the Raptors. There team was horrible but he made them a playoff team. Imagine what Bosh could do with this Thunder team. How good would the Thunder be if they had two superstars in Bosh and Kevin Durant. How hard would they be to stop. Then if you signed Bosh to like a five year deal, imagine him in his prime playing with an older Durant, an older Westbrook, an older James Harden, and an older Jeff Green. Thats scary to see how good the Thunder could be. Al Jefferson is basically like Zach Randolph, he will put up great stats, but isn’t gonna help the team that much. Bosh is and if he was on the Thunder, they could win championships, many championships.

If they could figure out a way to get bosh, keep green, and somehow find the financial answer to keeping this lineup together, I would see championships being very possible as the young core improves. It’d be amazing to watch too. What would go through the opposing team’s mind when westbrook, harden or thabo, durant, green and bosh walk onto the court?… Ha

I think more a long the lines of 6-7 mil with incentives