"There have, in NBA history, been two sign-and-trades that netted anything resembling a significant return. In one, Detroit lucked into Ben Wallace. In the other, Phoenix - and Bryan Colangelo - uncovered Boris Diaw. I suspect a bidding war isn't happening, because I suspect Bosh will make a decision to go to one team, and one team only. And while it's great that Colangelo has pulled one of these suckers off before, it's essentially a matter of garnering the most possible pennies on the dollar. Is David Lee the best-case scenario? Maybe, if you wanted the worst defensive frontcourt in human history. Magic time, Bryan."Bruce Arthur, National Post
This was the response Bruce Arthur gave to a question I posed during our last roundtable.
The question was regarding returns Raptors' fans could expect from a sign-and-trade and Arthur noted that because Bosh probably has an expected team (or teams) in mind in terms of where he'd be willing to play next year, it would be Bosh that was holding the sign-and-trade power, not Toronto.
With the announcement late Friday that Bosh and his agent indeed had five specific teams they were interested in being part of for next season (Toronto, Miami, New York, Chicago and LA), Arthur seems to be bang on. With no Houston, Dallas or Golden State in the picture, suddenly the Raps' chances of getting solid assets in return for their franchise player seem fairly slim.
I mean, yes I own a Michael Beasley K-State jersey, and he's one of my favourite college players of all time.
But do I want to see him on the Raptors?
Um...not so much.
How do you feel about a David Lee/Andrea Bargnani front-court next year then? We had thought that because Lee was an unrestricted free-agent he couldn't be packaged but apparently that's not the case; the Knicks would have to sign-and-trade him in return for Bosh (therefore this would be a double sign-and-trade situation) but it can be done.
But is that the defensive look you're going for next year?
I hope not.
I'm not going into the pros and cons and assets of each club, TSN.ca's Tim Chisholm does a great job of that in this post, but let's just say as expected, there isn't a lot of great ROI opportunities at the present.
Even the best case scenario, which would see Bosh shipped to the Western Conference and Andrew Bynum heading North, isn't great. Bynum's not exactly the most motivated individual, has battled fairly serious injuries in his relatively young career, and who keeps him in line minus Kobe and Phil?
Furthermore, why would LA even do this? They look to be well on their way to at least another title shot and should they win it all, I can't imagine the Lakers messing with the chemistry they've got, taking on even more financial obligations, and experimenting with a duplication of skill-sets to a large degree by pairing Gasol with Bosh.
However as mentioned to start this Sunday thought, it looks like Bryan Colangelo may simply have to take what he can get in the end. If that's Udonis Haslem, that's Udonis Haslem. If it's Kirk Hinrich, it's Kirk Hinrich.
Because of what I believe a deal with the Lakers will never come to pass, I think the Bulls become Toronto's best chance at getting value for Bosh. Taj Gibson is a nice young player, a solid post defender, and some great insurance should Toronto be unable to retain Amir Johnson. Hinrich and Luol Deng have some value despite their contracts. And soon-to-be sophomore James Johnson was indeed a BC favourite last year during draft time. He was brought back for a second work-out in fact, and his size and athleticism could be a major boost for Toronto. As well, the Bulls have the highest pick in this year's draft of the four "wish list clubs." A package of Gibson, Hinrich, James Johnson and/or the Bulls 17th pick in this year's draft, makes moving Bosh a little easier to swallow. At least under this proposed scenario you've got two to three "upside players" coming in thereby giving fans some hope at the future.
And that's more than can be said for the club at present.