I know GMs who say they wouldn’t touch him now in free agency for the midlevel exception. Only one team was left: the Kings, with a new ownership group determined to make a splash and a new GM, Pete D’Alessandro, who worked with Toronto GM Masai Ujiri in Denver. The Kings’ wing rotation is a disaster, even after the recent acquisition of Derrick Williams, who has never resembled an NBA-caliber small forward. The Williams swap and DeMarcus Cousins max-level extension left Sacramento without meaningful projected cap room this summer, putting the Kings in a position where they could plausibly look at Gay’s $19 million player option for 2014-15 and say, “No harm, no foul.” The Raptors were betting Gay would pick up that option given his poor play this season, and dealing Gay allows them to plan with more certainty.Īnd so here we are: The last remaining Rudy Gay suitor has agreed to send four rotation players to Toronto in exchange for Gay and (very tall) salary filler. If you’re even a medium-level NBA fan, you probably know the names of all four players going to Toronto. But don’t be fooled: This is a salary dump. This is not about Patrick Patterson, or Greivis Vasquez, the league’s second-leading assist man last season.
This is about Toronto sloughing off Gay’s endless barrage of midrange bricks and beginning a full teardown - with the potential for a top-five pick in this draft, max-level cap space this summer, and similar space every summer going forward. Here’s the thing: This deal, by itself, may well make the 2013-14 Raptors better. And that’s why we should expect the Raptors to begin (or continue) gauging the market for both DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry as we approach December 15, after which most free agents who signed over the summer are trade-eligible again. Dwane Casey, the team’s head coach, may also be in trouble, depending on Ujiri’s timetable with the position, per several league sources. The current version of Gay is basically a harmful player. He used 30 percent of Toronto’s possessions with a shot, turnover, or drawn foul - a gargantuan usage rate reserved for the league’s biggest scoring stars. He’s also shooting 38.8 percent for the season. That is a historically rare combination of shot chucking and brick laying. Only three players in league history have used more than 30 percent of their team’s possessions while shooting below 40 percent: Jerry Stackhouse, Baron Davis, and Allen Iverson (twice). Those other guys could at least point to heaps of free throws or solid assist numbers. Gay can point to neither, in part because he has never been an intuitive passer who can read the floor at NBA speed. This trade took some finagling to get the salaries to be acceptable for trade so veteran SF's would be swapped and Butler could play the same role as Prince was playing in MIN, then Anderson and Miller would need to be included and the Kings and Karl love Miller.He has shot the 3-pointer well this season, the one shred of evidence that his fabled vision-improvement surgery might have worked (wink!).
This is a big upgrade offensively and is a player who could make an instant impact. In the second scenario the Kings get Martin, who is a former King and has been on the market for some time. Anyways, this first scenario here allows the Kings to get a wing player with a lot of potential who is slightly cheaper than Mclemore. The Twolves have been rumored to be interested in Mclemore for some reason I can't figure out because they have a plethora of young guards. Kings get: Kevin Martin, Tayshaun Prince, and Andre Miller Timberwolves get: Ben Mclemore, Caron Butler, and James Anderson To make the salaries matchup the teams would swap centers and the Kings get an expiring Mozgov contract. The Kings would greatly benefit from this getting a defensive wing player they desperately need without giving up much. The Cavs have expressed interest in him and Koufos and have also been searching for a new home for Shumpert. Mclemore has been struggling with the Kings and it has been rumored that the Kings are working with him to find him a new home. Kings get: Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov Cavaliers get: Ben Mclemore and Kosta Koufos