I got it...

All right, here’s the deal (assuming I have my numbers right*):

Oklahoma City. They have expiring contracts, and nothing good to buy with them. There is NO CHANCE LeBron or Wade are going to Oklahoma. None. Zero. And they know it.

Meanwhile, they have a nice young core with a potential superstar and a half (Durant and Westbrook). But they have some gaping holes, particularly in their front court.

So here’s my Stephanski trade:

Sammy and Speights
for
Etan Thomas and Earl Watson

In terms of money, it’s about the same (roughly $14M per package), but the Thomas/Watson package comes off the books in Summer 2010. ‘Dre walked and took $10M in salary with him. We were projected to be about $3M over the cap next summer if we’d kept ‘Dre. But subtract this $24M total (‘Dre, Thomas, Watson) from that, and we’ll be sitting at $21M under the cap next summer. And you know what that means.

Why would the Thunder do it? Because they’d get an athletic shot-blocking center to play alongside Nenad Krstic, plus a young near-stud at the 4 to play behind Jeff Green. And they give up next to nothing for it. The 2009 Thunder would look like this (backups in parens):

1 – Russell Westbrook (Shaun Livingston)
2 – James Harden (Kyle Weaver)
3 – Kevin Durant (T. Sefolosha)
4 – Jeff Green (Speights)
5 – Dalembert (Krstic)

With the right coach, that team looks a little scary, no?

Anyway, this is what’s up, Ed. Call me. I’ll walk you through the deets.

-G

*I have only a minimal handle on the cap rules, so take this with a grain of salt.