2009 Blazersedge Mock Draft:  Friday

even the ones that get to be gms for teams with no picks, and are going to just watch the draft.

Amare, Shaq and Nash are available but only if you blow me away with an offer.

Quite Frankly, the Portland Trail Blazers have no idea what they are doing right now.

But before that I need to continue to browse some Mavs boards to identify the biggest needs. It of course also depends a bit on if I’m confident Kidd can be re-signed, otherwise that changes plans.

Anyway, while I probably won’t be able to top landing Josh Howard at #29 or a draft day deal for Devin Harris (or maybe I can? Washington, here we go again), I feel confident that I and the Mavs can improve from the otherwise horrible draft history of the last decade. Featuring names like Nick Fazekas over Marc Gasol, Maurice Ager, Pavel Podkolzine, trading away Delonte West, trading away Etan Thomas, Courtney Alexander, …

Happy drafting to all

and just so the public can hear it too… This project is about the draft, not about entire teams being overhauled. Any trades that are discussed should mostly center around draft picks with enough additional thrown in to make those draft pick trades plausible. They shouldn’t center around other assets with a draft pick thrown in to make it fit into this exercise.

—Dave

ALL GM activity must be one these boards? Does that mean that no GMs can get away secret trades that they pull with their picks after the pick is made?

Or can some trades be set up through email between teams so that they can have some sort of advantage of missing information?

Do we know when the fake draft date is? I’m assuming it is a couple of days before the actual draft.

Who is The Readers of Blazersedge?

This looks pretty cool!

I’m not too interested in Ricky ‘European’ Rubio if he was to fall to me the Euro’s in previous drafts have underperformed if taken high in the draft. I was thinking ,

Darko Milicic 2nd overall pick in 2003, Nikoloz Tskitishvili 5th overall pick in 2002

we really are looking for a point guard but there are lots of point talent in the draft.

good luck!

The spurs would like to offer Tony Parker and Ime Udoka for Sergio Rodriguez and the 24….

What can I say? I can’t hide the team I really root for.

Seriously though, can I offer to buy a pick(since I don’t have one), or should trades not assume an owner is willing to fork out 3 million? I think I am going to have a pretty boring draft day, but thats ok….

23 is available but it will cost more then 3 million

Toronto’s GM checking in and feeling good about our draft position. There looks to be a very strong run of PG’s before the #9 pick. Fortunately for me, Jose Calderon will man that position for years to come.

It appears that a run of SG’s and SF’s begins at #9 and ends in the mid-teens. It is always nice to have the fallback position of drafting any of the six players that I want in this draft range. Another possibility would be to consider trading down a few spots if it offers me the opportunity to acquire additional picks.

As of right now, I have three plausible trade scenarios. I will submit each one of them as a response to this message.

But who am I? Really? Does anyone know? Let’s just assume I’m Donn Nelson. While the draft is a frustrating distraction from sipping pina coladas on hawaiian beaches, we are a young team in transition with a high lottery pick that needs to be an impact player. Gien recent lottery picks spent on raw frontcourt players Anthony Randolph and Brandan Wright and my team’s lack of a true PG, our draft needs are fairly clear cut. With the depth at the PG spot, it is highly unlikely we will need to trade up to get a player that will help our team. Would gladly trade the pick for an experienced starter at the , 4 or 5. Will consider trading down, but it will take some combination of a prospect we like falling and getting an offer that clearly helps our team. Unless you hae a clear goal for the #7 pick assume we will hold on to it

SA Wouldn’t you be interested in taking the player the Blazers have their hearts set on after last year when they stole Batum from under your nose.

This move is what I like to call the Offensive Foul was the heading on this before I moved it over here

Priority #1 – Get rid of Eddy Curry and Jared Jeffries’ contracts.
Priority #2 – Plan on getting two 2010 Max Free Agents (LBJ, Wade, Bosh, Amare, Dirk, JJ)
Priority #3 – Bring in players for D’Antoni’s system
Priority #4 – Bring in a package of cheap players and or picks.
Priority #5 – Use pick #8, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler to accomplish goals (either as building blocks or trade assets).

Portland Trade Worth Discussing:
Portland Gets: Jared Jeffries and Pick #8
New York Gets: Travis Outlaw, Sergio Rodriguez and Picks #33 and #38

Maybe if you all started your posts with “From MAVS:” or “From NETS:” or whatever applies.

The Lakers are shopping the following:

“Bad Contracts”

Sasha Vujacic — $5.04M

Luke Walton — $4.84M

Adam Morrison — $5.26M

“Great Contracts”

DJ Mbenga © — $1M not fully guaranteed

Josh Powell (PF) — $1M not fully guaranteed

Hey.
Remember us? We’re the best team in the world! Well. Sort of tied for the best. The Lakers are pretty much team 1a, and we’re team 1b. And let me tell you, 1b isn’t that bad.
It feels good to be in this position, but it takes work to stay at the top. It takes a lot of work just to stay at the second top too. But we’re willing to put in the effort.
Maybe you’re willing to put in the effort as well. If you are, we have an exciting proposal for you.
It works like this. You trade us a second round pick. Any pick will do. We can’t give you anything back this year. But next year, watch out! Next year in 2010, we will give a second round pick back, and we will pay you back in spades by giving you a second round pick in 2011! You know how weak this draft is. You want these picks later. You do. And remember, if you give us the pick now, and we give the two picks later, you come out ahead. How do we turn one pick into two picks? Simple. Every team will give us a pick in this fantastic trade opportunity. And you will get your second pick back from us by dealing directly with the other teams in the league to get them give you their pick two years from now. You get our pick from them. That’s how it works.

What’s that?

Pyramid scheme?

I don’t really like that term. And the FTC told us this was fine back in 1979.

So are you ready to deal?

I, the Memphis Grizzlies, am willing to deal any of our picks, only if the one of the following are met:

1) Low post scorer
2) Low Post banger who can rebound and Block Shots

Those looking to get into the draft, I have one last first rounder (#27) and one early second rounder (#36)

Ricky Rubio is available for the right offer, and so is Conley.

I will be in touch with some of you individually to see if we can make something work.

Steve Kerr here again. Contrary to popular belief, the Phoenix Suns will not be selling this year’s first round pick for cash. It will actually take a significant trade offer to move into that slot.

It’s a small wonder Tom Penn would rather stay an underling in Portland than be the big chief in Minnesota.

“We” Timberwolves have only seven players under contract for the 2010-2011 season, and that’s if we make a qualifying offer to Sheldon Williams (ha!) and Rodney Carney (a maybe). Of the remaining five, three are guys with recent or ongoing injury issues (Jefferson, Foye, and Brewer), and one of the remaining two is Telfair. Minnesota has one guy who hasn’t been injured and doesn’t clearly suck, and that’s Kevin Love.

Minnesota is not taking trade offers for Kevin Love (or Al Jefferson, for that matter).

Talk about a team that’s going to be active in the free agent market next year. Anyway, we need to get some building blocks.

Mike Miller’s talent and 9.75M expiring contract are available for decent young players and /or picks. Brian Cardinal’s $6.75M expiring contract and lack of talent are available for young players and/or picks also.

As a team trying to rebuild and cut costs for the 2010 offseason, Tayshaun Prince and Rip Hamilton are avaliable for expiring contracts, young talent and/or picks

-Joe Dumars

I’m the Philadelphia 76ers GM. I’m just checking in and confirming my awesome status. It feels weird referring to another team in the first/third person (I’m often reluctant to say “we” about things the blazers do) but I’m trying some method acting to get into the GM mindset.

I have the 17th pick and no expiring contracts for next year. So if anyone doesn’t want cap space for the epic 2010 class but wants13mil off the books in 2011 I have a Dalembert that you would absolutely love.

This is not yet an official trade offer, just exploring your interest. We know you have been desperately trying to move Jamaal Tinsley, have sent him home for the whole last season, have removed his nameplate from his locker and never want to see him again. We also know he has sued you together with the players association to either play him or waive him if you can’t get a deal done, and if an arbitrator forces you to waive him you will sit on his remaining salary because no team will pick him up off waivers.

The deal would work under CBA rules/trade machine, and you could save ca. $5 million instantly this year by renouncing Stackhouse’s only partially guaranteed contract before August 10 and $13 million over the remainder of Tinsley’s contract ($7,200,000 + $7,650,000 – $2 million guaranteed to Stackhouse). Basically we want to save you a lot of money from a player who has burned all bridges with you and be compensated for our troubles. Our team is experienced in rescuing players with some character issues, our chemistry is strong.

Also, you screwed us a bit last year by trading us Shawne Williams who you wanted to get rid of (now we know why) for Eddie Jones and two second round picks including this year’s #52. So you owe us anyway :)

Pick #3 is on the table, just as it is in real life. I will be picking at that position unless something better is offered. I am looking for a big man or a all star slasher at the #2.

how exactly does trading for a BYC player work. If i get an offer that involves one, how do I get the salaries to match up?

Is there a player you like enough at #7 to moe up? This would of course be contingent on my being able to get a PG at your slot, but that seems to be a reasonable scenario

Supposedly there have been some rumors of a Manu trade. I personally don’t believe it, but just for fun, make me an offer!

I know you said you were looking for a low post scorer and a rebounder/shot blocker. I think that Randolph really could help with two of those three. I know he brings no shot blocking, but could perhaps be a good fit down low next to Gasol. I’d be interested in taking the number two pick off your hands and absorbing Greg Buckner and Marko Jaric.

I offer Randolph because he’s the scorer you mention, but I’d be willing to consider Camby as well.

I havent had a whole lot of time to check my payroll, or what other picks I have besides #5 because I actually have to work during the day. So expect that I will do most of my dealings in the late afternoon/evening hours.

What I will say is this. Im looking to use the #5 pick, but with the right package I could possibly be swayed. I like Caron Butler…… a lot. Jameson is on the market, but not for table scraps.

Hibachi is off limits, we just paid him and he is finally healthy.

I will talk about anybody else, but dont try and play me for the fool. I know my ish.

talk soon GM’s

derftron

Look, I just put together the best team we’ve had in Milwaukee since we had Ray Allen, and everything went to hell in a hand-basket because everyone got injured. Please its really not my fault, I only got here a year ago.

From the franchise that has had arguably two of the best players to ever to play the game in Lew Alcindor (I know I hadn’t heard of him either) and Oscar Robertson (PLAYING TOGETHER AT THE SAME TIME!!) comes the draft which we are intimately familiar with.

You want back room deals? We got them. You want Luke Ridnour at 6.5 million a year? Too bad he’s ours. How about a guy who spends his time hitting his head on the rim? Well he sits on OUR bench! Seriously what I am looking for here is a revamp. We know we’ve made some mistakes in the past, but this year we’re coming back with a vengeance like Die Hard.

While sitting at the number 10 spot, we’ve got a lot of room to make some trades. We are looking to move up, back, and out of this draft all together. Our main focus will not be in saving money this year, we are looking forward to a continued commitment to Richard Jefferson. While rumors last year had him on the trading block, let me assure my loyal fan base that those were merely rumors, I would not trade our best player in his prime just for salary considerations. I really thought Raef could play.

When my wife actually called him and cleared up the fact that no he actually can’t, I was pretty relieved that Kevin Pritchard had taken me by the side and explained why I needed to get back on my medication. Whew, close call there.

But anyways, I’m back on my meds, and this Bucks team, couldn’t be in a better position, nor in better hands. With the commissioner enacting a “no big trades on draft day” rule (I think he was looking at me when he said this), this has made things significantly more difficult. So without further ado, this what the proud Bucks of Milwaukee are looking for in a draft day trade.

Our assets:
Joe Alexander (Dude is athletic as heck, would have won the slam dunk contest were it not for some Singing Spaniard getting all the votes) [ed. note: Strong athlete, a little bit of a project, works hard as heck]
Luke Ridnour (Has been pleading with me to let him return to Oregon, something about having a year of eligibility left) [ed. note Puts up decent numbers, is an expiring contract, smart with the ball and gets the ball into the post from the wing with regularity]
Charlie Bell (Said he didn’t want to play in Milwaukee, but we showed him!) [ed. note: Strong leadership presence, is a great back-up SG and has a very reasonable contract]
Dan Gadzuric (That guy offers a bet every year to the GMs’ that he is going to learn how to use hands, and every year the GM make ten bucks off of him, so I want to keep him) (ed. note: Nothing to add here)

What we are looking for:
With Charlie V (of twitter fame) and Ramon Sessions RFA’s this year, we are looking for someone to be able to step in immediately and fill one of these spots. If we are going to step back from the number 10 spot we are going to need to be offered either a scoring PF or a serviceable PG. If we are going to move up we’ve got to be moving up all the way to the number 7 or a closer spot, or we need to see some tangible benefit from the trade.

While we are not opposed to much larger trades or trades with players that were not mentioned above, to make those trades however we would need to definitely see a bit of (maybe ridiculous?) upside on our end that does not include salary considerations. We are not interested in veterans, we’ve got enough of them, we’re generally not interested in projects. We are however interested in getting a decent 6th man.

So to recap:
What we are interested in- (in order)
A decent PG
A scoring PF
or a strong 6th man.

Our owner does have fairly deep pockets, so getting Charlie V and Sessions both back are possibilities, not likely, but they are possibilities, and so if nothing comes our way we have no problem staying right where we are in the draft.

(Entire last portion edited by the Assistant GM’s. Mr. Hammond just wrote Lebron James fifty times, and apparently thought that would be enough).

If you are interested in moving up to #3 to get your PG of the future, I have a trade in mind… please let me know

I have a potential deal in the works for the number 2 pick in this draft. It certainly isn’t a done deal at all, but I’m working on it.

I’ve heard that you may be coveting Ricky Rubio, and he might not make it to pick #4. I would be very interested in Pick #4 and something else you might be able to offer if I can obtain pick #2 for you.

I gotta say.. whiie I like the format of being able to comment on unreasonable trades, since everyone and their mom is doing a nice KP impersonation, its pretty tough to get any deals considered because everyone knows what you are working on. I feel like houstons GM getting hosed by KP and having to pass up on the Roy-Foye deal

If you have some moolah/cap space lying around, we’ve got a scoring and defending big man who could be had for the right price in Josh Smith.

Putting my Rick Sund hat on (IQ draining away), I don’t really like to trade up in the draft, but my kind of guy is up there in Thabeet.

I do have a great history of drafting good players for other people in the 2nd round (Landry and Big Baby two years ago), so let me know if you want to use my 2nd round #19 for a steal.

Smith is a pretty valuable guy. He has some head issues, but this is the NBA, who doesn’t. And we want to keep Zaza if we can afford to re-sign him (which we probably can).

We’re trying to keep costs low, so taking on T-Mac doesn’t make much sense in that arrangement.

I’ve heard rumors you’d be interested in moving up into the lottery. The New York Knicks would be happy to oblige at the cost of Jerry Stackhouse, Shawne Williams, Matt Carroll (combined they played 470 minutes last year) and pick #22.

You’d move up into the #8 spot and have your pick of a couple superior players, including a couple potential Kidd replacements. For this you’d have to take on Eddy Curry and Jared Jeffries. We’d also send you 3 million dollars in cash.

The reason you do this: You move into the lottery and it costs you nothing. Dallas isn’t going to have cap room next summer no matter what they do (unless Dirk opts out). This move will save the team cap space in years 3 and 4 when they might actually be able to use it by taking Matt Carroll off the books.

The reason I do this: I open up 13.4 million dollars in extra cap space for the summer of 2010 (an important summer for the Knicks). That will leave the NYK’s approximately 53 million dollars under the cap.

This would be a post draft deal…

New York Knicks Get:
Jerry Stackhouse
Shawne Williams
Matt Carroll
Pick #22

Dallas Mavericks Get:
Eddy Curry
Jared Jeffries
Pick #8

Eddy Curry wouldn’t be totally useless, as he may in fact be the only interior scorer on that team. The Mavericks leading scorer in the paint last year was Dampier at 4 points per game (yikes! bad).

I am willing to move back to your pick, especially if it can facilitate an AK47 for Maggete swap. I have a large number of cheap young players and trade exceptions to fill out the salary difference with. If there’s a package that jumps out at you please let me know

In spite of the fact that the rest of the world MAY have forgotten that we exist up here since “The Fight”, we came pretty damned close to making the playoffs this last time and we’re eager to dip our toes in a quick first-round exit.

With that in mind, I will listen to offers for any of my available players, except for Granger, Hibbert and Rush. Obviously, some are more available than others and and I wouldn’t be averse to moving up in the draft. Many trade scenarios would likely have to involve Tinsley in some form or fashion.

I will trade you one albatross (Jamaal Tinsley) for two of your problems (Jefferies and Sene) and swap picks. My 13 for your 8.

It’s not a pretty trade, but did you REALLY think Steph Curry was still going to be available at 8 anyway???