Another use for cap room

Judging from the Blazers offer to Hedo, they look to be exprecting around $8mil in cap space. But now that he is looking to become a Raptor what do we do?

No one else on the Market is a real fit, even Hedo was kind of a stretch with that offer. A lopsided trade is another option, but management has said that signing a player was part 1 of a 2 part plan. Now its possible that extending Roy and Aldridge was what they meant. It is also possible that something else has already been agreed upon with the players we're willing to trade.

So what to do if you can't sign a good fit or make a lopsided trade?

Well you can "buy" a future 1st rounder by taking on a bad contract of ~$8mil or less along with a pick in a trade. Its not unheard of, as Utah (another team that struggles to attract FA's) did just this a few years back.

Using Storyteller's excellent site I've listed out some possible fits that are not over $8mil/yr, not/little used on the court and expire no later than the '10/'11 season from teams that atleast consider costs.

Here they are with team, player, (millions salary '09/'10,millions salary '10/'11):

CHL: Nazr Mohammed ($6.5, $6.9)

CHI: Jerome James ($6.6)

IND: Jamaal Tinsley ($7.2, $7.5)

MEM: Marko Jaric ($7.1, $7.6)

MEM: Greg Buckner ($4.1, $4.3)

MIL: Dan Gadzuric ($6.7, $7.2)

MIN: Darius Songaila ($4.5, $4.8)

NOH: Antonio Daniels ($6.6)

NOH: Morris Peterson ($6.0, $6.4)

UTH: Matt Harpring ($6.5)

WAS: Mike James ($6.5)

Some notes:

I'm not saying these players ARE so valueless tthat their team will pay us to take them, but these are the probable suspects for such a deal and every team above has reasons. Also, each player has a different value to us as a guy like Tinsley would just be paid to go away whereas Nazr Mohommed can be an emergency big man and solid practice player, but thats neither here nor there as its the pick we'd be most interested in.

A player with two years owed would also (obviously) be more appealing for a team to deal away as its double the savings. For us there could be extra value as well as we'd get to have an expiring contract (always a hot commodity) to play around with after next season on top of a draft choice.

At its best we can get a bench riding vet which is good if you want experience, but bad if you want more experience out on the floor. Whatever second move is in place can still happen, and we go into a future draft with more options than a single late pick.

So would you make a trade where we took someone else's mess for a pick (probably with protections), or are we beyond this type of future-centric move and need to add talent now?