Your Dream Whirlwind Offseason

Hopefully the meetings that are reportedly happening between owners and players can get us to an agreement by Wednesday.  I doubt it, but my fingers are still crossed.  The players have to realize that they are not going to get anything over 50% BRI, and hope to tweak the mid-level exception and sign and trade restraints to make this work

That being said if we do get an agreement by Wednesday, then what will follow will be a feeding frenzy in free agency.  We will be working under new rules, may see some amnesty victims, and will have plenty of options out there.

I know I'm being overly optimistic, but I haven't been able to throw out a potential trade or FA pick up all summer.  I had to let myself daydream a second.  For this daydream, I will use the $58 mil cap and $72 mil luxary tax mark from last year.

Everyone knows we need a SG, with the new rules this will probably be our best chance to obtain one.  Once, we pay DRose, we'll be over the cap and with the new restrictions in sign and trades and the use of the MLE for teams in the luxary tax, it doesn't look too good.

As is, we are looking at $65.8 mil on the books, meaning we are already over the cap, but not yet in luxary tax land.  I'm looking for a trade to get our SG.  The  more I think about it, the less I like the idea of adding a Jason Richardson, Jamal Crawford or Vince Carter on this team.  We need a SG that hasn't hit their talent ceiling.  The two best options are OJ Mayo and Arron Affalo, I'll take Affalo because of his defense and I just like what I've read about him after seeing that article last week.  I love Taj, but he's expendable, so I send him and Korver to DEN for Affalo, who is signed to a 4 yr/ 26 mil deal, that gives you a perfect compliment to DRose in the backcourt for years to come.  I may be by myself on this but I think he can be a "healthy Brandon Roy" type.  

Our roster would then look like this at $66.3 mil:

PG DRose / Watson

SG Affalo / Brewer / Bogans

SF Deng / Butler

PF Boozer

C Noah / Asik

So now, seems to me we need to get someone to back up for Boozer.  I'd suggest Josh McRoberts.  He's not the defender that Taj is, but he would be more effective offensively, and may be a perfect compliment to Asik coming off the bench.  I'm not sure of his market value, but I would think using half of our MLE at say 2 yr/ 5 mil would be a nice contract for someone coming off an $800,000 contract.  That takes us to $68.8 mil and this lineup:

PG DRose / Watson

SG Affalo/ Brewer / Bogans

SF Deng / Butler

PF Boozer / McRoberts

C Noah / Asik

I like what I've heard about rookie Jimmy Butler, but I'd feel more comfortable with a veteran presence behind Luol.  We got lucky that he was relatively healthy for the year, I'm not so sure he holds up under those minutes again this year.  I doubt we'll be able to afford Battier, Butler, or AK47, but there were 3 names I saw that interested me, Josh Howard, Al Thornton, and Mike Dunleavy.  Dunleavy would be a nice offensive threat off the bench, especially with Korver going in the deal, he would give us a shooter off the bench.  He gets the other half of our MLE.  Add in a veteran C at the minimum and we're good to go. 

PG DRose / Watson

SG Affalo / Brewer / Bogans

SF Deng / Dunleavy / Butler

PF Boozer / McRoberts

C Noah / Asik / vet C