|
As I expected, pretty much all of the trades suggested in the comments of my previous post were weighted too heavily in the Raptors' favor. Hey, we're all Raptors fans, so what did I expect? While none of the "pre-packaged" trade ideas seemed all that realistic, one commenter did suggest a reasonably feasible trading partner.
A commenter named "jimmy" proposed a trade that would send Jose Calderon and Sonny Weems to Detroit for Rodney Stuckey, Jason Maxiell and Kwame Brown. I like this trade for the Raptors but I'm skeptical that the Pistons would be willing to give up both Stuckey and Maxiell for Calderon, so I tweaked this deal a little and came up with this: Calderon, Patrick O'Bryant and part of a trade exception from the Kapono-Evans deal to Detroit for Maxiell, Kwame and Will Bynum.
Why does Detroit do this? They get a true point guard to complement their multiple scoring options. Why does Toronto do this? Maxiell provides lane intimidation off the bench (he averages 1.9 blocks per 36 minutes in his career), Bynum is an expiring contract and a productive scorer who can back up Jarrett Jack, and Kwame is a $4 million expiring contract. The Raptors would save over $14 million by replacing Calderon's contract with Maxiell's remaining three years (including a $5 million player option that I assume he would activate).
Now, I know this trade won't knock any of your socks off, but I think I'd have to seriously consider this for the financial relief and for the addition of a hard-nosed player like Maxiell. I don't think he'd make that much of a significant impact on team defence, but he would certainly make the team less soft. With Jack inserted into the starting lineup, I would put Turkoglu back in his ideal role of running the Raptors' offence — a role he filled with great success in Orlando.
I fully expect this proposal to piss off anyone who reads this blog and is a Calderon fan. Believe it or not, I don't dislike him and I'd be fine with him as my point guard on a team with a different makeup. But this team needs an injection of grit and I also like the cap room this would provide for the 2011 off-season.
Anyway, I'm not going to try to justify this any further. Feel free to flame away in the comments, but I truly believe that Detroit is one of the only teams that would be interested in trading for Calderon while giving up more than just expiring trash in return. Would this make the Raptors better? Probably not by much in the short-term. But if you think sticking with this core is a good idea, I really don't know what else to say to you. 
|
