SB Nation User Blog: conspirator5

Cap gurus, help me out here. My brain hurts!

conspirator5 — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 03:11:55 -0000

I have this issue that's been nagging me in the back of my mind ever since the end of the trade deadline, and today's discussion about lopsided trades has brought this nagging to the forefront, like a migrane headache chipping away at my sanity. Here are the building blocks of my condundrum...

1. At the trade deadline, we acquired a $3M trade exception which is only good until the end of the next season.

2. At the trade deadline, we did not divest ourselves of RLEC, which goes a long way towards putting us under the cap in about six weeks or so.

3. As has been repeatedly stated, you cannot combine an exception with cap space. You get one or the other.

Taken at face value, the exception appears to be a total waste of our time. However, I have a hard time believing that all is as it appears because:

4. KP/Penn have a proven track record of being very efficient horse traders. Even trades that aren't necessarily bringing us talent are putting us in a more advantageous position in one way or another.

In other words, I believe that there was some purpose in generating the trade exception that we are not perceiving right now. This is where our in house gurus come into play. What I would like to know is if there is a realistic scenario where we artificially and temporarily keep ourselves above the cap threshold in order to do deal A with the trade exception, and then perform some type of black magic to get ourselves back under the cap in order to execute lopsided deal B. I have read comments that we could fabricate some type of 1 year sweetheart contract with Raef that would exist solely to trade off to someone else. I'm seeing speculation that we could tender a QO to Frye that we could effectively go back on later. There may be other strategies as well. I understand that there are questions of timing as to when league rules allow certain things to be done. If someone can answer this question, preferably including the timeframes such deals would need to be executed in order to work under league rules, that would be awesome. Alternatively, if such an 'A, then B' scenario is implausible, are there any other reasons why KP/Penn would have manufactured an apparently worthless trade exception?

T.O. says "Oh No!" about D-Mo at the Sprite Dunk Contest

conspirator5 — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 23:39:00 -0000

T.O. says "Oh No!" about D-Mo at the Sprite Dunk Contest

Check out amateur hoopster Dwayne Morris aka D-Mo as he dunks and mugs for the camera on his way to a giant cardboard check and an uber-brief cameo from Mr. Outlaw. A friend of mine in attendence at Pioneer Square this weekend indicated that the Predator was also hanging out that day.

Who referees the referees?

conspirator5 — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 18:58:39 -0000

Before you say, "Nobody!!!" take a look at the following comment from last Sunday's game against the Raptors:

Everytime says:

I was at the game yesterday and thought that there was a push off.
What is interesting and I don’t know if this is common place or not was that there were two guys sittings two rows behind me who were taking notes and grading the officials. They had NBA pass around their necks and were taking lots of notes during the game.
What caught my attention was a drive during the first half where a Rap was called for a charge on Oden and they noted the time and would review to see “if Oden was in the restricted area or not”.

Now this observation doesn't make it necessarily so that these guys are NBA referee "auditors" or some such. They might be scouts, or some type of video coordinator. My question to the BEdge crowd is this: Have you ever seen guys like this in the seats at the Rose Garden? Is this a hopeful sign for (eventual) improvement in NBA officiating?

The original page can be found here:

http://dimemag.com/2008/12/did-steve-blake-push-off/

Provide your own caption for this photo, explaining why these teens behind Nic are wasting...

conspirator5 — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 01:37:00 -0000

Provide your own caption for this photo, explaining why these teens behind Nic are wasting perfectly good courtside seats with text messaging.

"I have been given strong, strong, strong indications that the player that will make the Blazer's...

conspirator5 — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 01:38:42 -0000

"I have been given strong, strong, strong indications that the player that will make the Blazer's roster is Steven hill" - Jason Quick

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