The Pau Deal Is a Lot Better than it Otherwise Appears

Okay, so it's taken a few days to reflect on the Pau Gasol trade to the Lakers. My first reaction was to think of the Native Americans trading Manhattan for beads and trinkets. The national media has decried the trade as a fire sale. Geoff Caulkins of The Commercial Appeal ripped Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace for the trade. Wallace talked about building something for the future and having a good team two or three years down the road. TWO OR THREE YEARS? You have got to be kidding us right?

Well not so fast. First, most Memphians have grown tired of Pau Gasol. We didn't win a playoff game with him. We only won something like 4% or 5% more games with Pau than without him. Pau is a great player and will be a great role player on the Lakers but he's not a superstar. We couldn't rely on him and we were never going to be able to rely on him. We have 13 wins this year to date. We weren't going to get any better this year. Now we'll likely stink for the next couple of years. So where's the silver lining in this dark cloud?

In the NBA it's difficult to make a lot of moves because you have to match salaries in trades. The rules make it easier for teams to resign the players that they have. Thus, there is rarely a lot of free agent movement in the NBA. In order to build a team, you have to draft well and you have to have cap room to sign those free agents that do come available.

In this trade, we pick up the Laker's first round picks in 2008 and 2010. The Lakers will likely be good and therefore, those picks will be near the end of the first round. Guys like Michael Redd have been late first round picks. We'll also have our own first round pick which will be a top 4 or 5 pick. The Laker's pick also helps protect us when we have to give the Wizards our first round pick that we dealt away in the trade for Juan Carlos Navarro.

There are two big examples of teams who really turned it around by using this same salary dump strategy: Toronto and Phoenix. Toronto traded away Vince Carter for two first round picks and beads and trinkets. Toronto cleared cap room and has in two years built a strong contender with guys like Chris Bosch. Phoenix is the other example. Phoenix traded away Stephan Marberry (spelling?) for draft picks ans beads and trinkets. Phoenix used that cap room to sign Steve Nash. They used the picks to get guys like Amare Stoudamire and Shawn Merrion. Speaking of Shawn Merrion, he's a free agent at the end of this year. Phoenix will have to make some tough choices. Merrion has said that he wants out of Phoenix. He's originally from Clarksville, TN. We might have a shot at him. Add him to Rudy Gay, Darko Milicic (spelling?), Mike MIller, Mike Conley, Javarus Crittenden and whomever we pick up with our draft picks and that's a pretty strong line up.

Things look a little bleak right now for the Grizzlies but this move gives them the chance to build a much stronger team in a fairly short period of time. We need to wait and see what moves are made and who the Grizzlies draft. This trade just might turn out to be a bold move that propels us back to the playoffs.