I was hoping that Kaman was viewed as the “oft-injured and inconsistent center with a fairly large long term contract in a crowded frontcourt on a struggling team…”

But if MDSR views him as the “young, promising, big bodied center, who is locked into a reasonable contract for the next few years, and will be one of the building blocks as he turns his team around”…

Then I don’t think we have near enough to pry him loose. Especially if your only weakness is bench scoring.

As far as our players, allow me to give you the local insight…

Nocioni was the first Bull to play well with Derrick Rose, and started off the season enjoying wide open jumpers… but now he has been in such a terrible slump that some of us are wondering if he is playing hurt again. Oddly enough, Vinny Del Negro is still playing him a lot. When healthy, he brings all the fist pumping passion one could hope for, and he does hit the three, which would be nice for your bench scoring and to space the floor with all your bigs. Although, sometimes he tries to do too much, and when chemistry was bad last year, he turned into a huge jacker, he was just launching three’s whenever he got his hands on the ball.

Thabo was the first player that Vinny mentioned in his press conference when he took the job. He talked about how he wanted to draft him in phoenix and his fantastic potential. That’s ironic now, because Thabo can’t get out of Vinny’s dog house. He is the odd man out in our guard rotation, and it will only get worse if nobody gets traded before Kirk comes back from injury. His biggest success has come as a defender, in particular against D Wade in the playoffs a few years back. But he’s long, an athletic, so he seems to have the tools to develop into a slasher on offense.

I won’t say too much about Kirk, because he is probably the player that you guys are most familiar with. He is a solid point guard, who plays solid defense, and has a solid outside jumper. He is injured right now, but certainly not injury prone. The organization loves him. Basically, he isn’t going to win a lot of games by himself, but he would be the ideal point for a team like Miami or Portland, that had other guys who could score, and handle the ball some, but that needed somebody to lead the team and get the ball where it needs to be.

Noah is the biggest mystery on our roster this year. He finished the season last year as the starting center, and we all thought we had a 5. He was aggressive, gave 110%, was a vocal leader, blocked shots, and chased loose balls all over the court. This year however, he is out of shape, an lost on both sides of the court. He did have an eye injury this summer that forced him to miss some time, but nobody can figure out why he isn’t in shape yet, an Vinny is growing tired of him being lost on the court. He still puts up solid rebound and block numbers when he gets minutes, but he either gets hooked for not knowing the plays, or he gets winded and asks to come out. So his minutes are down.

Hughes was not wanted here. But he was better than the corpse of Ben Wallace, so we happily traded for him. Until a month ago, he was viewed as an expiring contract and possible detractor of chemistry. But then a funny thing happened… he started playing well. His shot selection is often terrible, and he is not an unselfish player. But he has the length and ability to be a decent defender (although he gamble’s a bit too much). And he is a pretty good finisher on breaks an drives. Plus, while he is a streaky shooter, he does have range, and has hit a few game winning three’s for us in the last couple weeks. So, with him being a decent player, and having a 14 million dollar contract expiring in 2010, he might be one of our most attractive trade assets.

Then there’s Tyrus. I don’t even know what to say about him. Most of the Blog-a-Bull community is blindly in love with him. And he is the next Amare. He is super athletic… you can youtube him for hours. I have lowered my expectations for him quite a bit, but there’s no denying that he rebounds well and blocks shots well, and he dunks with the best of them. In fact, if somebody could convince him to stay around the hoop, I see him as a Tyson Chandler. However, he has worked really hard on an 18 foot jumper (god knows why, it’s still inconsistent at best) and he seems to want to prove he has some perimeter game. I wish somebody would tell him nobody cares about his perimeter game.

Especially if Kirk comes back healthy before the deadline, because that will crowd our backcourt even more. And if the Clippers record isn’t any better.

Basically, we would be swapping expiring deals to better fit our teams. My only worry would be that we would still be very thin at center. So maybe the filler from LA would include Deandre Jordan.

Hows he coming along?

But if your talking about including him with Hughes ( as a follow up to ClipperSteve’s suggestion) then I don’t see how it could work, we would be sending you 20 Million dollars in salary. And I don’t know who you could give us to make that work…

Unless you send us Camby and Kaman… which would be great, but seems a little silly.

Yes, I would do that deal.

The BYC rules complicate it, and I don’t feel like looking it up right now (always makes my head hurt), but it could probably be worked out. But ignoring that complexity, a trade that boiled down to Kaman for Deng is certainly worth considering. It’s not perfect – Deng’s numbers have been going the wrong way for two seasons, and he’s not really a 2, which is what they need. But assuming he can defend 2’s, he gives them a solid wing.

Come to think of it, Kaman’s got a poison pill in his Clippers contract. I don’t know the details. It probably makes the deal even more complex to get done. May not be possible to make something work around both Deng’s BYC restriction and Kaman’s poison pill. Ironic, since they both make essentially the same amount currently.