part of the problem is the Brown factor. According to Brown we’re dripping in guards and can’t afford to dump our front men without replacing them with something better. Therefore, any trade that doesn’t include at least one guard is unrealistic. Truth be told, the team IS guard heavy. What I’m expecting to occur is one of two scenarios. The first, which I hope is not the case but I fear is the most likely, is that we continue in a holding pattern until league rules allow for the trading of Stephen Jackson. At that point we shop Jackson and Diaw for a solid power forward, throwing Augustin on the pile if necessary as a carrot to close the deal on a strong starting front man. I hate this deal because we get rid of our second best player simply because it part of the original plan. It shows a gross lack of adaptability on the part of the Front Office. Jackson has worked out better as a catalyst for the team than anyone could have suspected. He came in showing the same passion as Wallace – and I credit Wallace for that. Jax has earned his place on this team. I fear this is still the most likely way the Cats will go simply because the FO isn’t showing any sign of flexibility in their thinking at all.

The second choice, which I think is just as viable and will help the team quite a bit more, involves primarily the guards. Both Felton and Augustin have contracts that expire at the end of the season. We can try to trade them now or plan to try to re-sign them in the off season. Inking new deals is going to cost us quite a bit of new money for several years. The way they handled Okafor’s contract renewal tells us the team already tends to overpay and regret it later. I don’t think either Augustin or Felton are worth a new and overly inflated contract. We have Jackson (assuming we do the right thing and keep him) who is rock solid. We also have Henderson who is showing promise with what limited time we’ve seen and we have him for another season with an option for a third. Utility guards are the most commonly available players in the league. Felton and Augustin are expendable – Flip Murray only slightly less so. If we unload Murray we actually save some cap money for next season. What I believe is that the Cats should package two of these three men along with Diop or Diaw (largely just to get rid of their money on the cap) and shop them around for a power forward with either an expiring contract, or with short term papers. That way we can get someone for this season’s immediate needs, and still be able to open up room for 2010-2011.

To make the deal perfect we still need to do something the Cats FO is very unlikely to do. Open the wallet, and offer $7 million or so to buy out the remainder of Chandler’s contract so he can become a free agent at the end of the season. He gets that money as a bumper to go along with whatever he can garner on the Free Agent market so it’s a BIG incentive to Chandler. If the Cats do this – along with the deal I mentioned above, we can free up as much as $20 million for next year’s cap that WE can spend in the market, in addition to $25 million for 2011-2012. That should get us a pretty potent player of our choosing and make us immediate contenders to battle the Celtics and Cavs on level ground for the first time in team history as early as next season.

It would completely turn around the fortunes of this club. But because it involves opening the vault, the Cats will likely ignore the second half of what needs to be done and crawl along with only the first deal in place. But I really do believe the guards/Diaw deal – or something that looks almost identical to it – is what’s being shopped around the league to Indiana, Philly, Chicago, and several other clubs. One of them is going to bite and as a result the Bobcats will improve a fair amount when it’s likely too late to salvage this season.

I wish the Cats management would realize the massive benefits of buying out the high-money contracts. If they were to do this they could complete the turnaround of this team immediately. Since they won’t, there is high risk it will all blow up in their faces and they’ll end up spending millions more than they need to in the long term. Failure to execute the buyouts will also make the team a very hard commodity to unload to another buyer – if as many seem to think that is Johnson’s primary goal in the first place.

Instead, they won’t make all the changes necessary and face the consequences of continued ownership in a mediocre white-elephant team that nobody will want to buy. Bob Johnson needs to learn an important lesson – you cannot stick a needle into a balloon slowly. No matter how you do it, all you get is a loud and potentially painful BANG.

He’s really playing well for them. I know everyone said it looks like Boozer is leaving Utah so they might as well trade him, but he’s giving them much more than Milsap is right now.

Justify paying 14 mil this season, 15.9 mil the next and then 18.1 mil in the final season of his contract for 13 points, and 7, 8, 9 or even 10 rebounds a night.

Justify it according to his contract. If you’re going to respond to me, respond to what I’m actually saying.

Diaw has 4.7 rebounds per game.

I agree, that is much, MUCH better!

Don’t pull the “he used to be a better rebounder” argument because we can all see that Brand has been slowed down significantly by age and injuries.