How Andres Nocioni Figures Into It All

Sometimes it’s hard to get your head around it but Coon is spectacular. Maybe we can get your FAQ sheet re-posted and in the rec list for the impending free agency window.

I think we have also missed a very important point in the Nocioni article. He said:

They told me that they agree and that they will try to trade me to a team that’s competing, sometime by the draft that’s coming in 15 days. I just have to wait.

Is it just me or did Noc just tell us that the Kings are working on draft day trades? I find this amazing, cool, awesome…… The Kings need to be active early and often. If they believe that they can’t deal Noc, I see a quick buy-out from this information which also means that we should see a lot of action come FA. The Kings hold a lot of cards and this should be a wild 2 or 3 weeks.

This is an exciting development. The cap implications of Noc taking a pay cut are huge. The Kings already have close to 21 million to work with. If they can shave another 2 or 3 million off that figure, they become players for multiple high quality players. I know a lot of people are against the Hedo idea but could you imagine adding Hedo, Cousins and a player like Lee and only giving up Noc and Garcia? Again, this is going to be a crazy couple of weeks.

No one wanted Noc at the deadline or in November when Petrie approached the Celtics for expiring contracts. And his contract is no better today than then. He still has 13.5 million owed over the next two years and with the uncertainty of the CBA, that is a lot to take on unless you are giving something bigger out in return. If the Kings can’t deal him in the days leading through the draft and into free agency, then I believe he will be bought out and sent packing. I only see him as a real asset in acquiring a bigger contract and even then , the Kings have the cash to absorb more than a max level player already so it will come down to whether or not another team will be willing to take back something in exchange for their player and at this point Noc is a negative asset in that kind of trade.

A hypothetical example: the 76ers are looking to unload Iggy and his remaining contract. The Kings offer Noc for Iggy while another team offers nothing for Iggy but a future second round pick. Iggy goes to that other team.

The only way I see this going down is my original 3 options. Noc is a negative trade chip right now and I very little room for change in that scenario. You don’t keep a guy who is willing to take a pay cut to walk for two years just in case he might have trade value later.

Kenny Thomas had his contract bought out. He just didn’t negotiate a lower price to help the team because his career is all but over and every dime counts.

Good teams would like to have Noc as a bench asset. The problem is, not very many good teams have cap space. The only way to save money with Noc is through buyout, trading him to a team with cap space of dealing him for a player within a 125% of his contract which isn’t going to come close to the savings of a buy out. I just don’t see a marginal team with cap space absorbing Noc and his contract.

Reading the thread, it seems like he got a raw deal and perhaps had a semi-valid point that just happened to tweak someone the wrong way. But I guess these kinds of decisions are hardly error-free.

The Kings have plenty of cash for both Beasley and a near max money player even without buying Noc out. I don’t see this happening but if the Kings could buy-out Noc, I could see a Beasley trade and the signing of another 10-12 million dollar player as long as Cousins is not the ##5 pick.

for Weed-n-Knee