Its not that I want to trade anybody now, especially after the tremendous performances against the Magic we just had, but I'm just curious and thought it'd be an interesting discussion.
I'm going to jump straight to the point. Who has assets that we want and will realistically be interested in trading with us? I can think of two teams who'll do it (and will actually benefit everyone for doing it) for completely opposite reasons. The Pacers and the Hawks.
For the Hawks, they're riddled with bad contracts. To get out of almost certain mediocrity, they'd probably want to start over with a clean slate. What we have is a bunch of expiring contracts and 2 2012 firsts (giving up 1 is plenty value considering how great the draft is).
The likeliest piece they'll be moving: Josh Smith. While they'd probably want to lose Joe Johnson now, Danny is going to put up with none of that. Plus, for them, with Smith gone, Horford can be a full time PF, his natural position.
The most likely pieces we'll be moving is Rayray or KG but, as I've said before, they want expiring contracts. Come trade deadline, if their team doesn't look like its contending (highly likely), I personally can see JO + Bass + picks being a possibility as they go for the hail Mary.
On the other hand, we have the Pacers. They have made moves for Rondo when all the Chris Paul drama was going on and are obviously interested. For us, they have Danny Granger, Paul George and Roy Hibbert.
The least likely scenario I foresee is Roy Hibbert for Rondo. Larry is smart enough to know not to give up a center, a rare commodity.
The most likely case is Rondo for Granger. If that does happen, we're going to want to steal a lot of their role players with Granger being 28.
I can see Paul George for Rondo happening without us giving up another big asset. Why? With Rondo, they'd be (in my opinion) a solid shooting guard away from being a team that can contend for years to come.
Topic: The Hawks and the Pacers are our perfect trade partners (Read 849 times)