ESPN Reports: Richardson, Dudley to PHX for Diaw, Bell

2nd round picks are generally worthless, unless you get a Michael Redd, Carlos Boozer, or Gilbert Arenas, but we're talking about MJ here...get real.

It would have been nice for PHX to throw a 1st rounder (or Robin Lopez) OUR way, since were ridding them of an albatross contract in Diaw.

Nash, JRich, Amare, O'Neal...nice team to watch. Still wont win the ring though.

 

nobody had a ham sandwich they were willing to part with

 

Looks like a bad deal to me. After trading away Richardson who is going to score for the Bobbers? Diaw and Bell suck offensively. I guess they want to drive away what few fans they have at the arena.

 

Just before last year the Nets reportedly offered their 1st (#16) for him and the Bobcats declined

 

and he never would have passed the physical so it doesnt matter

 

From ESPN Insider:
Today's Playoff Odds project the Suns to win 43 games and the Bobcats to win 32, but those odds don't know about the trade that transpired Wednesday that sent Jason Richardson, Jared Dudley and a 2010 second-round pick to Phoenix for Boris Diaw, Raja Bell and Sean Singletary.

With the Suns undeniably making themselves better and the Bobcats likely making themselves worse, it's time for a rethink on where both teams might end up in the standings.

To get an idea of where each side might be headed, I modeled the rest of their season by changing their roster to reflect the trade and inserting the new players into my preseason predictions algorithm. I used the player's projected 2008-09 PER in each case, but using the numbers for the season to date would not have changed the analysis any.

In Phoenix's case, the model uses Richardson at the 2 instead of Bell and has Dudley and Robin Lopez soak up the minutes being played by Diaw off the bench. After doing so, the Suns wind up with 3.02 extra wins over a full season; because we're nearly a third of the way through the schedule, it ends up being worth 2.21 wins the rest of the way.

One can see how those two or three wins might be extremely important. As of today, Phoenix projects to finish ninth in the West, three games out of the final playoff spot. Securing a couple of extra W's with the Richardson deal could be the difference between playoff fever and lotto-ville.

As for Charlotte, it gets an upgrade at power forward with Diaw replacing unproductive Sean May, but that's not enough to offset the downgrade from Richardson to Bell at shooting guard. There's an additional subtraction with the loss of Dudley, and the result is that the Bobcats lose 4.10 wins on the swap over a full season.

Based on where we are in the schedule, that becomes a subtraction of 3.05 wins from here on out. If so, it would put Charlotte's most likely finish at 29-53 -- which projects to be the worst mark in the Eastern Conference.
This method is not infallible, obviously, and any number of scenarios could tilt the outcomes for each team one way or the other. But the big takeaway is that if we assume normal health and normal production, the Suns appear to have made themselves about three games better at Charlotte's expense.

 

Too bad the Bobcats are retarded and the trade worked without including Dudley.

 

The cool thing will be that now you can get good lower level seats for ten bucks if you actually want to go at all

 

Yeah, the Dudley + second rounder for fringe PG is the part of the deal that's really starting to bother me.

I actually think Diaw could be a solid addition to the team, and he's only 26/27. Raja Bell is almost done but he can help for another year or two, and then longer off the bench.

I loved Richardson as a player, but he's not All Star caliber. Lets don't pretend that they broke up some awesome nucleus of players, because this team was on it's way to 30 wins as it was. At least they are trying something I suppose.

Still not sure how they hope to ever sign a good free agent, and our draft picks have mostly been busts. Will the Bobcats be the first NBA team to fold? It's too expensive for them to break their lease and move any time soon, and the hope for getting better doesn't seem to be there even for their die-hard fans.

 

Richardson and Wallace were the only things that made the Bobcats even remotely watchable. Granted, I actually haven't seen any of their games this season, but I had told a friend to see about getting some tickets. After the trade, I told him not to bother, as I don't care to sit through Larry Brown's attempt to win with fewer than 80 points.