Philly trades

[Alexander Wang <awang@MIT.EDU>]

Trading Tyrone Hill was a bit surprising to me. On looking at the 
contracts, I think it's at least partially tax related. The guys Philly 
sent out have contracts expiring in 03, while the guys they're taking back 
have contracts expiring in 02, when the tax kicks in (I think). They might 
do this move in order to retain McCulloch while staying below the tax.

It also seems like Larry Brown's gambling in his own ability to 
rehabilitate disappointments such as Traylor and Moiso.

As for our side of the trade: It definitely seems like a move made for 
positioning ourselves for the future. McLeod's best feature may be his 
expiring contract. Maybe it gives us just enough breathing room under the 
luxury tax next season to pursue a free agent with a long-term exception 
this season. In any case, you get a little bit of flexibility, and waiving 
McLeod to open a roster spot if he's unimpressive is a possibility too, 
with only one year left on his deal. (Waiving McCarty is not as good 
because he can play some backup PF, which we need, esp. if one of the 
centers goes down with injury).

This seems like the first statement by Wallace to the effect that "this is 
new management", by quickly dumping an "old management" draft pick. And the 
conditional first round pick has some value, even if it's probably 
guaranteed to be right at the end of the first round.

Alex