NBA Trade: Peja Stojakovic Traded To Toronto Raptors

It was announced today via ESPN.com’s Chris Sheriden that a trade between the Toronto Raptors and New Orleans Hornets is in the works and nearing completion. This is what the trade looks like:

Hornets Get: Jarrett Jack, David Andersen, Marcus Banks, 2 Million Dollar Trade Exception

Raptors Get: Peja Stojakovic, Jerryd Bayless

The trade has not been finalized as of yet, but is right around the corner to completion. My first gut reaction to this trade was dislike. But then I paused for a second and realised this is an excellent trade for the Hornets and I’ll tell you why over the jump…

Dealing with the massive expiring in the room…

I think most of us Hornet fans all thought that the Peja Stojakovic contract was our ticket to Carmelo Anthony. Truth is, it really wasn’t. With the current CBA coming up and the fact that so many teams have large expiring contracts its clear that any trade for Carmelo was going to have to contain numerous first-round picks, Marcus Thornton and other players I haven’t even thought about.

We really overrated Peja’s contract in large part because we’ve been stuck with it for so damn long. We feel a deep burning desire to ship it away because we feel the need to be rewarded for lugging it around for all these years.

Kelly Dwyer over at Ball Don’t Lie does a great job of summarising the reasons we overrate large-expiring deals:

"And if the rumors are true, massive expiring deals don’t have the same league-wide cachet that they used to in years past. Partially because of the sheer amount of expiring deals due to be on the market this February before the trade deadline, and partially because most teams are anticipating a new set of rules and some form of payroll and/or cap relief when a new Collective Bargaining Agreement is (hopefully, for all) hammered out late next summer. Teams, we’re reading, aren’t as anxious to lop salary off and deal for contracts that end in July."

Jerryd Bayless out, Jarrett Jack in

It’s no secret that I’ve been very harsh of Bayless’ play ever since he came here. It also is no secret now that Dell Demps thinks the exact same way (Yeah I’m practically a NBA GM right?). I was very excited when we brought Bayless in, due in part to the fact we had no one backing up Chris Paul and I knew that Bayless was as talented as they come. It’s quite saddening to see that Jerryd never quite developed into a capable backup that we really wanted. In fact you could tell by the sets the second-unit ran, Willie Green would, in most cases, bring the ball up the court and that is not a good reflection on Bayless.

As for Jarrett Jack I have to say I’m kind of hesistant to be jumping for joy when we send out anyone and return him for this. But the more I read around the more I see that in fact it’s a pretty good deal.

What Jack brings that Bayless did not is an ability to run the point, defend (which Bayless did not do) and is clearly a better shooter (40% from three). To me that fits in perfectly with what we’re trying to do here another sign of Dell Demps’ “genius at work” tagline.

Future Flexibility

Most trade ideas involving Peja over the past year or so have always return massive, long term deals. This one involving Toronto does not. Getting back some more expirings is a good thing because it doesn’t hurt our short term flexibility. It still allows Demps to be active at the trade-deadline as well as next summer.

Rounding Up The Deal

We pulled a trigger on something. I know most were hoping for Carmelo Anthony but come on now Peja isn’t that great. We all loved Peja during the 2008 playoff run, his amazing shooting was daggers through the hearts of Dallas and San Antonio and it’s a shame he’s gone. But the truth is, it’s a new era in New Orleans basketball history, we have to move on and this is what’s best for the team. As for Bayless it’s a shame that he couldn’t rapidly develop into the backup point guard we so sorely needed, but we want to win games now and he just wasn’t producing.

Jarrett Jack seems on paper to be a good fit for the team. His relationship with Chris Paul means little to me, this whole appeasement crap is quite agitating.

This move wasn’t made for Paul, it was made for the team. The sooner that the national nut-jobs realize that the sooner we can move on with our lives however trivial it may seem.