Article:Stefanski Makes a GREAT Move

Philadelphia's new GM, Ed Stefanski has started off his reign in impressive fashion making a GREAT move today. He traded Kyle Korver away for Gordon Giricek and a first round draft pick. Now Giricek sucks, so that part of the move is not what makes it a good move. The first round draft pick is not even what makes it a great as it'll most likely be a late first round pick considering utah will most likely find a way to make the playoffs. (if i had to guess portland will probably slow down and utah will overtake them.) What makes this a great trade is the amount of cap space and money Stefanski is saving the team over the next three years. While the two players have similar salaries this year, Korver is signed for three years after this season at 4.7 mil, 5.1 mil and 5.5 mil a piece where as Giricek is a free agent after the season. With Webber's 19 mil and Arron Mckie's 7 mil coming off the books next year Philly has aprox 35 million on the books, a full 20 mil under the salary cap. Now if he can find a taker for Andre Miller who is willing to give them an expiring (Kwame Brown?) They'd be down to approximately 26 mil.

Now they'll most likely have to resign Iguadala for somewhere around 10 mil, leaving them potentially 19 million dollars of cap space for trades or free agents. Without trading Miller they'll have somewhere around 10 mil to go after guys like Jermaine O'neal, Elton Brand, or Gilbert Arenas who have ETO's or Emeka Okefor and Loul Deng who are restricted free agents.

Now it's quite possible none of those guys opt out and it's quite possible the teams with restricted free agents match offer sheets, but at least Philly is giving themselves a chance. As currently constituted Philly isn't going anywhere. AI and Louis Williams are nice players, Dalembert gives them a great defensive presence up front, but stars win championships in the NBA not nice players.

This is not to say it's a bad move for Utah, they could use a good shooter which korver has been in the past (not as much this year), and as a team that needed to trade Giricek they didn't do an awful job. But for Philly this is a great move.