http://espn.go.com/sportsnation/chat/_/id/33571

Here are a few excerpts that are relevant:

“I’m surprised Denver isn’t on his list, since that’s the easiest way to team up with Melo. A deal would get really complex and involve a third or even fourth team, since Hornets would want to flip Chauncey and/or Lawson to other teams. Also, I’m not sure Nuggies have enough young talent to pull this off. But they’re a sleeper.

Remember, for any of these teams, you can make a deal that works under the cap. But the key is that it must be the winning bid — i.e., better than anything Portland or Orlando can throw out there.

**IF** the Hornets put CP on the market — which I seriously doubt will happen until midseason at the absolute earliest — the Blazers are in great position to win a bidding war because of the exirings (Przybilla + Miller) and all the other young assets they can put into a deal.

One thing for Blazer fans to remember, however, is that getting CP fundamentally will change how they play. Brandon Roy in particular would have to radically alter his game, and Nate McMillan would have to change a lot of how he does things.

Hornets already have two good young guards so young bigs would be more valuable to them.

Also, there’s one other important thing to remember everyone: Expiring contracts won’t be worth diddly this year as long as teams like Cleveland and Toronto are sitting on massive trade exceptions and several other teams (Nets, Kings, Wolves, etc.) are well under the cap.”

In short, it doesn’t look too good for the Nuggets to get CP3 because expiring contracts are less valuable and we don’t have any good young players except Lawson, who we would need to flip into a good young big man in order to entice New Orleans. And honestly, if we can pull that off, maybe we should just keep it simple and keep that big for ourselves.

Finally, one depressing thought I had about this whole CP3 business: Does it seem foreboding to anyone else that he says he wants to team up with another star, specifically Melo, but did not include Denver on his list of preferred destinations? After the back-room dealings that went on between Wade-Lebron-Bosh leading up to free agency this summer, I wonder if CP3 already knows something we don’t- that Melo has already made up his mind not to resign with the Nuggets?

While I think they might go for the KMart + JR swap for CP3 and Okafor, JR’s stock has taken a big hit after last season and he may not be viewed as the young stud he once was. Roughly $6 million in cap relief is nothing to sneeze at, but it may not be enough to entice them. The advantage of throwing in Chauncey now instead of JR is that he provides them almost double the cap relief that JR gives them, not to mention saves face for the GM that he traded an all star for an all star (CP3 for Billups). In any case, if we keep Chauncey out of the deal, then we may need to sweeten it by adding additional cap relief or a young stud. Unfortunately the only other sources of cap relief we can offer are Melo and Nene, neither of which we want to part with, which leaves our lone young stud, Ty Lawson. You could argue that, since we’re in win now mode and we already have two all-star point guards on the roster in Paul and Billups with a serviceable backup in Anthony Carter, he is expendable. Maybe I’m over-valuing Lawson and JR because I’m a Nuggets fan, but I have to think that this deal is better than anything they would get offered by the Knicks, Magic, or Lakers:

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=2e4fgla

You think the hornets would go for that trade? That would be a nice trade if the nuggets could pull it off. Also, you think there is any way we can get hibbert without getting rid of lawson? That would be nice because then we would have two great young guys, and I think that hibbert is on the brink of having a breakout season. If we could get him somehow, I think that we need to do it.

First of all, props for putting together a 3-team trade in the trade machine. I agree with you that this would be a fantastic trade for the Nuggets – we get the best player involved (CP3) and the two best young prospects involved (Thornton & Hibbert). I just don’t see either of the other teams actually wanting to participate in this deal. First of all, the Pacers are in rebuilding mode, so why would they want to trade their promising young center and some expiring contracts for two long-term deals (one of which is Okafor’s disaster of a contract) and two smaller expiring contracts? As for New Orleans, I think losing their franchise player would be seen as the price paid for unloading Okafor, but I think including Thornton and Wright is too steep a price, considering NOLA is rebuilding and thus trying to hoard promising, young, inexpensive talent.

If we accept your idea that moving Chauncey to the 2 would work, then JR Smith becomes expendable, and you could do this trade instead:

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=25qbzz2

The Nuggets would also have to give up some draft picks but I think it would be worth it. We still get to keep chauncey (maybe move him to the 2 spot) and we keep lawson, and Hibbert is that big presence in the post that we need. And we also cut our salary by around 7 million. I dont really see this trade happening but I wish that they would try for it.

A potential starting lineup of CP3, Chauncey, Melo, Nene, Hibbert and second unit of Lawson, Thornton, Afflalo, Harrington, Birdman would make us into one of the best teams in the west.

Also, as a side note, I think the AI comparison is unfair to Paul because AI was always a scorer first and a distributor second (AI averaged only 4.0 assists per game over his career). Paul creates for his teammates first (10.0 APG over his career) much like Steve Nash.