ABM
Happily Married In Music City, USA!
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From: HoopsWorld
Moving Wallace?: The Charlotte Bobcats were involved in late trade discussions yesterday centered around Gerald Wallace with the Portland Trail Blazers according to Rick Bonnell of the Charlotte Observer. The hold up on a deal seems to be Charlotte's demands that a deal include Nicholas Batum, a player the Blazers are unwilling to part with. The Bobcats were supposedly still talking with the hopes that a compromise could be reached before today's 3pm EST trade deadline. The Bobcats position is that they would trade Wallace if it helped improve the team, but liquidating Wallace was not the end goal. The Blazers have been dangling Raef LaFrentz's ending contract as a means to add an All-Star caliber player, something they had hoped to add this summer from the free agent pool, but the much-publicized Darius Miles contract situation makes adding a major piece this summer a bit more difficult. Expect the Blazers to trigger a deal today; they have offers out on Gerald Wallace, Richard Jefferson and Vince Carter. The odds the Blazers are shut out of the market seems slim. Who they nab comes down to who is willing to deal and they were talking to a lot of teams.
Moving Vince?: If the New Jersey Nets are indeed moving Vince Carter it didn't seem that way last night in Dallas. Sources close to the situation told HOOPSWORLD they did not think a deal would materialize today but did admit that talks were ongoing. There were reports from ESPN suggesting that New Jersey was ready to "give away" Vince, however Nets sources disputed that notion, saying the team was more than happy to keep Vince and push for a playoff berth, something no one expected this summer when the team embarked on its current rebuilding plan. Nets' president Rod Thorn wouldn't deny the idea that he was aggressively shopping his assets telling Dave D'Alessandro of the Newark Star-Ledger, that he was evaluating options.
"I've always said you do trades for two reasons," Thorn said of making a deal. "You do them for the present, or you do them for what's best moving forward. Those are the only two reasons, as far as I'm concerned."
Nets sources have told reporters that the latest offer on Carter from Portland would require the inclusion of the 2011 draft pick obtained in the Marcus Williams deal with Golden State. That asset appears to be more than New Jersey would entertain, even to off load Carter's remaining three years and $52 million. The Nets were working the phones yesterday and are expected to continue talks throughout the day. Nets sources said last night that they doubted a deal was coming but they would continue talking up to the deadline.





