More on KG to the Lakers

If reports can be believed, Minnesota owner Glen Taylor is leaving soon to go to China for his honeymoon and wants the deal done immediately, but GM McHale is still holding out for more – and Boston (and probably Indy) are out of the deal. LA will probably have to take on at least one more bad contract to get it done – here’s a scenario:


To the Lakers: Mark Madsen, Kevin Garnett, and Marko Jaric

To Minnesota: Andrew Bynum, Sasha Vujacic, Brian Cook, Kwame Brown, Lamar Odom, #19 pick in 2007 draft, Lakers 2009 1st rounder

If Minnesota wanted to save an extra $400K in the short term, the deal could also include Troy Hudson and Vladimir Radmanovic – but Radman’s contract goes a year longer than Troy’s. Might still be worth it to Minny to get rid of him. The major holdup seems to be McHale’s desire for a top-5 pick in Thursday’s draft, which is why the Celtics were involved. There remains some craziness involving the Hawks dealing their picks (#3 and #11) and most of their team for KG, but I don’t see how it could work for the Hawks. Even Billy Knight isn’t that crazy, is he? – especially when Conley and Horford, one of which will go #3, both look like future studs. Conley looks a bit like Tony Parker with better defense, and Horford is getting lots of comparisons to Carlos Boozer and Elton Brand. In Atlanta’s shoes, I wouldn’t trade the #3 for KG straight up – it makes no sense at all – much less everything else they’d have to give up.

More on John Hollinger’s very interesting means of ranking prospects for the draft soon…. (by tomorrow, anyway)