True, it clears up minutes at SG/SF, but for who? The Wolves already got rid of Hassell, presumably to open up minutes for Brewer. They're also not too fond of Telfair, so I don't envision him playing all that much, which means Foye will be running the point quite often, which means he won't be taking many minutes at SG. So, if the Wolves kept Davis as their starting SG, there would still be ample minutes available at SF for Green, and at least backup minutes for McCants at SG (probably close to 20 MPG, since Davis' career average is 30 MPG). So who are the extra minutes going to? Marco Jaric? Additionally, all those minutes would have been available next year when Davis' contract ran out. If it were me, I would have held on to Davis, and tried to move him closer to the trade deadline to a contending team looking to add a final piece, or a team fighting for a playoff spot looking for a push, in exchange for either a good young player, or an expiring contract & draft pick.
Youngin's Rashad McCants, Corey Brewer, Gerald Green, Randy Foye, Craig Smith and Ryan Gomes are plenty of reason to trade a guy that while may be a good player, isn't useful in Minny's situation. They need development right now, not wins. All these guys project to be very good players, if they can get the playing time.
Wrong. His contract is guaranteed through the 08-09 season, with a team option for 09-10.
The whole thing about Antoine's contract staying for another 2 seasons doesn't really matter. They won't need to be spending money for another two seasons anyway, and when Antoine's contract expires, so does the massive contract Juwan Howard has. It's all about timing, and they don't need the money for a while yet. Theo Ratliff's $11 mil contract expires after this season, so they didn't really need the money from Ricky's contract this offseason. They opened up time for their young guys, got rid of Blount's terrible contract, got a first round pick and a large contract that will expire right when they need it - when they're younger guys need extensions, all for trading Ricky Davis. When you factor in the problem with Ricky - the fact he is simply taking minutes from the guys who need them, it looks like a no-brainer to me.
I don't think Minny needed yet another good young player. They have a huge stockpile in potential, guys like - Gerald Green, Randy Foye, Craig Smith, Rashad McCants, Al Jefferson, Ryan Gomes, Sebastian Telfair and Corey Brewer. That's plenty of talent, and adding another young guy (which probably wouldn't be that promising if you got him for Ricky Davis) would probably be an overload and no one would get their minutes.
At first I was thinking this would make sense if Minny buys out Walker, but then why not just buy out Blount? They have similar contracts, with the exception of the team option for the final year, so it wouldn't have been much more expensive to buy out Blount. Minny could have then moved Davis for something of value, instead of Fatoine and a protected pick. So, I still don't think it was a good trade, at least not by your criteria. The only reason I think it's a good trade is because apparently Blount and Jefferson didn't get along, which I did not know when I offered my original analysis of the trade. And even considering that, there's probably better things the Wolves could have done.
I don't know much about the business side of things, but I don't think a contract just "expires" when you buy it out. I think it still counts against your cap for the remainder of however long the contract had left on it, but the amount is determined by how much the player was bought out for. So if Blount's $22 mil contract is bought out for say, $14 mil, that will still count against the cap, but spread out over the next three seasons (which was how long was left on it) seasons. So they'd have a three year contract on their hands which averages out to $4.6 mil a year, and it expires after 09/10.
Or they could just buy out Walker and get their cap relief much sooner, but most importantly, right when they need it.
