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Memphis would have to send out a cheap piece, such as Tony Wroten, in some scenarios, and the Grizz could also ask Minnesota to return a Memphis 2013 first-rounder originally sent to Houston for Shane Battier. It’s very easy to build a Minny-Memphis trade around Kirilenko/Gay that gets Memphis under the tax and provides either an intriguing high lottery pick (Derrick Williams) or a useful guard to round out the Grizz’s rotation (Luke Ridnour, J.J. They also have Andrei Kirilenko, a tweener forward on a semi-expiring $9.8 million deal, and a bunch of interesting pieces in the $4 million-$5 million range. Minnesota has plenty of cushion between its current cap level and the luxury tax. This might be the easiest fit on the board. The very best Gay deals would accomplish all of these things - get Memphis under this year’s tax line, keep them at about their current level within the league’s hierarchy, and clean up the future cap sheet a bit. Memphis isn’t necessarily shopping Gay at this point, since they’re already very good and could cut salary in other ways there’s a long, long way to go before the trade deadline on February 21 - and before Memphis becomes a multi-year tax team. He makes a ton of money, and the Grizzlies, flush with productive big men, will almost certainly need to find another perimeter player in order to placate fans and (in theory) maintain their 5 percenter status. They can also cite their exciting 2011 playoff run without Gay, though that run involved a superhuman performance from Zach Randolph, a very good matchup in San Antonio, and a much deeper wing core with actual shooters. Memphis also has a brand-new ownership and a revamped front office John Hollinger and Jason Levien are in, longtime personnel gurus the Barones are out, and Chris Wallace’s current level of power as holdover GM is unclear. Three straight tax seasons wouldn’t trigger the dreaded repeater tax penalties, but that path would hamstring Memphis’ roster-building flexibility during those three years and could put the repeater penalties in play if the Grizz cross the tax later.Īll of this explains why Memphis, over the last few weeks, has made it known in preliminary talks with other teams that Rudy Gay could be available via trade, according to sources around the league. But the Grizzlies are about $4 million over the luxury tax, staring at a very expensive four-man core that, if left intact, could take Memphis over the tax line in this season and the following two. Those who subscribe to “The 5 Percent Theory” believe such fringe powers should go for it anyway, since very few teams each season even reach 5 percent territory. If Memphis can only squeeze a league-average offense out of this group, they’ll grade out as more of an “absolutely everything has to go right” fringe contender than a true title threat. Their offense has stalled out, falling to 19th in points per 100 possessions, and three other Western Conference contenders - the Spurs, Clippers, and Thunder - have settled in at a slightly higher level than Memphis. A lot has changed since the Grizzlies started the season scoring at a top-10 rate and looking like a legitimate title contender.