Kevin Martin

Apart for one more airing for the phrase "fine young man," every single aspect of Lamb's breakdown is saved for his offensive game, yet this ignores his defense; when he's in the right mind to play it, as he was more regularly in 2010, Lamb can be a highly effectively two way player. Combine that with Courtney Lee, solid in all aspects of the game, and Houston have a solid tandem at the two guard spot.

Of course, they also have a third guy. With the Dwight Howard thing not likely to work - thereby making the trade with the Bucks even more pointless, as they essentially traded a starting centre in order to move up two spots for a guy who was likely to still be there at #14 anyway - Houston is now said to be going the other way, possibility amnestying Kevin Martin in order to open up cap room for Deron Williams. This would be an amazingly risky thing to do, and for that reason, a completely unnecessary one. Martin has value outside of that. Here's my idea: trade him to Chicago for Kyle Korver and and signed-and-traded Omer Asik. If the Bulls will pay a little tax, it's a win win. Maybe.

[...] Meanwhile, the Rockets gave up whatever cap space aspirations they made have had with this trade. By taking on the $20,153,325 earned by the Martin/Jeffries/Hill deal, the Rockets are not now 2010 players, but by taking on Kevin Martin, they also don't now need to be. The talent infusion was so substantial that whatever they may have wanted to do with that 2010 money - which was probably very little considering that the plan was to trade McGrady from day 1 - is now not significant. And the picks as well? Bonus.

[...] But some teams did make it under. As described earlier, Washington have joined New Orleans in making it under after their three deals, and they are joined by Houston. The Rockets were taxpayers until this week after spending their two MLE's worth of dough over the summer, and although the insurance payments on Yao Ming's contract numb the pain a bit, it was still less than ideal. However, one further bonus for the Rockets in the Kevin Martin trade was the $4 million payroll drop this season alone. Even with Jared Jeffries's trade kicker. Therefore, with that one move, they've acquired a star player, a useful youngster, a first round draft pick, a right to swap that may prove hugely beneficial, and about $10 million this season in saved salary and rebates. All for the cost of an inactive list player, a small amount of cap space they weren't intending to use anyway, and their backup power forward.