Anthony Randolph

You can sign a player of Arthur's calibre much more easily than one of Koufos'. This is a market in which, for example, Tyler Hansbrough signed for one guaranteed year at a shade over $3 million, a highly comparable player on a highly comparable contract available without needing to lose a starting center. Indeed, Denver knows the power forward market well after having themselves made a splash in it this summer - despite trading for Arthur, they subsequently threw three years and $16.15 million at J.J. Hickson. If they needed a power forward, free agency could have addressed it. Alternatively, the Nuggets could have not looked outside at all, and instead relied upon the enigmatic but hugely talented Anthony Randolph to fill the small backup power forward hole - unreliable as he may be, Randolph needs the opportunity to succeed, or he never will.

The point here is that, even if starter Kenneth Faried does indeed go on to be traded, Koufos did not need to be. In light of the stress fracture McGee has just suffered that rules him out indefinitely, the once great center depth is now a position of weakness for the Nuggets, with Mozgov being the only healthy player at the position. Hickson might go some way to fill this void, but Koufos definitely would, yet he was moved for a player whose role could have and should have been filled by the player they subsequently signed or the player they already had. As third choice power forward, Arthur ranks 12th on the team in minutes per game - when a fringe starting center under the age of 25 tied down to a tiny $3 million contract is traded, it is imperative that he returns much more than that.

Sacramento's main cap space rival was Minnesota, who used almost all of theirs in the Melo trade. Their role in that deal saw them change from the mediocre production and limited upside of the struggling Corey Brewer, to the substantial upside yet volatile production of Anthony Randolph. Their cost for making this perceived upgrade in prospects was taking on what's left of Curry's salary, and more importantly, taking on his cap hit. Before the deal, Minnesota had $12,366,964 in cap room, but after shedding Brewer's $3,703,472 and Koufos's $1,298,640, while adding Randolph's $1,965,720 and Curry's post-trade kicker $11,530,592, that number quickly dropped to only $3,873,394.

One of the only two teams with significant remaining cap room - eight figures worth of it - just spent it all on Anthony Randolph. The other didn't use it all. We'll see if it was worth it.

1) Arn Tellem has signed players to rookie contracts that start at 100% and use incentives to get to 120% in previous years; he did this only last season with Gerald Henderson, and in 2008 with both Danilo Gallinari and Anthony Randolph. He knows the rules and has played by them before.