#1 Chicago - Okafor (looks to trade Chandler... Mullin might consider it, but should be prudent b/c of his back)

#2 Wizards - maybe they target a center as Haywood hasn't really gotten it done for them, but I'm going to guess that they look to clean up their backcourt situation and take Livingston, moving Gilbert to off-guard and putting themselves in a position to do something interesting when 2005 free agency rolls along (Laettner/Hughes come off the books). In the mean time, they need to figure out how to ditch Stack or perhaps Stack has a renaissance year... either way, he something needs to happen with him. Also, having the Wizards here instead of, say, Chicago, defeats a very natural trade that could go down between Chicago and the Clippers (Chicago aiming for Deng, LAC for Livingston)

Orlando - draft gods screw them over a bit and they take the player most ready to make an impact now, Deng.

Charlotte - Howard = a steal

Clippers - target trade partner (chase's trade). Good news that may allow it to happen after all if they are serious about making a run at Kobe (from a past Insider):

Salary-cap problems?

While the general news from the NBA Board of
Governors meeting late last week in New York was that no news is good news, NBA GMs did get quite a jolt when David Stern announced
that the league is now forecasting that revenue will be down for this year. That's at odds with what teams had been hearing all
season. Revenue is directly tied to the league's salary cap.

Generally, GMs believed that the cap would rise from $43.8 million this year to around $45 million next season. A few prognosticators
had it going as high as $47 million. Teams were generally optimistic about the status because the money from the new television deal was supposed to jump start the revenue this year.

Stern's announcement that the revenue from the league had actually gone down (despite attendance going up) had to be a real kick in the gut. While no one knows the exact figures or how much it will affect the final salary-cap tabulations . . . the news was depressing to
just about everyone. If it invokes the luxury tax next season (teams have been told all year by the league that there likely won't be a luxury tax for the 2004-05 season) it could be a knock-out blow to several owners.

At those numbers, after renouncing all their exceptions and bird rights to QRich, Clippers may not have quite enough for a maxed-Kobe. The trade exception for Drobnjak gets them that extra room.

Problem with the deal, of course, is that by trading down the Clippers risk missing out on Harris and Gordon (Gordon perhaps to Toronto and Harris to either Philly or Cleveland). Another year of Jaric probably isn't a good idea. So, Warriors may have to include Claxton (say, for Jaric and House). Still may be worthwhile for the Warriors, if it's Andriuskevicius. We'll see how his workouts go.

Atlanta - big problem for the Warriors trading up here is that Atlanta has to fill so many spots, they'll likely take BAP and want to keep that player. Plus, even if you could convince them, you necessarily have to dig into the core group to get it done as they don't need any caproom which is the Warriors' best asset (trade exception, Cliffy, NVE, etc.). I'd guess they'll take a center themselves, Biedrins or possibly Josh Smith.

Ellison Saves! We Believe!