So we have a reported $8 million trade exception, which we received in the recently announced Hedo Turkoglu sign-and-trade.  There's a lot of speculation about what we're going to use it for, but let me point out again: we have it for a whole calendar year.  Which means to me...

At the moment, we're in the free agent market.  We are signing up free agents, and filling out the team.  At this point, if we used the trade exception to get an $8 million dollar player who wanted to leave his team, we'd have to pay him $8 million dollars.  Or more, given the luxury tax.  Are we going to do this?  Unlikely!  We might get a cheap guy for cheap money, but we don't want any $8 million guys.

But consider this: It's the trade deadline.  Maybe two thirds of the way through the season.  The Magic use their $8 million exception, pursuing an $8 million dollar guy who has an expiring contract.  Maybe they throw in a draft pick or something; maybe the guy is on a team deep in the lottery, he wants to go, the team is glad to deal him so as to lose more games.  Either way, we've got an $8 million player... and we're paying him at a pro-rated salary, because he didn't spend most of the season with the team.  Maybe he gets $3 million from us -- we're over the tax, of course, but even doubled, it's simply not that much money.  And he's here for the playoffs, which is where we really need that extra boost over the top.

I'm not speculating on any individual names, because I don't quite understand the full details of the exception, and I don't know which teams will be out of the playoff picture in February.  I'm just saying... if we don't see that trade exception move in the next couple months, don't panic. As far as cost-benefit ratios go, it's more valuable to us in the early days of 2010...