With the NBA draft just hours away and a likely lockout coming soon after, the trade rumor mill is on fire and the Sixers' Andre Iguodala is at the center of several proposed deals. The latest comes from Los Angeles and has the Lakers offering a package centering around Lamar Odom.
Odom is due over $8 million next year, but it is the final year of his deal. In addition, it's likely that either Ron Artest or Luke Walton would be part of trade as well. Walton doesn't bring as much to the court as Artest, but his contract is a year shorter. Of all the deals rumored, this one would seem to make the most sense from a Sixers perspective. They're getting the future salary relief that we all assume they're looking for by trading Iguodala in the first place... but they're also getting useful veteran players in return as well.
That said, it's hard to see what the real end game of such a move would be. Artest is still signed for three more years at about half of what Iguodala is. So there's only some salary relief. Odom is a useful player, but he's really only here for a year as an expiring contract, not a piece of what we hope to be an eventual contender. I would imagine that he would be a prime candidate to flip in season for a draft pick or a young player.
So what do we think? "Khloe and Lamar" filming in Philly?
Check our Sixers 2011 NBA Draft Preview and our NBA Draft storystream.