Corey Maggette Not To Be Traded As Yet
By Michael Williams (2/20/2007)
It was informed by the Clippers’ general manager, Elgin Baylor, that the Clippers had ended all discussions regarding the possibility of trading Corey Maggette to Sacramento Kings in lieu of Ron Artest, the forward.
Maggette’s agent has already requested for a trade. Though there is a slight possibility that Clippers might trade Maggette before the trading deadline of February 22, 2007, there have been no potential deals that are considered to be imminent.
Many teams have shown interest in Maggette. However, Clippers have not received an offer that would be acceptable to them. Maggette averaged 20 points in the 2003 – 2004 season and the same in 2004 – 2005 season. Maggette has a cap friendly salary of $ 7 million a season which will continue through the 2008 – 2009 season. This means that the Clippers are expecting to receive as much for him if he is to be traded.
The other hurdle in trading Clippers is Donald T Sterling. Sterling is the owner of Clippers and Maggette is one of his favorite players after Baylor acquired him from Orlando Magic after his rookie season.
It is believed that Sterling would have agreed to trade Maggette for a player of Artest’s caliber but the operations staff would face difficulties in persuading Sterling to trade Maggette for many other players.
Clippers will have two first round picks when the June draft starts. So it looks like that they will wait till summer before they decide to package Maggette with a pick and get a bigger deal.
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