Houston: The Rockets continue to offer Tracy McGrady(notes) in a trade, but that will be a difficult proposition considering he’s the highest-paid player in the league ($23.2 million) and no one has seen him play in nine months. Houston seems willing to take back a longer-term contract for McGrady, but most executives believe his high salary makes it hard to put together a package.

Rockets GM Daryl Morey and coach Rick Adelman don’t want McGrady back with the team, and have insisted that he isn’t physically ready to return to the lineup. McGrady would love a trade, but knows he must start playing again for it to be possible.

If Houston really wants to be rid of McGrady, send them Magette, Claxton, and Bell. (Can’t do this yet, because Bell can’t be traded yet.) The trade also works with Azubuke+George instead of Bell, which may be more appealing to the Rockets because Azu seems like their type of player and they still get a good chunk of cap savings. Trouble is, Houston probably still asks for pick(s) to make this work. That price begins to get too high rather quickly.

I’ll take McGrady just to get Magette’s contract off the team, even if he turns out to be useless this year.

Philadelphia: Sixers GM Ed Stefanski is desperate to unload forward Elton Brand(notes) and the $66 million owed over the remaining four years of his crippling contract, sources say, but that will be incredibly difficult. Even with several teams, including Golden State and Charlotte, desperate for low-post scorers and rebounders, no one believes Brand, who makes $14.8 million this season, has enough left to merit taking on that contract.

Before Monta Ellis(notes) started on his scoring tear, Philly had hope that his issues with Golden State might inspire the Warriors to take a chance on Brand, but that isn’t happening. Sacramento had some interest in center Samuel Dalembert(notes), another contract Philly wants to shed, but couldn’t work out a three-way deal with Boston.

Magette and George for Dalembert wouldn’t bother me at all, but probably doesn’t give Philly enough salary savings or talent to make them happy. If they needed Boston to take Nocioni to make the Sacto deal work, they aren’t going to like this one either – and I haven’t thought of a way to fix that.

Wait a week and thrown in CJ Watson & Moore, perhaps instead of George, and maybe end up with Brand instead of Dalembert. Not my favorite deals under any circumstance, but perhaps still an improvement, even if they throw in Jason Smith. (Because we end up with worse salary problems, even if it does fix some of the size issues. If we could just entice the Jazz to send us Boozer in a 3-way deal…)

Claxton and a pick for Thomas is the closest I can come to a remotely enticing deal, but I don’t think it is enough. The Lakers are offering nothing we want. I don’t see a Portland deal either.

he could do very well in Nellie’s system. He’d be like a super poor man version of Amare haha