With the trade deadline about a month away, the Hornets may only have one more move left after today.

In: Aaron Gray (C, Chicago, $1,000,497)
Out: Devin Brown (G, New Orleans, $1,107,572)

Let's talk money first. When the Hornets attempted to move Brown last month, they did so for a player they could buy out. Aaron Gray, playing out the end of a rookie contract, is not such a player. His current contract nets him a mere (heh) $107,575 less than Brown. So at the end of the day, the Hornets still remain $423,356 above the tax line. As has been mentioned during every Hornet trade rumor of the last three years, this means Shinn forfeits an additional ~5.5 million (.5 for the amount over the tax and 5 from the potential below-tax payout). So it's more than likely we see one more move before the deadline, probably of the failed Brown type, preferably minus the "failed" part.

My differentiation between the two deals might imply I see some value in Aaron Gray. And I do. Admittedly, Gray looks really, um, terrible at basketball at first glance. He's steadily regressed since his rookie year, barely cracks the floor on a highly mediocre Bulls team, supposedly very fat, fouls a LOT (think Oden on steroids... fouling steroids*), turns it over, and can't shoot well. But he can rebound. Sort of. I'll let the following chart do the explaining:

* Man, the eloquence is just flowing today.

Basically, the Hornets are terrible at rebounding. This is what happens when one fields a Songiala/Posey look at the 4 and 5 for long stretches at a time. Take Gray's numbers with enormous quantities of sodium and then chloride since he's played against backups in a limited career, but he'd literally walk on to this team as its second or third best rebounder, at worst. Does that offset the rest of his game being very... bad? That's anyone's guess. Bower hasn't really played Sean Marks much, though whether that's due to injury or something else is unknown. My gut feeling is the Hornets wouldn't have moved Brown without getting under the tax unless they're planning on using Gray to at least some effect. And while Gray may be is 100%, without a doubt, for sure an overall less valuable player than Brown (which is... impressive?), he brings one asset to the table that the Hornets don't currently have.

Consider my interest extraordinarily mildly piqued.

Other random implications:

• According to Wiki, Gray is the only true 7 footer from the '07 draft class. Of course Wiki also claims, "[Gray] is seen as a welcome addition to the [Hornets] as he can be an instant contributor" so I wouldn't go overboard with the bar bets.
• LBJ's extremely weird/random/strange appeal to NBA players to give up the 23 jersey moves one step closer to fruition.
• Had the DTDevinBrown Twitter account not already gone down, this post would most certainly have smashed the deal, for the destruction of the DTDevinBrown Twitter account.
  

Other topics for discussion:

• Will there ever be a better two-name amalgamation than Helvin Brownarms?
• Is Gray really the only true 7 footer from the '07 draft class?
• Is Hilt really btr thn Wilt?