There has been some chatter starting early on Monday concerning discussions between the Hornets and Warriors centering on a trade for Chris Kaman. Naturally, the report has led to speculation and discussion about possible deals (obviously also considering the awkward situation Dell Demps and the rest of the front office for the Hornets is in with their current ownership kerfuffle).

One such theoretical deal would move Monta Ellis to the Hornets for Kaman’s expiring contract and a pick, potentially Minnesota’s 2012 first-rounder with some protection on it.

I’ll give three answers to the question of whether I would do that move if I were the decision maker for the Warriors: short, pretty short, and long.

Short- No

Pretty Short- No, because the Warriors used their Amnesty 2.0 on Charlie Bell

Long- As with any evaluation of this sort, one must look at the benefits and costs of making the move. The benefits to the Warriors come in two basic flavors.

First, the team gets resources in the form of greater financial flexibility and a draft pick that could prove very useful.

Second, some would argue that moving Ellis helps clarify and stabilize the guard rotation in a way that helps Stephen Curry while making him more likely to sign an extension with the team.

Each of those arguments has merits, though they are somewhat limited.

As far as financial flexibility is concerned, what the deal would do is change the Warriors from a team with about $47 million in commitments to nine players for 2012-13 to one with approximately $36M committed to eight players. With the cap rumored to be in the $61-62 million range for next season, moving Ellis would give the team some meaningful coin to throw around. The problem here is that the team would have a series of holes on their roster and as was the case this summer, there are limited returns if the top-level players end up going elsewhere.

Despite being a staunch advocate for the uses of cap space other than signing free agents, the increase in the salary cap for 2012-13 means that many teams will be under a reduced crunch to get under the cap/tax lines and most of the teams gunning for elite talents will not be looking to move players that would fit in with what the Warriors should be looking to do with that extra space. After all, it seems unlikely at this point that cap space would trump talent or picks in a potential move for players like Andre Iguodala or Rudy Gay if their respective teams were even interested in moving them at that juncture. Keeping all that in mind, the benefit of cap space for pretty much one season (since Ellis can and likely will opt out after next season) holds some but not a ton of value.

The draft pick is interesting but so speculative that it becomes hard to analyze. Would the Hornets give up the T-Wolves’ pick without any major protection for a guy who plays the same position as the centerpiece of the Chris Paul trade? Should they? If their determination was that a likely top-15 pick plus Kaman was the price for Ellis, the trade becomes more interesting from Golden State’s perspective despite their shaky history picking in the mid to late lottery. Incidentally, many of the logical players in the 10-15 range are shooting guards, meaning that the main return on trading Ellis would be a replacement of lower quality but much better salary. That’s an interesting proposition considering the salary cap situation discussed above.

Finally, the concept of addition and clarification by subtraction has a place in the discussion. Personally, I do not see losing Ellis as a benefit in and of itself considering how the team is presently constituted. While firmly putting the keys to the offense in Curry’s hands is something I can get behind (and have advocated for numerous times in the last year and a half), that change does not require this drastic a move to happen. A move like this would turn the surprisingly decent guard depth the team has shown this season into a pit since neither Nate Robinson nor Charles Jenkins should play next to Curry for any meaningful time. As such, it would come down to Klay Thompson, Brandon Rush, Dorell Wright, Dominic McGuire, and any offseason additions this coming summer to man the swingman spots for the next two seasons. Moving Ellis creates a hole in the rotation that will take assets (like draft picks and cap space) to fill and neither perimeter spot has a ton of depth in next summer’s free agent class, at least for the age range of player Golden State should be looking at.

With all that said, this calculus would be totally different if the Warriors still had their amnesty provision to use. If that were the case, the added flexibility of being able to shed either David Lee or Andris Biedrins’ onerous contract would provide a dramatically stronger amount of creative freedom for the front office. Being able to move down to less than $30 million in commitments for 2012-13 would make the Warriors off-season players in a way that would be hard to ignore, though I still think they would strike out with Deron Williams, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard for various reasons.

The other beauty of the amnesty is that the team could have used it only if the right opportunity arose during those few months- no harm in keeping the tool in the box and retaining both big men for 2012-13 if the benefit of using the provision did not present itself in 2012. Of course, the team used their one shot at amnesty on Charlie Bell, so the only way Lee or Biedrins comes off the team’s ledger is via trade.

The challenge with trading Ellis for space and picks now is that the team has committed to so many other players that the benefits of a little more financial flexibility simply are not that high going into the unusual offseason of 2012. Incidentally, the biggest benefit of doing the deal could be that it hurts the Warriors’ own regular season record enough that their pick falls in the top seven of the draft, meaning that the team gets to keep it and send their 2013 first rounder instead of 2012. In that case, the potential of one top-7 and one late lottery pick creates a fascinating front office opportunity. However, the solid nature of the worst teams in the league coupled with Golden State’s horrendous lottery luck means that this would be far from a sure thing.

I am overjoyed that the front office continues to have conversations with teams like the Hornets since those can fuel positive transactions in the future. Hopefully they understand what kind of return makes sense for a player like Monta Ellis considering where the team stands at the moment.