The Toronto Raptors got a couple of pieces from the Atlanta Hawks in exchange for a veteran with a contract that will be bought out. Numbers Game looks at the deal that brings Lou Williams to the Raptors. The Raptors Get: SG Lou Williams and C Lucas Nogueira. Williams, 27, has been a productive scoring guard off the bench for much of his career, but he struggled last season, posting his worst Player Efficiency Rating (PER of 14.24) since his rookie season of 2005-2006. Williams shot 40.0% from the field, including 342% on threes, his worst in both categories since 2008-2009, so hes not exactly at peak value. Three times in his career, including in 2012-2013, Williams has averaged better than 14 points per game, yet hes come off the bench in 500 of his 554 career games. Hes a perimeter player who is taking fewer two-point shots. Last season, Williams took 4.3 twos per game, compared to 3.9 threes and his 3.0 free-throw attempts per game was his lowest since 2006-2007; these are signs of a player who isnt getting to the rim. Defensively, Williams is below average; a shooting guard in a point guards body, he doesnt have the physique to handle stronger guards, nor the height to deal with bigger guards. Williams does have quickness and can use that to his advantage but hes consistently rated as a subpar defender. Despite those limitations, Williams can be a useful second-team gunner and theres room for that in the Raptors rotation. Williams is going into the final year of a contract that pays him $5.45-million in 2014-2015. Taken with the 16th pick in last summers draft, Lucas Nogueira is a skinny 7-footer who, as might be expected, has potential as a shot blocker, but the Brazilian they call "Bebe" is considered raw, not unlike the Raptors first-round pick in this summers draft, Bruno Caboclo, who also happens to be Brazilian. Playing in Spain for Estudiantes last season, Nogueira put up 6.3 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game in 16.0 minutes per game. He turns 22 this summer and could still use time to develop, but is a nice upside play for the Raptors. Nogueira has a contract with Estudiantes that runs through next season, so that will give him additional time to round out his game before worrying about how he might fit into the Raptors plans. The Hawks Get: SF John Salmons. Salmons is a 34-year-old swingman whose best days are well behind him. He hasnt shot 40% from the field in the past two seasons, and shot a career-low 36.3% from the field last season on his way to scoring 5.2 points per game, his fewest since 2004-2005. Hes showing the wear and tear of playing 874 career games. Salmons can still knock down a three, but hes no longer quick enough to get to the basket, nor is he quick enough to defend wings effectively. This could very well be the end of the line for Salmons. The value to the Hawks is that Salmons has a $7-million contract that only requires a $1-million buyout, leaving the Hawks with lots of room to maneuver as the NBA free agent market gets into full swing. Carmelo Anthony, Luol Deng and Lance Stephenson could be among the more appealing wings that the Hawks may try to lure with more than %15-million in salary cap space. This is a case where the Hawks got what they were after, increased cap space, and the Raptors got a few assets in return for providing it. Williams offers some immediate help, and is a trade chip with an expiring contract if the season goes awry, while Nogueira presents some upside for the long run. As it stands today, the Raptors are a better team for having made this trade. Scott Cullen can be reached at Scott.Cullen@bellmedia.ca and followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tsnscottcullen. For more, check out TSN Fantasy on Facebook. Fake NFL Jerseys .com) - Cleveland Cavaliers superstar LeBron James will sit out Thursdays game against the Oklahoma City Thunder with left knee soreness. Fake Jerseys . -- Phil Hughes ended a personal losing streak that dated to last July, pitching into the seventh inning Sunday and helping the Twins top the Kansas City Royals 8-3 to avoid a three-game sweep. https://www.fakejerseys.us.com/.Y. - Rob Manfred was promoted Monday to Major League Baseballs chief operating officer, which may make him a candidate to succeed Bud Selig as commissioner. Fake Hockey Jerseys . The best round belonged to Pat Perez. Tiger Woods didnt come close to claiming either Thursday in the Farmers Insurance Open, where the seven-time champion failed to break par in the opening round for first time in his career. Fake Soccer Jerseys .C. -- Eric Staal kept his focus after his apparent breakaway goal was waived off early in the third period.In mid-December, a U.S. federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed by more than 1,000 former NFL players who sued the league, saying its teams haphazardly gave players addictive painkillers. The judge in that case said the collective bargaining agreement between the league and its players was the appropriate way to resolve the dispute. Days later, the NHL is hoping to rely on that NFL victory. In court papers filed in Minnesota court and obtained by TSN, the NHL has argued that a lawsuit filed by its own players should be dismissed for similar reasons as was the NFL case. In the NFL case, former players such as Hall of Fame defensive end Richard Dent said the NFL and its teams, doctors and trainers had withheld information about injuries and issued prescription painkillers without considering the long-term effects. But a judge dismissed the case, although it might still be appealed, saying players should go to arbitration as their CBA dictates. Cash awards in arbitration cases are typically much lower than court judgments. The NHL hopes to convince a judge overseeing its own case that its CBA with the players details the proper protocol that should be followed. Just last week, the court in Dent vs NFL dismissed the claims of retired players that the NFL had negligently allowed them to be over-treated with painkillers, the NHL said in its court filing. In evaluating any possible negligence by the NFL…, it would be necessary to take into account what the NFL has affirmatively done to address the problem, not just what it has not done. The court noted the many steps the NFL had taken to address the issue of player medical care by imposing on clubs detailed provisions in numerous collective bargaining agreements, the NHL said. Although there was no CBA provision that specifically call(ed) out the prescribing of drugs and painkillers, provisions related to player health and safety generally were critical to the analysis because the proper administration of drugs can reasonably be deemed to fall under these more general protections. The NHLs collectively bargained agreements address player safety and health through provisions governing medical treatment for injured plaayers, return-to-play determinations, workers compensation coverage and end-of-season physicals, the NHL wrote.dddddddddddd. Moreover, unlike in Dent and the other NFL cases, the NHL has had (since 1997) a detailed collectively-bargained framework covering the subject matter underlying the negligence-based claims - the evaluation and management of concussions. In the initial lawsuit filed in November 2013, players contended that the NHL did not do enough to protect them from head injuries before creating a committee to study head trauma in 1997. Even after that, the players charge the committees findings were not adequately shared with the players. The 40-some NHL players - the most prominent of whom include former Red Wings star Joe Murphy, one-time Toronto Maple Leaf Gary Leeman and former Los Angeles Kings star Bernie Nicholls - filed the suit after a group of nearly 4,500 former NFL players reached a settlement with the NFL over similar concussion-related complaints. The NHL players claims have not been proven in court. The league earlier said that players who were forced to retire early because of concussions and other head injuries ought to have been able to put two and two together, thanks to a number of newspaper and magazine stories and other news reports. The NHL has reiterated the claim that former players have waited too long to file for damages and have long been represented by a sophisticated players union charged by federal law to advance their welfare. When a plaintiff is aware of an injury and its cause, he is charged with knowing publicly available information that could be revealed through a reasonable search, particularly where the issue has been discussed in the press and medical studies are accessible through Internet searches, the NHL said. Plaintiffs contend that they had no burden to investigate because they relied on the NHLs allegedly superior ability to interpret medical studies, the NHL said. But courts have squarely rejected arguments, like this one, based on a plaintiffs alleged educational disadvantage relative to the defendant - even in cases involving a trust relationship between the parties (which is absent here.) ' ' '