What Was The Point Of The Kimura Trade Again?

Back on July 1st the Rapids traded Kosuke Kimura to Portland for allocation money and an international spot for 2012.  Since then the Rapids cut an international player (Harrison Henao) and signed an international player (Hendry Thomas).  Jamie Smith may have gotten his green card as well, which would have freed up another international spot.  Last weekend was the roster freeze deadline for the year so the Rapids won't be signing an other players.  See the problem?  The Rapids traded for an international spot for 2012, and never used it.  Thomas took the international spot of Henao who was waived about 2 weeks after the Kimura trade.

At the time I understood the trade of Kimura.  He had obviously been passed on the depth chart in Pareja's mind by Freeman and he's in a contract year and wanted to go somewhere where he could play.  Win-win for both teams.  Honestly at the point he was traded Freeman was outplaying him and the Portland fans love his passion but aren't impressed with his play there so he may never have gotten the spot back.

If you're going to trade a guy who's been with the team 5+ years and been a steady starter for the last 3 though, I expect the team to get some value for him.  Instead they got some allocation money which the Rapids never seem to use except for other trades and an international spot they didn't use, so essentially they got allocation money for him.

If I had to guess, about a week after the trade reports came out that Colorado had made a bid for Senegalese defender Mor Diouf from a South African team.  I'm betting the Rapids thought they were going to get the deal done and traded for the international spot to be able to add Diouf to the roster.  If so, this was a poor decision on two levels.  First apparently the deal wasn't as "done" as Colorado thought as Diouf never signed and is still playing in South Africa.  Secondly, the Rapids made a decision a week after the reports of their interest in Diouf to cut Henao which freed up an international spot anyway.

Colorado still has the allocation money they got, so it wasn't a complete giveaway, but a pretty poor trade none the less.