You just paid role players a ton of cash and drove up the price for next year's free agents. Toronto - Torkoglu - 5 years - 60 million - 12 per season Memphis - Lee - 5 years - 60 million - 12 per season Detroit - Gordan - 5 years - 55 million - 11 per season I call this the Kellen Winslow deals of the NBA. Owen Daniels/Luis Scola are sending you flowers. Somewhere right about know T-Mac is chuckling. Waiting patiently knowing even a half mediocre comeback season and he'll be looking at 5 more years of earning top dollar. Pathetic.
I think he means that if any team wanted to sign any of these players, they would have to pay more than what some of these terrible GMs are offering.
Heard earlier on ESPN they were going to offer 5 year 60 million. No way anyone else can match that number not even Portland.
I'm assuming the OP forgot the deals that Jim McIllvane, Kelvin Cato, Calvin Booth, Matt Maloney, Brian Grant, Nick Collison and many others have gotten way back when. Sure it's not 10+ mil a year but overpaying for talent is NEVER out of style in the NBA.
If it helps you keep bosh in toronto, thats not bad at all. Hedo,Bosh,Bargiani,and Calderon is a pretty good team in the east.
I never think it's a problem for other teams to overpay for talent. It's a finite market and when the Rockets need to sign someone, those teams won't be able to field an offer because they'll be servicing bloated contracts already. As we're seeing this offseason with Artest, knowing you deserve more money doesn't mean you'll be able to get it. I think the much bigger problem for 2010 is that there are a lot of teams clearing big cap space for a couple of free agent stars. When they return to their respective teams, the remaining suitors will end up overpaying for the second-tier guys left on the board just to get someone.
Recession? What Recession? I wonder if the numbers being thrown about for the Gordons, Turkoglus, and Charlie Vs of the world are part of the reason why the Rockets decided to say farewell to Artest. If the market does support a price that the Rockets consider too high (particularly for a wing nearing 30 and wanting a long-term deal), perhaps the wise thing to do is to let Ron get his payday somewhere else.
