What Free Agents can we target with our Mid-Level Exception and our Trade Exception??? We received a trade exception with the Moochie/Bogans Trade near the deadline. Here are some free agents available for a reasonable amount: Flip Murray Speedy Claxton Lorenzen Wright Fred Jones Jarron Collins Devean George James Posey Darius Songaila Rasual Butler I think that Al Harrington, Tim Thomas, Sam Cassell, Chris Wilcox and Bonzi Wells will command more than the mid-level. What are your thoughts?
Tim Thomas has been playing great for the Suns. If we could - we should try and snatch him up (if possible). He is exactly what JVG is looking for. A 4 with range.
my thoughts exactly. last night during the game JVg said that a 4 sho can hit the 3 is so valuable in todays NBA. he was talking about how radmanovic has helped the clippers alot as a 4 who spots up at the 3pt line. he said that it speads the defense out and makes it hard to double the post when everyone is around the arch. it also clears up one block (as opposed to having a 4 and 5, each on opposite blocks) for a slasher like maggetty. althought he was using names off of the clippers roster, i could read between the lines and hear him talking about yao and tmac. it doesn't hurt the tim thomas is an ex-knick. i think he might be #1 on JVG's wish list. that would give us way too many 4's on the team, esp if we draft one too. i think i good trade to move a PF is Jho for jaric. we would have like 4 PF's and the wolves have 4 PG's. it makes sense for both teams.
If we bring over Spanoulis, it'll cost us 1/2 of the MLE. We're not signing anyone mentioned in here thus far for 1/2 a MLE. If I had a dollar for every time the Spanoulis factor will be ignored by posters from now until July 1st, I'd probably be able to buy decent season tickets. VG IMO was pretty obvious in his using the Clipps players to describe what is "desirable in a championship caliber team". The PF with range comment, the every team needs at least 1 lock down 1on1 defender and a slasher and the Maggette as offense off of the bench were revealing comments.
I wasn't high on Tim Thomas before, but he's looked great on the Suns. Would he look as good playing in JVG's system? Probably not.
Good Point- Rockets have a "choreographed" 75 shots a game approach. D'Antoni could care less if they hit 100 shots- so the numbers for Suns look wonderful. Good Or Bad- the media and some folks obsess about Offensive numbers. Infact there are lot of "defensive presence" stats that are just being looked. Kevin Pittsnoggle or Novak Anyone? That dude Novak is a serious shooter in a big man's body.
Exactly. I don't see Tim Thomas as very productive in JVG's run in the mud type of offense. Also that MVP guy that the Sun's have makes everyone on that team look good.
tim thomas is playing great now...because he's playing for a contract. how many times have we seen this scenario? sometimes i think i'd take Swift over Thomas ..... but then i slap myself across the head and take a cold shower and im back 2 normal. a young/ish ,cheap/ish shooter like Rasual Butler or James Jones would be ideal.
Yeah everytime JVG mentioned something you need on a championship team, it was a player the Rox were lacking last season.
VSpan + DA mean the Rox need to TradeTradeTrade their way to a roster overhaul. 4 with range, available and attainable: three prime choices IMO - Raef, Murph, Donyell. Slava for remaining MLE? Lock down defender. Alexander claimed Rox tried hard to obtain Artest. I never heard, even speculation about, what was on offer (yet not enough to get the deal done).
Considering the fact that we are limited by our financial status we are going to need to make two very correct decissions in the Draft and JVG will have to be instructed to develop these rookies as an intergral part of our playing roster. That being said, we can also use the money with the retirement of Wesley and Mutomb[ I think that they should be encouraged to do so!] [ We replace Mutombo with Cato at the vets minimum]. We also have several players that mightbe used in trades- Alston,Swift, Howard and Bowen. Although when all the majic is woven I expect that we still will have only two or possibly three new players next season and the remaining gaps will have to be taken care of later.
I'd definitely go after Rasual Butler Also, Radmanovich doesn't get that much pt with the Clips and if JVG wants a 4 with range, he's gonna be a FA Livingston is one damn good pg for the Clips, so I think Sam is gonna be expendable and the Rockets should go after him even if the Rockets can't afford Vlad Rad and Sam, they should try anyway, because Swift was offered more money, but still choose to come to H-town
first of all, we need a super badass as a 3rd option. Unlike the suns, there aren't enough shots to get guys going. Sometimes you have to shoot urself into a rhythm and that just isn't going to happen with the touches that we get.
GATER, I'm still tring to figure out what the minimum number is we can sign V-Span for next year. When the new CBA was signed last year I heard 1.2 mil, then I heard $750k, then $550k. Is this confusion perhaps the lack of hard info about his contract in Greece? I'm just trying to get myself straightened out here, because I think a decision about Spanoulis almost has to be made before we can even think about what to do with our MLE. CD continually hypes this guy and for relatively cheap it just seems risky to me to not get him here.
It doesn't work that way. With TMac, Yao's extension, Howard, Swift, Alston, and Bogans we are near or over the cap regardless of Mutombo (who has a 2006-07 contract) and Wesley. If you don't bring them back, then you have limited yourself to splitting the MLE between some combination of Spanoulis, a FA signing and the second round pick and then using a truckload of minimum contracts (800k-$1m depending on # years in the league) to fill out the roster. Not smart IMO. Mutombo should be here and because we have Wesley's Bird Rights we can re-sign him to any deal mutually agreed upon. dc - You hit the nail squarely on the head. We have to pay Spanoulis enough that he can buyout his contract with Panathanaikos. I'm not sure but I think the CBA also allows us to kick in an additional $300k. The estimates I have read are in the 1/2 MLE range to cover the buyout and to provide enough monetary incentive to come over to the NBA.
