To add to my post above. People can say what they want about Carrol Dawson being a better GM. After a bunch of silly contracts, he just happened to have had the #1 pick fall into his lap. People can say what they want to about McGrady... But when he wanted out of Orlando, he was one of the best players in the league, if not THE best. There's a slight chance that trade would have gone differently if the Rockets didn't have a star player in Yao Ming. McGrady's contract was extended almost immediately, which means he had to have agreed before the trade was final. Stop blaming Morey for not wanting to overpay players w/o a star player here. Until there's a star player on the Rockets team, you can't blame him for UNrestricted agents not wanting to play here.
Did anyone else notice he said the Asik/Lin deals not done? I wonder if they will pump up the $ figure the last minute to give NY and CHI something to think about.
I think it is only because they aren't officially signed (though it does seem like he was referencing Lin's terms not even being agreed to yet).
No, The deals not done, likely means that other teams can match the deal, they are not our players yet. I do not think we can keep pump up the number after they signed offer sheets. Also we already offer too much money for both, just let them go if they match the offers.
Everyone is frustrated here so Morey is damned if does something and damned if he doesn't do something. I'm still inclined to be patient and I am glad the team has finally moved to the rebuilding mode. What I am curious is how Morey is going to get the team to the minimum salary level.
I think everyone, including Morey, would agree with this. We should adopt any method we can to gain an advantage. I haven't seen anything that would suggest we don't recruit like normal teams do. But the fact that stars aren't coming here doesn't necessarily indicate that more recruiting would solve the problem. Stars want to compete for championships with other stars in flashy destination cities for max contracts. Better recruiting may provide a marginal advantage, but it won't overcome that central fact. To use your analogy, better recruiting may make the difference in choosing between companies if all other factors are equal, but if Company A is not an industry leader, it's located in a crap town with nothing fun to do, and it's offering me the same money as a Company B, which is successful and in a fun place, no recruiting pitch in the world is going to get me to choose company A.
So the past two years have been about getting a franchise player to replace Yao? What about before then? The most successful model of building around a franchise player is to get other franchise players. Morey might think free agnecy and trades will be a breeze after you get that star, but it really won't. You can't get Dwight, surround him with role players, and expect them to compete against Miami, OKC, and LA.
Can they do that? If he's as high on Asik as he seems to be, he SHOULD renegotiate! I know that won't be a popular decision but we need a center and a PG.
I think you might find Morey to be a much better recruiter if he already had Dywane Wade on his roster too. LeBron & Bosh went to Miami because they could join Wade to make a superteam without sacrificing much money...plus they get to live in South Beach. I admit that Riley has some cache, but that's not why he was successful in getting the Big 3 to play in Miami.
Carl - It sounded like Morey was saying that b/c, under league rules, you can't have a done deal with Asik/Lin. The rules say you can't sign players until the 11th, but you can negotiate and talk. I don't know the exact verbiage of the rule, but I think Morey said the deals weren't done b/c he does not want to be construed as having reached an agreement or having "signed" them. Technically, I think you can pump up the $$ at the last minute. Practically however, you probably don't want to do that because ... - the negotiating paradigm between teams and agents is that people use the negotiation period to reach agreement on terms, not to just talk generally. - if you're a team that bumps up (or down compensation) after an oral agreement (not "verbal" b/c verbal means in words and written agreements are also verbal) has been struck, then you set precedent for future FA negotiating periods, which creates problems for you down the road. - if you're an agent that bumps up/down compensation after an oral agreement, same problem. You've screwed yourself, either with teams or players.
very interesting. i have been wondering this all along. It's a delicate balance though. Have to add just enough poison so that we kill off the knicks and bulls without poisoning ourselves.
Actually, that's exactly what Dallas did when they beat Miami last year, surrounding Dirk with good players (Terry, Chandler, Marion) but not a single other franchise player. You could also argue that San Antonio won the bulk of their championships withonly one franchise player and then 2 very good supporting players (no one would build a team around Parker or Manu). Regardless, you can't get multiple franchise players without getting one first. After that, I doubt he will be stopping there with the team-building.
now that NY has already publically committed to signing lin at any cost (even a cool billion), might as well up that contract to $14M per year
Le$ has to meet minimum salary requirements the next few years anyways, so might as well get some chinese return on that expenditure anyways :grin:
just as i thought in other words he low balled goran and probably camby had nothing to do with the dragic 4yr option
