No . . he won't Sad thing is. . . Jordan and Kobe come off as complete A-holes . . personality wise LeBron seems like a decent dude Rocket River
Lebron is done being pressured by the media or how he thinks the fans might perceive his actions. The guy flat out wants to win. He will give the Heat franchise every chance to convince him to stay because I think that is what his heart wants but his brain will make the decision and I don't know if Pat Riley can pull enough strings to convince him. One advantage I think Miami has over other teams is that it is hard for any team to win a championship in its first year together. Riley can play that angle and convince Lebron to stick around and give him next season to re-tool the roster rather than go somewhere else and waste a year building chemistry. Miami is one player (Lowry?) and facing a non-Spurs team in the finals away from winning it all next season.
If memory serves, Simmons was openly rooting for LeBron to go to the Clippers when he was leaving Cleveland and everyone else expected him to go to NYC. Simmons can be entertaining, but he's never been good about separating what he wants to happen from what is happening. All his articles are soaked in bias, which he'll mostly admit.
Disagree. For one I think hey may be more than one player away. Wade only plays 2/3 of the season and one of Wade or Bosh usually fails to show up every series. Beyond that though the rest of their team is basically a free agent. They need a bench. They need a center, even as much small ball as they do. For two, I think a number of Western teams would beat them as currently constructed, not just the Spurs. For three, baby your logic, he is just delaying everything a year. Either Miami gets it incredibly right - Big 3 all take pay cuts, they land someone like a Lowry AND find a way to fill out a bench, and then win it all, or he has to do the new team thing next year. Why wait? Because hes got a family. He's got 2 rings. The constant jumping will hurt his legacy, etc. But if it is solely about winning, he should leave now.
I wasn't trying to use Bill Simmons as a source. At this point, no one is a source- everything is just speculation. I hadn't seen that article posted so I thought to share what his opinion was.....even though it was ridiculous that he would consider Lebron being a sellout in Houston but not in LAC.
I don't think you have to read Bill Simmons articles as a source. I think they are entertaining and he writes them as a biased fan, just like if I was writing an article it would all be biased towards the Rockets. Even Woj has his tweets when he tries to break news of trades or signings but also has his articles when he is just sharing his opinions or analysis. There is a difference in the different kinds of articles.
Actually, both him and Rose are always talking out of their asses and speculating. Neither one really ever has any information. They were fun for a while but always just give the same type of schtick. I wouldn't put much value in what either says. As Lebron James says, "I don't really care what people think." <iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/oCC5S9jX5Wk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Jamal Crawford - does not need to be traded, as his contract is not guaranteed. DeAndre Jordan – 11.4 million might actually be easy to move considering the season he had last year. 13.6 rebonds / 2.5 blocks last season would make his salary seem like a bargain. JJ Reddick owed about 7 mil a season for 3 more years and is better than Jeremy Lin for sure. To answer your question, my guess is No those players are probably not harder to move than Lin and Asik. But this isn’t an apples to apples comparison. The Clippers have a salary for next season of about 76.2 million The Rockets have a salary for next season of about 62.7 million If the Clippers cut Crawford and his 5.450 million and trade Jordan 11.440 million and Reddick 6.792 million they will shave 23.682 million off of their salary cap. They could even cut Willie Green since his 1.449 million salary is non-guaranteed and that would actually shave 25.131 million off of their 76 million salary cap. But that also leaves the Clippers with only 8 players on the Roster so there is a salary cap charge of $507,336 each for 4 roster spots since teams are required to carry a minimum of 12 players on their roster. So add 2.029 million back into their salary. Clippers Salary = $53,149,553 (after trading away Jordan & Reddick for no salary in return and cutting Crawford & Green and adding in the roster charges for less then 12 players) If the salary cap goes up to 60 million, the Clippers could not even offer Lebron 7 million in his first season. That is only about 1.6 million over this seasons MLE. By comparison, the Rockets have a much shorter distance to create salary cap room. Omar Asik and Jeremy Lin account for 16.749 million of the Rockets salary cap space. There is a report http://www.csnnw.com/nba/sources-garcia-intends-opt-out-become-free-agent-summer that Francisco Garcia will decline his player option this summer saving the Rockets an additional 1.317 million from the teams cap. The Rockets can also cut the non-guaranteed contracts Omri Caspi and Robert Covington as well as decline the team option for Troy Daniels for a total of 2.696 million additional off of the cap. If the Rockets decline Chandler Parsons option and make him a restricted free agent as reported then the team can cut an additional 964,750 off of the salary cap but would have to add back in 2.875 million for his cap hold to remain a restricted free agent. All of that maneuvering would leave us with 6 players under contract so we would need to add in incomplete roster spot chargers for 6 spots at $507,336 each for a total of 3.044 million Rockets Salary = $46,918,915 (after all of the maneuvering described in the previous paragraph) Providing the salary cap jumps to as high as 60 million the Rockets can create a little more than 13 million in cap room fairly easily (assuming someone really is willing to take Lin’s contract if we toss in this years 1st round pick). Clippers could offer Lebron 6.8 million in his 1st season Rockets could offer Lebron 13.1 million in his 1st season Plus, add to the fact that Lebron has been employed in a state with no State Income Tax and if he goes to the Clippers that will be an additional very big charge as opposed to the Rockets, who like the Heat, operate in a state with No State Income Tax. BTW, I’m not sure I’m ready to buy into the theory that the Salary Cap will go as high as 63 million a season. Every year it seams the cap is expected to make a big jump and every year it only makes a minimal jump. Something else to consider is the fact that Houston is planning on shedding both Lin’s and Asik’s salaries regardless of landing Melo or Lebron or any other free agent. The Clippers on the other hand have to approach this very carefully. DeAndre is their starting center, Reddick their starting 2 guard and Crawford their 6th man and Reddick’s back up. Losing those three for cap space and not landing Lebron would be a disaster for that team. Lebron might not even decide if he is going to opt out of his contract until late July, by that time Houston may have already moved both of Lin and Asik, removing the number of teams capable of taking on contracts with little to no salary going out.
Honestly if Lebron goes to any other ready made team like Houston or Clips he would look like a sellout. He'd be a mercenary star and ruthless title hunter. But hey, it sure would solidify his place in history as one of a kind. He'd be the first journeyman superstar (on his own volition, not because he keeps getting pushed out). Miami still makes the most sense for him though, but I would be concerned with Pat Riley's ability to get James help. The Heat's international scouting is terrible, and so far their draft picks have been average at best. All the best help they have managed to find are vets who will take less for a run at a championship, or a few holdovers from before the big 3 era that they decided to over pay (ray allen and battier fall into the first camp, haslem and miller fall into the second). Imagine if they had kept Beverley, he'd be starting for them right now. This isn't just a big three era problem either. Riley always had a hard time building around Wade and later Shaq. His only recourse was always to overpay veterans and hope a championship comes before it all falls apart.
I agree that Lebron leaving for a ready made team looks bad initially but 2 or 3 championships later no one is going to care. He'll just be Phil Jackson. If he wants 6 like Jordan he'll probably need to leave Miami, or certainly the big 3 trio as currently constructed. I just can't believe we'd get Lebron James but on paper this team is perfectly constructed to win a championship immediately. Heck, we shouldn't be too far off from competing for one, without him.
As a whole good analysis, but you're off on a few things. 1) The salary cap is projected to go up to $63.2 million. 2) The Rocket's can rescind their qualifying offer to Parsons just before signing LeBron/Melo/whoever. The Rockets will still have his Bird rights, though this would obviously require a "wink, wink" deal. Under this scenario, his cap hit would be $1.7 million. Basically, when you add everything up you get to a number between $19 and $20 million. We could cut a few more players loose, but that wouldn't save us much and would severly undermine the depth of the team. By far, our best option is a SnT.
I don't understand why the Clips wouldn't trade Griffin + filler for LeBron straight up to keep a more balanced and deeper roster than to trade away your best inside defender (and only center) plus your best bench player and your best 3 point shooter. Jordan MLE Free Agent PF LeBron Reddick Paul Crawford Barnes Dudley That's a really nice team but hey, I guess Griffin Force is just that strong.
You didn't include what the filler was that they would also have to include (Reddick? Crawford? that would further weaken their team). Also, Pat Riley has said that he isn't interested in doing a S&T to help Lebron go to another team. Maybe he would change his mind if it was Griffin, maybe he wouldn't? But even if he did, would CP3/LBJ/DeAndre/Reddick/Crawford be better than Harden/Howard/LBJ/Beverley/Parsons? It's debatable, but I think the Rockets have the stronger, younger roster if the Clips had to lose Griffin.
I acknowledged the projected 63.2 million salary cap for next season in my post, I just also said that i don't buy it. Maybe it happens, maybe not but we are given a projection for the new salary cap every year that turns out to be higher than what actually happens. I think best case scenario with out requiring additional trades of DMo or TJones or cutting Pat Beverley is about 16 million under the cap and thats if the cap increases to 63.2 (which I don't buy yet). Maybe DM has a plan in place to get us to 19 million as you say. Only time will tell for sure.
The filler could be Ryan Hollins or someone costing about $700k so it's not going to be taking away one of their core players. As far as Riley not doing a SnT....I think he'd at least consider Blake Griffin as a fair consolation prize. I'm not arguing whether or not our team with LeBron would be better than the Clippers with LeBron. I'm just stating that it might be advantageous for the Clippers to move Griffin so that the team can retain depth and talent rather than doing what Simmons threw out there.
It's hard to imagine Riley holding true to no SnT if Lebron decides to leave. If he relents, a trade straight up of Lebron for Griffin with maybe the Clippers being forced to throw some picks to Miami would be the best thing for Miami. As to why Lebron would potentially pick the Clippers over the Rockets? Apparently he's great friends with Chris Paul, probably respects Doc Rivers like most NBA players do and it's LA. McHale may be a legend with rings, but he's an old white man that doesn't have a lot of success as an NBA coach.
On a side note: can you imagine if everything goes down as rumored? Lebron to the Clippers, Melo here, and Love to the Warriors? The west would be stacked. I think for that reason, he will stay East. Yes, I know in the end you have to play a western team- but I'd say you have a better chance of winning a ring when you play 1 juggernaut in the playoffs instead of 5 (OKC, SAS, and the teams mentioned above). Getting to the finals in the West requires a great deal of lucky seeding and relies on matching up with the right team. Lebron could come to the Clippers- and theyd be good- but not head and shoulders better than the whole conference. Its possible he'd never return to the finals.
And to think, this all could have been prevented had OKC amnestied Kendrick Perkins and re-signed Harden 1. OKC would still be a powerhouse and probably could have won it all this year with Harden. 2. San Antonio could have lost this year to OKC and that might have caused Duncan and Pops to retire. 3. Howard would be stuck with the Lakers because Houston don't have Harden. etc etc..
