Meet your Bobcats -- by the end of June

Fourth pick? Why not like second or third? (I can undertand why it wouldn't be first, but why 4th??!)

 

like it matters, all the picks nexy year suck butt. they'll probably take the 7'4 poldkezine to start off their franchise.

 

It seems next years draft will be pretty weak.. what a crappy time to start a new franchise.. I wonder who they will pick up from everybody else's team.

thanks for the post.

J

 

If the Rockets are THAT desparate to get rid of Francis, they can leave him open in the expansion draft.

 

Players that will be left open.

Weatherspoon
Pike
A Griffin
probably Cato

 

The fourth pick, so that lottery still matters as much to the current teams (lottery does not only determine the number one pick).

It'll be fun seeing who gets exposed to the draft. Each team can protect 8 players (so long as they are not FAs) and can only lose 1 player in the draft.

Any player not protected is available to be picked. If a player isn’t under an NBA contract, then the Bobcats can’t draft him.
The Bobcats must draft 14 players but could draft 29. Once one player is picked from a team, no one else on the team may be drafted.
If a restricted free agent is drafted, he then becomes an unrestricted free agent with no obligation to play for the Bobcats. That player can not be signed by the original team for 2004. The restricted free agent selected still counts towards the amount of picks that were made.
The Bobcats can take draft picks and up to 3 million in cash as an incentive to pick or not pick a player in the expansion draft.
The Bobcats can pick a player and then waive them before the season and not take a cap hit from that players salary. The team still has to pay them but it just doesn’t count against the cap.

The RFA rule seems really interesting. I wonder if it's convievable that team A can send the Bobcats a draft pick/etc so they'll take a RFA from team B simply to release him as an unrestricted FA - allowing team A to sign w/o fear of being matched.

Evan

 

So theoretically, they can make 87 million cash just by leveraging who they say they'll pick. Interesting.

 

I'm sure there's a limit (if not, then looks liek the NBDL would be raided in that case). It's not like Johnson needs anymore money though.

So technically it's legal bribery. Interesting.

 

Isn't this the second time has done this , anybody remember Kelly Tripuka.

 

As if any summer, anymore, isn't a cascading personnel turnover.

There will be lots of wheeling and dealing with these picks. Count on it.

 

Isn't this the second time Charlotte has done this , anybody remember Kelly Tripuka.


Bam. error fixed.

 

One flaw in your logic. Since the released player is unrestricted, the player can sign with whomever he wants. In your scenario, Team A is leaving itself open to the risk of losing a future pick for nothing. If that player does sign with Team A, you can bet Stern will check into it. Especially if it's an MLE offer and the player received multiple offers near the same amount. Only teams with major cap room could pull this off IMO...Clipps, Spurs, Wizards, Jazz.

.....

The trade exception could loom large. Charlotte can take up to 29 players therefore the Rox could ship a future 1st for a player some team thought Charlotte would not take because of the Bobcats low cap (~$30m). The Bobcats could ship the contract to Houston for a pick and never take the hit for the contract!

 

The Bobcats' salary cap will be 2/3rds of other teams ($30 million), and Ed Tapscott is on record saying they aren't going to take max contracts just for a draft pick, since they still have to pay the player.

HOWEVER - there is ZERO doubt that Kobe Race '04 will prompt teams to get at least 15 mill under the cap through Charlotte. Only teams close (10 under) would bother, most likely. If you're 20 under already, there's no point; if you're 2 under, Charlotte won't take a 13 million contract, draft picks, and 3 mill just to be friendly to you.

The Suns and Clippers are likely going to be the most desparate.

The Grizzlies will be $15 mill over if they keep Bonzi and offer qualifiers to their RFAs, and can only get to the cap level if they renounce those contracts, so no dice.

The Spurs, Nugs, and Jazz are all under enough already, even though SA is the only team that will make a run at him. Well, kind of - SA is only about 12 under the cap.

The Suns will be about 10 under, not close enough to sign Kobe. Smart money says they ask Charlotte to take Jahdi White (2 yrs, 11 mill) for the 3 mill and picks so they can get an additional 5 mill under the cap (just right!). Eisley's contract runs too long for Cha, unless they think he can be their point.

For the Clips, they're about 11 under right now. They may have a trickier situation though, since they don't have a throw-away player making more than 3 mill; plus, I don't know if they really want to renounce QR. But pretending they do, they're in a nicer situation than PHX since they would offer a young player (like Kaman or Ely) instead of a castway. I don't think they can clear a full 15 unless they do something stupid like expose Maggette.

Clips and PHX likely will have similar draft picks to offer, unless they trade around with the Hawks or somebody.

Lakers are also supposedly going to offer up Fox or George to try and lessen the lux tax hit if they sign Kobe.

Another interesting rumor - Grant Hill is taken by Cha, who let him retire after soaking up another year of insurance-paid salary and the Dukie joins the front office. I don't think Grant is on board though, considering the fuss he's making about wanting to play. Don't forget Orlando will have a sweet draft pick to offer (if they offer it unprotected).

The intrigue! The drama!

Evan

 

Why did Charlotte get another NBA team so quickly after the Hornets left?


I could understand if it was NY, LA or somewhere that the NBA really had to have a team. But Charlotte had a team....they didnt seem to like that team and now they have been given another one almost straight away.

What was the reason for this?

 

Charlotte actually had very high attendance numbers until the team and owner started having run ins with the law and other various scandals. The owner became the most hated person in the area and everyone pretty much gave up on the team because of that.

In other words, they got a new team because the NBA was very succesful there until the owner started humping cheeleaders and one of the players died racing another player. The NBA felt it owed them and believes a team will do well there.

 

It's possible, but if the team was that keen on keeping the restricted free agent in the first place, they could always protect him.

GATER- Excellent point on the TE. If we see a player exposed that we want, we could make a deal...better yet, if a team is going to have to expose a player that they don't want to, we could offer to take him before the expansion draft-and the receiving team would get the TE in return, rather than nothing.