Do you really think CD and co. actually have plans B, C and D? You are lucky if they can excute plan A. Just like when Roy wasn't there in the draft, they panicked and took the only deal they could get their hands on. Did they do any homework on the value of Gay just in case he landed at #8? even if we didn't want to keep him, did we study how much we can get for him?
resigning bogans is a must. getting a backup point is also a must. getting a power forward would be a luxory. yao/deke howard/battier/hayes battier/tmac/novak tmac/bogans/head rafer/FA/head vspan would be a nice addition depending on how much he would cost. i would really like to have a big body for rebounding and tip ins like a nene who can fill in at PF and C, but he's probably too expensive.
I think everyone needs to calm down until we see what we do with the MLE and TE. We will get two good players with those tools. Right now we have Yao, T-Mac, Battier, Alston and Howard. Those are five good rotation players. If we get James with the MLE thats 6, and Gooden/Wilcox/Radmonovic, etc will give us 7. V-Span/Hayes/Novak/Deke, etc. can fill in the rest. Remember the Suns were 6 deep and almost made the finals. I also think since we are so clearly in WIN NOW mode, it is possible we ship our 2007 1st rounder somewhere to get something. So our lineup will look like this: (assuming Head is traded with TE) C:Yao, Deke PF:Gooden/Wilcox/Radmonovic, Battier, JHo, Hayes, Novak SF:Battier, TMac, Novak SG:TMac, James, Battier PG:James, Alston Starting 5: Yao, Trade Exception PF, Battier, T Mac, James Bench(rotation players): JHo, Deke, Alston Bench(spot time): Hayes, Novak, maybe V-Span While I admit i dont like the idea of McGrady guarding the 2, i think James will be able to pick that up part of the time or maybe even Battier. If T-Mac, Yao, Sura, James, Howard, Wesley, Deke and Clarence f-ing Weatherspoon can take the Mavs to 7, my projected lineup should do just fine. Now we just need CD to get his head out of his ass and make some smart decisions with the TE.
The MLE only covers James. We use the trade exception (totally different thing) to get Gooden/Wilcoz/Radmonovic
That's exactly what I was thinking. So Head and the 4.2 trade exception and we're talking about around a 6 mill per year for Bonzi in a sign and trade. Toronto would be more likely to cut a deal with the Rockets in a sign and trade for Mike James than Sacramento would be though. So the best bet would be to work that trade exception and say Luther for Mike James then use the MLE on Bonzi Wells after of course Mcgrady convinces his buddy to sign with the Rockets. My thinking is this, if the Rockets add Mike James and Bonzi Wells alongside Battier and a healthy Yao and Mcgrady, go ahead and pencil us in as contenders.
Just saw on the espn wire that the Nets did not pick up Cliff Robinson's option. Cliff smoked us pretty good when we played them. Now that we have Novak, Robinson instead of Padgett would give us a nice balance at the four spot. He's not a bad last resort option for our team, if all else fails of course.
Yeah, you are right on that. I remember reading that the TE can't be combined with a player. Still if Bonzi is willing to sign for the MLE I think the Rockets would be wise to work that first then go after Mike James with the 4.2 TE.
You cannot combine the TPE and a player like that. You did have to do some constructing i.e. likely include a draft pick since Sacramento would have to include a player of around Head's value to make it work like Martins. But is Bonzi willing to take a starting salary of around $5M-$6M~? I am sure that there are other clever ways of doing this but it could be very complicated. I am not sure the Kings will even be willing to help us out. Talking about helping out, it eats me up that Jerry West refused to do a S&T with us last year for Stro and now we are eager to please him? Yes please him because he was the one shopping Battier agressively early Wednesday.
That starting lineup looks pretty solid, but how bout this potential defensive lineup for certain situations. Head (Mike James would look great here) Battier Tmac Hayes Yao Imagine both Battier and Chuck hustling all over the place, taking charges, helping out their teammates. Yao as the deterrant and shotblocker. Tmac to shut down any posting small forwards such as Stackhouse. Chuck as the post defender (he's so much better than Howard at this) and Battier also helping out with blocks. The one question mark right now is the point, but I think we can have a dominant team defense this year. Unfortunately, that strategy seems to be a thing of the past, and the refs could at anytime just decide to call ticky tack fouls on us to open up the game. Hayes was definately their whipping boy last year.
Matt Harpring! That would be great! But why do we want to keep Ryan Bowen? Trade him and Deke for a decent guard/forward like Qyntel Woods or Fred Jones (both FA), these two guys could back up Harpring at SG. And why don 't we get Speedy Claxton or Bobby Jackson (both FA) to play PG? Why do we need Mike James if those others are cheaper and "more PG" than James that is a combo guard? And at last, with enormus respect for Deke but we need a back up center! Lorenzen Wright and Scott Pollard are Free Agent? By the way, Juwan Howard is not good anymore to play at the NBA level! Gooden as starting PF would be amazing!
nene is a restricted FA with a qualifying offer of about $4.1 million. Could we do a sign and trade with Denver for our TE? I'm not sure how the TE works and all the details. Then use the MLE to sign a PG and resign Bogans. yao/deke/nene nene/howard/battier/hayes battier/mac/novak mac/bogans/head rafer/FA/head
we have to get rid of juwan howard. and chuck hayes suxx. you people praising hayes are the kind or people i always say "overrates there own players". he will never help us in he playoffs against phx, dallas, sas, and miami
I think that MLE is to pick up FAs. Since V-Span is not a FA, we would not be using our MLE to sign him. He's a draft pick that we hold the rights to but have never signed. Just like we don't use MLE to sign Gay...um...I mean Novak. That money does count against the cap though. And I think any money that it takes to get the Euro owner to release him counts against the cap as well. So I think we could sign Mike James with MLE and get V-Span. Still a couple of ifs are... If Mike can get a bigger contract than MLE. The only way he can get it is with a sign and trade or to go to a team that is under the cap (usually a very bad team - see the Hawks). Otherwise he is shopping himself to those teams offerring MLE - his choice. I'd give us a 50/50 chance of landing him if management wants him. But hey, they wanted a taller, younger, more athletic backcourt and how successful have they been so far? This latest move has me baffled as to what they are doing and I've really got to lower my hopes about what I think they should do. If V-Span's owner would release him for an amount that Les would feel comfortable paying or his contract expires (I'm not real sure about this though). I'd say there is less than a 50% chance of him coming. I think they will stick with a undrafted player or a CBA player to backup the pg position. What I fear is that we get a guy that has a decent preseason but gets toasted (little D and O with a few TOs) night in night out in the regular season while Rafer is taking a breather or having an off night.
I actually did agree with the trade. We needed a distributor at the point to push our offense. Mike James is not a conventional point, and works better for us as a cuttino type gunner off of the bench. He's made it clear he wants to return to Houston because his family built a house here and his wife is from Houston. He's basically telling us to offer him the MLE in my opinion. There may not be much else we can get in this pretty weak offseason. I worry about his age, but his role as a gunner off of the bench and some backcourt penetration/scoring when t-mac is out could be crucial to our team. He also brings some damn fire to this team along with Sura, who I don't count in any of our plans. I envision the first team being: Alson-TMac-Battier-Howard-Yao with James coming off of the bench for Howard and having Battier shift to that outside shooting 4 that CD and JVG mentioned needing. When T-Mac rests: a lineup of Head-James-Novak-Battier-Yao/Mutombo Will allow us to push the hell out of the ball and wear out opponents with our second team while the stars are resting. If you remember we traded James for Alston when we had Sura injured. That means we had James as our starting point, which he simply is not suited to be.
