Richard Justice, lol. His reporting is so bad... Today he may be reporting that the Rockets only offered a part of the MLE and that they don't want Artest, but tomorrow he'll tell you that they offered the full MLE and would give up everyone on the team to keep Artest and that he knew it all along!
Absolutely. Its like him saying recently that he was on the Mario Williams bandwagon from day one. This after he bashed the team relentlessly for passing on Vince Young. Its no secret that the guy is a douche.
I don't think it's just money... could Morey have put a few provisions in there that might make it tough for Orlando to match?
Orlando lost Turk and Gortat as soon as they traded for VC. VC's contract is too massive to try to match the Rockets offer.
If these reports about what Mark Cuban is thinking of throwing at Jason Kidd, you would have to THINK that Dallas may not be our biggest competition for Gortat. Isnt Kidd like 37 or something now?
Some people in the past few posts are in serious need of sarcasm detectors, and I'll leave it at that.
While this is true, I do recall there was an agreed-upon consensus that Rashard Lewis was a pipe dream and most likely an exercise in futility designed for PR purposes, and if you are not going to offer the MLE to Gortat, the same applies. Funny how Morey had to fly to Orlando for that one too. Hmmm, maybe he just wants a summer Florida vacation every so often and picks whomever happens to be available there to designate as a FA target.
Morey met with Lewis in Seattle. http://www.kbtx.com/sports/headlines/8274082.html By the way, the PR angle, while overblown, could certainly apply to Rashard Lewis, who is generally a household name in Houston and a well-known, established 20+ ppg scorer. If you really think the Rockets are going after a random Polish center who averaged 3.8 ppg in one season for image purposes, that's just ridiculous. Most Houston-area fans who buy tickets don't even know who Marcin Gortat is right now. It would be pointless. I'd bet anything the Rockets offered Gortat the MLE (or very, very close). But obviously it benefits them to create the perception that the MLE would be overpaying, so other teams aren't tempted to bid the same or higher. Thus the leak to Justice that the offer was below MLE level. That's a lot more plausible, and likely, than them not intending to make a serious run.
I stand corrected. For some reason I thought Morey had met up with him when he was in Orlando visiting already, but yeah, Lewis flew to Orlando the next day. So much for the Morey vacation theory. Let's hope Justice is misinformed or is being fed false information.
As usual, I find myself agreeing with you. Although I'd like to add a third, and in my opinion much more plausible scenario; Richard heard that he met with Gortat, heard that an offer was made, and then just put out there his own opinion about what type of offer was made and said he got it from a source. That 1560 treats his word as gospel is almost as sinful as 790 letting the Monsters of the Midday stay on their station. Almost. Well, OK, maybe not as sinful. Maybe the diet coke of sin in comparison, but still sinful.
Hey, the Monsters aren't that bad. They think we should get Allen Iverson. ... They are horrendously stupid, actually.
Yep. Orlando's on a pretty tight budget given its relatively small market size. I don't see them having the cash to give Hedo and Gortat $15M+ collectively.
They really did. I only listen to them while driving to lunch maybe once every few weeks, and every time I do, I am flabbergasted by their ignorance.
^^ Yeah, I was off by a day regarding Lewis. Maybe I give our fans too much credit but I would like to think Houston-area fans have enough basketball knowledge to know about a key rotation player for the NBA finals that they just finished watching. And the news about Morey's visit and his unique hype campaign has been posted at NBA.com and ESPN, and probably local sports are all over it now. A misinformation leak? Certainly could be. By the same token, if some teams think the full MLE might be enough to nab a solid C, they might be emboldened to make an offer they might not have previously considered because they had too much competition at that price level. Who knows. Anyway, whether our plan is rebuilding or retooling, signing a young C at this price makes sense, hope they get him.
