The Memphis Grizzlies have extended a qualifying offer to restricted free agent Marc Gasol, giving them the chance to match any offer he might get this offseason. General manager Chris Wallace announced the move Friday. The 7-foot-1 Gasol averaged 15 points, 11.2 rebounds and 2.2 assists in helping the Grizzlies upset top-seeded San Antonio to open the playoffs before pushing Oklahoma City to seven games in the semifinals. He finished second in rebounds per game and third with 2.15 blocks per game in the playoffs. He averaged 11.7 points and 7.0 rebounds while starting 81 games in the regular season http://www.nba.com/2011/news/06/24/marc-gasol-gets-offer.ap/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt2 so our chances of getting him in FA has died. btw i didnt see this posted anywhere. Please lock if it has been posted before.
I think there is just a standard qualifying offer that teams make based on the previous contract. It's not a serious offer, it's just to give them the right to match other offers.
The only hope of signing him is if he suddenly goes on a racist rant against the Jews and/or black people. If he denigrates both we can get him for the minimum. Come oooooooon bigotry. Papa needs a quality center.
Gasol made $3.5M last season, according to espn. i believe this was gasol's rookie contract, but i'm not sure if it followed the rookie scale or if he was signed using a portion of the MLE as a free agent. if its the latter then the qualifying offer should be 125% of his salary ($4.37M). he may choose to accept that in order to become an unrestricted free agent next season. however, with the uncertainty of the cap situation in the new CBA, he might be better off landing a lucrative deal now, even if its less than what he could get as an unrestricted free agent.
This is just a standard operating procedure for any team that wants to have the right of first refusal for any restricted free agent on their roster. Our chances of signing Gasol will depend mostly on getting Gasol to agree to come here. Grizz owner Heisley was quoted last month ( http://www.iamagm.com/news/2011/05/16/michael.heisley.hints.if.marc.gasol.wants.leave.grizzlies.wouldnt.match.another ) saying that he was interested in signing Gasol but if Gasol wanted to play somewhere else then he wouldn't be all that interested in giving him an extension even though they could match any offer. Which is completely different than what owners and GM's say about restricted free agents. Usually they make a statement to scare off the other teams from even trying to make an offer to the player. Something like they will match any offer and the player will be with the team for a long time. But based on Heisley's comments there is an inference that they are not going to match at any price and there is a possibility of doing a sign and trade with Memphis if Gasol wants to leave. Which makes sense because the Grizz are already at $53M for next year's cap and if they resigned Gasol and Battier they would probably be around $70M. The Grizz were rumored to be shopping Rudy Gay before the draft in order to free up cap space but they aren't going to get very many decent trade offers for that ugly contract. I think the Rockets have a shot because I get the feeling that Gasol really doesn't want to stay in Memphis. I'm sure Pau has been telling him to try to sign with a team that would allow him to reach his full potential. Plus if that is the case it would explain why Memphis gave extensions to Gay, Conley, and Randolph before getting Gasol's nailed down. It just doesn't make any sense to overpay each of those guys and then waiting until after the CBA to do Gasol's extension when he is a restricted free agent. All we can do is keep our fingers crossed for some good luck to come our way. God knows, based on the Rockets recent history, this team is due for some good luck in free agency. :grin:
Doesnt matter if it was the minimum - they have the right to match offers , thats what matters. I do think he can be had for the right offer - a front loaded deal would make it very difficult for the Griz to keep him considering they have so much invested in Z-Bo , Collison and Gay.
How much can we afford to pay him? If Biedris is worth $9M a season and it's not completely unreasonable (if he is healthy) then Gasol should be worth $12M a year or so?
They'll likely match him, so we should overpay him to screw them over. 12 million sounds good to me! He's everything we need though..sucks.
I love morey but I think the battier trade might prevent us from getting gasol and here is why. assuming the cap is the same as last year (for comparison sake) memphis has roughly 20 million to spend (14 of which will go to zach randolph). Rockets have about 11 million to spend. Say we dont trade battier at all that number goes up to about 18 million this year with his expiring contract and memphis has about 16 million to spend with thabeets contract in their books. Even if we traded battier to someone else, memphis would have had only about 16 million to spend and with randolph getting his contract and they prob having a need to sign a few more players; depending on how the cap will be (soft cap vs hard cap) they may not have then had the money to resign gasol had we offered him like a 11 million dollar contract
In the end it won't really matter because in order for any team to get Gasol they are going to have to work out a sign and trade with Memphis. The new CBA will probably shorten the maximum length of all contracts going forward (from 5 to 3?), but will probably still allow a player to sign for an extra year with their current team like they do now under the current CBA. And you know that if Gasol wants to play for another team he is still going to want the maximum number of years, which means working out a sign and trade with Memphis in some form or another. Since a hard cap will probably kick in a few years down the line in the new CBA, I'm sure Morey will create a front loaded contract offer in order to take advantage of the remaining soft cap years. But it really it all comes down to convincing Gasol to come to Houston. If Morey can pull that off then I'm guessing that Memphis will work with him to do a sign and trade in return for not matching the offer. Because if Gasol wants to leave, Memphis isn't going to hold him hostage, especially if they can get some players and draft picks out the deal. We have too many PF's, SG's, and PG's as it is. So trading a couple of those guys would actually help round out the rotation anyways.
WTF? I fail to realize how this helps in anyway. Our organization and his new teammates would ostracize him as well as the average NBA fan. You sir should be banned from posting for that obscene suggestion.
The Battier trade was stupid in so many ways. Battier would have came off the books for us straight up and Memphis would have been left with Thabeet's contract making it harder for them to re-sign Gasol. As it stands Memphis are looking at $37,475,383 and Houston at $48,383,963 for 2011-2012. Without the Battier for Thabeet trade, Memphis would be roughly $42,500,000 while we would be roughly $43,000,000. (post Miller trade) Do you see how much of an advantage Memphis has now? The field would have been much more even had Morey not made that trade. HUGE strategic blunder on Morey's behalf. What a douche!
