Per Gater: "In a league strongly leaning towards uptempo, the ability of perimeter players to get their own shot and players who can stretch the floor with range...Mike James is truly the one who is a better fit. Think about it...how many of us would be upset if Mark Cuban were pursuing Alston." I like Mike James a lot. I wish we had bitten the bullet and tried to negotiate signing him before instead of being in this weaker bargaining position now. Mike James is the better fit, but I am not convinced we can afford him. I would love to see him back- he is a fiece competitor. He would make our back court the most competitive since Steve and Cuttino were here. What kind of money would it take to sign him? Mo Taylor level money at 8 mil +? Or Juwan Howard money at 7 Mil +? I do not think we can get him for the mid level exception. Would it take Rasheed Wallace- Steve Nash level money at 10 mil per season to sign him? Would you do it if you were GM? It would put us in the luxury tax penalty, but it should be carefully considered. __________________
TBar - The truly sad part is that we would have had Mike James' Bird Rights and could have offered him a starting figure of ~$6M, escalating @ 10.5% and lasting up to 5 years. Total contract value = $36.3M IMHO, James market value is probably ~$7M to start. But no one is going to give James a 5 year deal with that start because Yr 5 would have paid James $9.5M. So most teams IMO will offer a 4 year deal starting @$7M and worth $31.8M. I think we could have been very competitive in keeping him. But now we have to hope for a SnT or hope his value drops to the point where a Houston MLE is competitive. Or hope he really wants to play in his wifes hometown! FWIW, a 5 year MLE deal starting at $5.5M is worth $27.5M.
Ever since we did the TMac trade, we've had very few assets to play alongside TMac/Yao, and we've done whatever we could to develop more, with what we've got. I think we'll come out ahead on the trade eventually, since James will probably sign for the TE and a longer contract, and start at SG. If he'd have stayed, he'd have wanted more than we'd have been willing to pay him, and lost him for the long haul. Now we get James AND Alston. who we will trade probably next summer for another piece we need more, once a rookie PG gets some experience. I'd expect Alston to get featured this year in preparations for trade, just like we did Head this year. I seriously doubt that Head will last the summer, for just the same reason. I'm expecting us to find a way to use the TE, rights to Spanoulis, who just might be the replacement for Alston, and pick up a starting capable rookie in this year's draft. I would not be surprised to see Howard and Swift traded too, unless management is convinced next year he will feature better. Everyone seems to dislike our group at PF, but you have to realize that the tandem of Howard/Swift averaged 20.7/11.1/.9 between them, and when you added Hayes into the mix averaged 24.4/15.6/1.7 ... that's not so bad. Most teams would be quite happy with that production at PF. Our bigger problem was that we didn't have a guard who could score when Yao or TMac kicked it out. James probably would have increased our win total this year, and we wouldn't have gotten one of the better picks in this draft, and we wouldn't have Alston or the ability to get James. I think it was a wise decision in terms of building the team into a contender.
