And opening 11 more in the surrounding LA area... The economic opportunity in LA dwarfs Cleveland, was the point. He has several other businesses his posse is running as well. LeBron is going to be on that Jordan type money.
Posted this a few days ago on another board. LeBron is NOT staying in Cleveland. There's absolutely zero reason for him to do so.
Playing in LA is fiscal suicide. Lebron would actually make the least money in that city of any other city he could play in, due to tax law. Do you think an LA pizza parlor wouldn't let Lebron invest, just because he didn't play for the lakers? I'm less sure on that, but I seriously doubt it. The idea that LA is good for business is made up in hollywood.
http://www.bostonherald.com/sports/...ics_targeting_paul_george_gordon_hayward_this According to multiple sources, the Celts are willing to deal players and draft picks to the Pacers, while retaining the right to the most critical pieces of their future draft arsenal. George can be a free agent at the end of the 2017-18 season, and with Indiana having given no permission to explore whether he’d be amenable to staying beyond that, there is clearly risk involved that would have to be reflected in any trade offer. While the Celtics can likely provide Indiana with the best return for its rebuilding in George’s absence, Kevin Pritchard, who replaced Larry Bird as head of basketball ops, could choose not to wait for the Celts to get an answer from Hayward and could take another deal. With George having stated through his agent his plan to leave the club after this season, it is imperative the Pacers get something of reasonable (under the circumstances) value for their best player. The Celtics can begin negotiating with free agents — and reaching verbal agreements — at midnight Friday. Free agents cannot be signed until the moratorium ends on July 6. The Celts would like to at that point be able to announce the signing of Hayward to what would most likely be a deal with a player option after three years to allow him to sever and step up to a higher level maximum contract. http://www.espn.com/nba/insider/sto...n-celtics-team-paul-george-gordon-hayward-nba Spoiler What should the Boston Celtics be willing to offer for Paul George? Because of their stockpile of draft picks and young prospects, the Celtics can comfortably beat any other team's best realistic offer for the Indiana Pacers' All-Star forward. And having reached the Eastern Conference finals a year ago, Boston could hope to make the NBA Finals with George, particularly if the Celtics also sign Gordon Hayward or Blake Griffin as a free agent. Yet Boston won't want to overpay for a player who can become an unrestricted free agent in 12 months and has made his interest in signing with the Los Angeles Lakers known. So, given all those factors, what's an appropriate offer for George? Scenario A: Boston strikes out in free agency Let's consider what it would take for the Celtics to acquire George. That depends on what they're able to do in free agency, and we'll consider the two realistic scenarios. Let's start with what happens if Boston is unable to sign either Griffin or Hayward. In that case, the Celtics would probably pass on other free agents, leaving them with about $19.3 million in projected cap space counting cap holds for restricted free agent Kelly Olynyk and 2016 first-round picks Guerschon Yabusele and Ante Zizic. Depending where the 2017-18 cap comes in, that could be enough for Boston to acquire George without sending any salary in return. (The Celtics must end the trade no more than $100,000 over the cap to do so.) That would allow the Pacers to clear nearly $20 million in cap space in addition to getting some of Boston's store of draft picks. However, the Celtics might want to send some salary in return if George is amenable to the idea of renegotiating and extending his contract, similar to what James Harden and Russell Westbrook did last summer. Westbrook's renegotiation and extension would serve as a template for what Boston could do with George. First, the Celtics could use cap space to bump George up to the current maximum salary for players with seven to nine years of experience, which would give him an estimated $10.2 million raise. Then they'd tack on a fully guaranteed 2018-19 salary, giving George more money than he'd make playing out his current contract and signing for the estimated 2018-19 maximum salary. Like Westbrook, George could also get a player option for a third season, giving him additional security. Declining the player option would allow him to get back on the market in the summer of 2019, when he'd be eligible to make 35 percent of the cap instead of 30 percent. Maybe George is so intent on playing for the Lakers that the financial advantage of a renegotiation and extension isn't enough to make a difference, but it certainly gives Boston a better chance of having him beyond the upcoming season. Scenario B: Boston signs a star Of course, the Celtics are hoping it doesn't come to that in the first place, because they fully intend to sign either Hayward or Griffin after free agency opens at midnight Eastern on Saturday. While Boston can easily get to $26 million in projected cap space by renouncing the rights to current free agents and waiving Tyler Zeller (whose 2017-18 salary is non-guaranteed through July 2), getting all the way to the estimated $29.7 million max salary for Griffin and Hayward will be a little trickier. At minimum, it would require trading guards Demetrius Jackson and Terry Rozier and having Yabusele and Zizic play outside the NBA another season, something they might not be amenable to doing. Now at the cap after signing Hayward or Griffin, the Celtics would have to match salary to trade for George. That would require including at least one of Avery Bradley or Jae Crowder along with Jaylen Brown and Marcus Smart, or both Bradley and Crowder. (Boston could hypothetically get creative by trading one of these players for a smaller salary before signing Hayward, enabling them to keep Jackson and Rozier and bring over Zizic, as I did with Smart while running the team in the Dunc'd On mock offseason.) Whatever the exact permutation, the cost of signing a star is that the Celtics would have to give up part of their core in a George trade, mitigating some of the value of bringing him in -- particularly if it's only for one season. It's hypothetically possible for Boston to renegotiate and extend George even after signing a max free agent, but doing so would require cutting the rest of the roster to the bone. To create sufficient space, the Celtics would either have to trade Al Horford or basically every other rotation player besides Horford and Isaiah Thomas, and even if they could get picks out of those transactions it's hard to see the merit in sacrificing so much depth for a move designed to win now. What should Boston offer? Although I've outlined two scenarios, there are really three in terms of what the Celtics can and should offer. The first has them strike out in free agency and George uninterested in renegotiating and extending his contract. In that case, Boston could and perhaps should acquire George using only draft picks. I'd be willing to offer next year's Brooklyn Nets pick with some form of protection, along with the Celtics' own pick in one of the next two years. Even a protected pick from the Nets -- which would probably convert into the pick Boston acquired from the Philadelphia 76ers in the trade down from No. 1 to No. 3 if it didn't convey -- would still be far better than any other pick a team would probably offer for George, and Indiana would not have to take back any bad salary. If George is willing to renegotiate and extend, I'd include Brown in the deal to create the necessary cap space because he'd likely be marginalized with George's addition and the selection of Jayson Tatum in the draft. That's a reasonable price to pay for getting George for at least two seasons instead of as a rental. If Boston lands Hayward, I'd include Bradley, Brown and Smart to match salary in a George trade. Crowder's cheap contract (he'll make an average of $7.3 million over the next three seasons) is simply too valuable to include, particularly because there's no risk of him leaving in free agency like Bradley. Only if the Celtics signed Griffin, leaving few minutes for Crowder at power forward, would I include him in a George deal. Having signed Hayward in the Dunc'd On mock offseason, I traded Bradley, Brown, salary filler acquired for Smart in a separate deal and two lesser first-round picks -- the Celtics' 2018 pick and one from the L.A. Clippers that is lottery protected in 2019 and 2020 but converts to a second-round pick after that -- in a deal for George. The danger for Boston is that their sheer number of valuable draft picks makes a deal more difficult to complete. The dream of getting the 2018 Brooklyn pick or the L.A. Lakers/Sacramento Kings pick the Celtics got from the Philadelphia 76ers might make their other picks look worse by comparison, even if they're still far better than anything Indiana could get from another team besides Boston. The Celtics should be careful to avoid bidding against themselves. While there's certainly value in getting a deal done now so Brad Stevens and his coaching staff can integrate George in training camp, that shouldn't be reason for Boston to overpay for a possible rental.
Celtics blew it. Celtics should've traded for Butler and still sign Hayward. The package the T'Wolves gave up, boston could've beat it easy.
For what? So we can watch him go to LA next summer? I still can't believe there are people who think PG is going to be anywhere other than LA next year.
just like every other star supposedly is heading to LA right one way or the other....heard that for a couple years now and I'm still waiting on that one person to make the actual move. guys like mozgov and luol deng don't count
Perhaps. And Irving for Bledsoe + 4th pick is probably as good as you'd get. But for a Cavs team trying to give it one more go you have to keep Irving.
So you wouldn't risk trading for Paul George even if we somehow land CP3? I think it is well worth the risk even for 1 year to see if we can best Golden State with a big 3 of Chris Paul, James Harden and Paul George? Not winning a championship and watching George walk away at the end of the year (if he actually chooses this) would hurt but I would feel confident that Morey can assemble a hell of a supporting cast if he has 2 of the better 2 way perimeter players in the league and one of the best scorers in the league who happens to be one of the best distributors in the league. If we could somehow keep Beverley and/or Capela I would rank that team as equal to Golden State assuming Morey can get some Nene like vets to round out the roster. Assuming we get Chris Paul, you got to go in on any available star. It is not a given that GSW will repeat. They could have an injury or regress a little so someone has to try and take these guys down. It sounds like only a handful are man enough to try and I am glad our GM isn't chicken **** like other teams/GM's.
Yea.. paul to houston, lebron next year...... Lead by Harden and MDA... finally a team that can beat the GS. Heard it here first.
i disagree. there's little reason for him to leave. don't see where the logic of him 100% leaving comes into play when hes guaranteed a trip to the finals for the foreseeable future
I think we can get CP3 without PG. I'd rather pair CP3/Harden with 3 above average role players (think Ibaka) than throwing everything that remains at PG and then watching him leave after one season. The worst thing that could happen is we DO get CP3, trade everything away for PG, and then PG walks and we are stuck with $75m in cap between Harden and a 34 year old Chris Paul. Then we're really ****ed.
