The thing about teams signing Drew Gooden, Amir Johnson, Channing Frye, Hakim Warrick and Darko Milicic to the seemingly bloated contracts they got is that the competition for Scola is actually being REDUCED by the very signing of those contracts! Milwaukee, Toronto, Phoenix and Minnesota have essentially taken themselves out of the running for Scola (except for Toronto in a Bosh sign-and-trade). The fewer the teams willing to sign Scola to above the MLE, the less the chance of him actually getting such an offer. Supply and demand. And smoothie did an excellent job showing us why most teams with major cap room likely won't be in the market for Scola.
If Miami strikes out on the big 3 would they make Scola an offer (and try to be a bit respectable next season)? Or is it total tank and save money mode for them?
In the league, nobody would doubt the ability of Morey evaluating players. The rockets want Bosh or Amare so much, and it means they are not satisfied with Scola. No team would overpay Scola.
Just a quick update. I didn't reduce the Wolves cap space since the Pekovic signing, so that needed correcting. Heat - $43M Knicks - $34M Nets - $33M Bulls - $29M Clippers - $17M Kings - $15M Wolves - $10M (after darko/pekovic signings) Thunder - $8M Wizards - $7M We can still group the Clippers, Kings, and Wolves in the "we don't need a PF" category. The Wizards should still be uninterested in older players since they are rebuilding with no real chance to win now. The arms race between the Heat, Knicks, Nets, and Bulls still has too many PF's ahead of Scola for him to get any attention. Lastly, the Thunder is still a team that I'm keeping my eye on. Amare to NY is heating up. If NY lands Amare, you can pretty much cross them off the list of possible Scola offers. Even if he plays center for them, they will look to spend the rest of their money in the back court, or as a real fall back they might just re-sign Lee.
if they strike out on the big 3... that franchise is done. There is no saving face. even if they use all their cap space on role players they will be a lotto team. whether they want to or not, next season will be tanked lol. a team in that situation never spends money on older players. they need to build for the future.
I say it's total tank time, save money for the next free agent class, Carmelo Anthony, Tony Parker, Al Horford, Marc Gasol, David West, Durant, Oden,etc
Good points on Scola, the market has shrunk on him. What do you think about NJ as a potential suitor if they fail on the other power forwards?
smoothie: hope you're right about the lack of market for Scola, I wouldn't overestimate Kahn though, he is perfectly capable of doing something no one else thinks is sensible and loves player redundancy. He's shown interest in signing David Lee (even after signing Darko and Pekovic) and wants to move Jefferson.
i'm sure they have interest... but then again i'm sure every team has interest for the right price. Prokhorov wants to win now. scola could help while they bring favors along slowly. the question is how much do they think he is worth? the nets are a smart team, they will be aggressive in the free agent market, but they know they can't win if they over pay for complimentary players. secondly, assuming that they strike out is a big assumption. there are less teams in this arms race (ny, nj, mia, chi) than PF's available (bosh, dirk, boozer, lee, amare). their chances of landing one are pretty good. good point. i've been saying all along, just because something is unlikely, doesn't mean it's not possible. plus, i wouldn't be surprised if the meeting between the wolves and lee was lee's agents idea more than the wolves. lee wants $10M or more, so his agent probably thought it was a good idea to meet with every team that can make him that kind of offer. probably just due diligence on their part.
I think we are in a good position because most of the teams with money to spend have options at PF. Knicks would likely pursue Amare, Lee before Scola Bulls have Gibson and are after big name guys Heat are after big name guys and would likely resign Haslem rather than Scola. Minny has AJ and Love so they likely wont make an offer. Washington might make an offer. New Jersey has favors so if they made an offer it probably wouldnt be big. So who knows? Another clutch manuevering session by Morey?
I think you are leaving off a good number of teams who may be willing to pay Scola significant money. They are located here:
i still think he would make more money here. who's the highest paid player overseas? how much does he make? i've tried a quick search but didnt get any hard numbers.
Update: Last night, as expected, Dirk agreed to terms with the Mavs. This has 2 affects. 1) It keeps all 4 teams in the arms race (Heat, Knicks, Nets, Bulls) in need of a PF. 2) It bumps Scola up the list of available big men. I see Scola as the 5th best big on the market as of today, behind Bosh, Boozer, Lee, and Amare. The good news is there are still 4 PF's ahead of him in a 4 team market. So there should be enough to go around without one of them having to make an offer to Luis. The guy I'm watching is Boozer. If he decides to stay in Utah (I hope not) it would move Scola into play, but even then he still might be too far down in the pecking order. Basically wherever Lebron and Wade go, the top 2 PF's will follow them (not Scola). The other two teams will go into rebuild mode and not be interested in Scola.
Aren't many of those teams cutting salary and encouraging their players to leave? It doesn't sound like they have that much money. Josh Childress was being encouraged by the owners to go back to the NBA.
After watching Drew Gooden Bag 34 mil Iam starting to get worried real worried what kind of deal scola can get ..
Those deals for Drew Gooden, Channing Frye, Amir Johnson, Darko, etc. has set the Market values. My guess it will be $8-$10 Million per season for Scola. Also there is a good chance that the Teams with a lot of cap space lose on the top tier freeagents and will overpay who is left. If scola get an offer for more than 10 million, I don't think Rockets will match.
