As i stated earlier in this thread... there are more top tier free agents than teams with max cap space. so there is a good chance that every team with max cap space or more will land at least 1 top tier free agent. even if they don't, i highly doubt that they would overpay for a 30 year old complimentary player when they are clearly in rebuild mode.
Amar'e Stoudamire has officially agreed to join the Knicks. This takes a PF off the market, but more importantly, it takes a potential offer away from Scola. The deal is supposed to start at $17M so the Knicks cap space is cut in half from $34M to $17M. Here is the updated market: In The Market For A PF Heat - $43M Nets - $33M Bulls - $29M Thunder - $8M Unlikely To Make An Offer Knicks - $17M Clippers - $17M Kings - $15M Wolves - $10M Wizards - $7M Pecking Order Bosh Boozer Lee Scola The Knicks are expected to remain chasing LeBron and Wade, but are moving their focus to the back court (felton, miller, etc...) if they can't sign another max player. They are so focused on the back court that espn radio in NY has been saying all day The Knicks will even move on from David Lee with the plan of spending the remaining money in the back court. I highly doubt that they make Scola an offer this summer. So the Knicks will move from "In The Market" to "Unlikely" and Scola will move up to #4 on the pecking order. What does this mean for Scola? Well the only way for him to earn more than the MLE is if he gets an offer from one of the teams listed above. With the Clippers, Kings, Wolves, and now Knicks very UNLIKELY suitors the attention turns to the Nets, Bulls, and Heat. Whichever 2 (if any) land LeBron and Wade, that team will surely attract the next best big with them... Either Bosh or Boozer. The team(s) that strike out on both LeBron and Wade will likely turn to rebuild mode and not be interested in using cap space on Scola. Even if one of them did want a PF, David Lee would still be on the market ahead of Luis. In short, as expected The Knicks weren't and won't be an option for Scola. The market is spending it's money elsewhere and the chances of Luis settling for the MLE just shot up a little more today.
I want Scola to earn his money. He deserves it. Especially when I see scrub players getting paid more than him.
I think you can take the Thunder off this list as well. Sam Presti has gone on record as saying that the team would prefer to save its cap room and instead use the franchise's financial resources to sign their young studs (Durant, Westbrook and maybe Green) to extensions when they come due. Instead, the team is choosing to take advantage of teams desperate to shed salary (like Utah last year and New Orleans last week) in order to attain assets (Eric Maynor and Cole Aldrich, respectively). THIS is why Presti is on the short list (along with Morey) of the top GMs in the league today. He is not going to pay $35-40M to a guy like Scola, only to watch Russell Westbrook leave in free agency in a couple of years because the Oklahoma City franchise can no longer afford to pay Westbrook his market value. smoothie, take OKC off the board. Your thesis just got even better.
i thought they might go that route. it's good to know that they are not looking to spend this summer. that would limit the market to 3 teams (nets, heat, bulls). there are also 3 pf's on the market ahead of scola (bosh, boozer, lee). seems like enough to go around and leave scola with a sure fire MLE offer. the guy i'm watching is boozer. hopefully he leaves utah. if he stays that could open something up for scola.
Good stuff smoothie. Pretty convincing. Luis may be locked out of the big (more than MLE) dollars. What happens if Luis doesn't want to take any contract; I know the Rox gave him a tender offer to keep the rights to match any contract. What if there is no contract? Same situation as David Lee last year? Assume he'd want to agree to contract with the Rockets for 1-year to become an unrestricted next year. I can totally see this if we do not get Bosh. If we do get Bosh, I had been thinking that Luis would not agree to go in a S&T to Toronto, but if he's facing an MLE or 1-year contract offer, he might take 3 years at $8M and go to Toronto. He deserves better, but it might be too much to turn down given the other option (back-up to Bosh).
Signing Scola to a full five year MLE contract would be a steal for the Rockets, if a team offers that and the other 4's have taken the bigger contract offers that were available. I think Luis would have to take it. In my opinion, he's unlikely to be offered a better deal in Europe. Some might be put off by the number of years, but Scola should be expecting a 4 year deal starting at $7-8 million a season, possibly $9 million. The security of the extra year would help ease the pain a bit and he really wants to stay in Houston. Nice job breaking things down, smoothie.
that's an option. he could see that he's not going to get more than MLE this summer and decide to accept the rockets qualifying offer for the year, then become unrestricted next summer. here is why i don't think that will happen: 1. potential lockout - players are purposely opting out this year in order to lock themselves into a salary for next year. see dirk and pierce... heck, you could even look back as this for the reason lebron and the others worked their contracts to have an opt out year right before the cba expires. free agents next year (if there is a lockout) will be left with no salary for next year. i don't think scola will want to risk this at his age and salary history. 2. age - the reason scola isn't in consideration by most of these teams with cap space is his age. most teams with cap space are using that space to rebuild, meaning they are looking for young players or all stars to build around. at 30 years old scola isn't attractive to these teams. next year he will be a year older and face the same problem. 3. market - this year there are more teams with cap space than usual. yes there are also more players deserving of that cap space too, but the point is that next year there should be less teams with cap space than this year. if he couldn't get a big contract in a WIDE open market, why would he want to test a smaller market next year? it is in his favor to ink a long term contract this summer for whatever he can get. and thankfully it looks like MLE.
