@WojYahooNBA: Oklahoma City Thunder forward Serge Ibaka has reached agreement on a four-year contract extension, league sources tell Y! Sports. @WojYahooNBA: Y! Sources: Serge Ibaka reaches agreement on a four-year contract extension with the Oklahoma City Thunder. http://t.co/GZYfh4hn
That is to bad, I really wanted the rockets to go after him. But I think they will rather give up Harden than Ibaka.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/nba--s...n-four-year-extension-with-oklahoma-city.html Only 4 years $40 mil. He accepted their lowball offer
wow the world is really f***ed up when people call 10 mill a year to play a kids game " lowball offer". I guess you are living in your own 3rd world country
If it's a kid's game, how come only about 500 people can be in the nba? 10 mil is a low offer for a young, defensive beast.
jopatmc faints. Terrific deal for the Thunder. We know some team would have thrown max money at Ibaka if he had hit free agency. To lock him up at $10M(+) is a steal. Now, the Thunder will still have to figure out what to do with Perkins and how to keep Harden, who's probably a little more important to their team than Ibaka, but even if they ultimately were not to keep Ibaka, having him signed at $10M a year is a great trade chip to have.
Who's gonna throw away max money for Ibaka though? Most guys who get the max are explosive scorers, IIRC the only defensive big man who got the max was Tyson Chandler, and everyone agreed NY overpaid. 10M is not a lowball offer, its right around what one dimensional players with potential make. If you remember De Andre Jordan got around that amount, Scola got almost that amount, and Kevin Martin made that amount as well.
Just to add though, 10M already adds too much burden for OKC to keep Harden, who is the biggest fish IMHO. We still have the asset base collected from the Dwightmare. You could see a sign and trade for Harden (Morris, PP, Toronto lottery pick, Jones?) next summer as well.
I don't have a list with team that will have max cap space next summer at my disposal, but it only would have taken one team and frankly have no doubt whatsoever at least one team would have offered Ibaka the max. I mean, that's just how it is. If you're a big guy who can block shots or score you're basically going to get (near) max money. Teams usually only have a window of year or two with max cap space and they're going to throw it at whoever is out there. Ibaka is a 6-10, 22 years old, rim-protecting big, who can also hit the occasional outside jumper. Those guys are extremely tough to find. Again, signing Ibaka to an extension doesn't necessarily mean he'll be part of the team long-term. I still think the Thunder will find a way to keep Harden and if the Rockets were to trade for Harden, I think any offer would have to start with Lamb.
Well done OKC and congrats to Ibaka. Locking up a promising young player early is always a better idea than letting him test the market. Ibaka even at 10m is easily a tradable asset even he underperforms. On the other hand, if he performs and continues to improve, he would be a big part of their future and a big bargain.
That's not enough to warrant max money though. Ibaka doesn't have any credentials to his name, he isn't an all star and he isn't the DPOU! If guys like him get max money all the time why didn't De Andre Jordan or David Lee or Biedrins get the max when they were FAs? Incompetent GMs overpay all the time, but they rarely give out max contracts to PFs unless they really look like they could be franchise type guys or the team is purposely overpaying to put their team over the top (Ben Wallace, Chandler, Lewis). We can go back and forth on this all day but at the end of the day why is OKC able to lock up Ibaka but not Harden? These guys have agents whose it is to maximize their player's earnings. Ibaka is still young at 22 years old, if his agent knows he can make the max somewhere else then he'll test FA, no sense giving up 50% of your salary when you just got out of the rookie scale contracts. Obviously Harden knows there's a high chance he'll get the max, while Ibaka's agent doesn't think Ibaka will get the max offer. That's not to say I don't agree with the signing, I think 10M for Ibaka is the actual fair value for him. 8M is underpaying and something the Rox would do, while 12-15M is overpaying and something Orlando or the Cavs would have done. 10M is perfect and saves Ibaka a lot of grief and uncertainty during his contract year, and IMHO the Rox should stop lowballing their own FAs and give their players similar fair value contracts. If we're getting Harden though I'm ok with giving away Lamb. Of course anybody could be traded, but the only Ibaka will be traded is he is considered a bargain at 10M a year, and I'm not sure OKC will have to make tough decisions nevertheless (unless they could somehow get rid of Perkin's contract).
This is indeed good news for us getting James Harden as our superstar. Does Lamb + Jones + TOR pick get it done?
