The Charlotte Bobcats will take their expansion draft in June. Each of the 29 NBA teams will be allowed to protect eight players. I think our protection should be: Yao Ming Francis Mobley J. Jackson Cato Taylor M. Jackson Padgett I hope they'll take Boki or Pike, we don't need both of them Link
I don't think we will protect Mark Jackson. Probably just replace him in your list with Boki. Padgett will be a free agent, so we can't protect him. Replace him with either Piatkowski or A. Griffin. Then you are pretty much set.
assuming we resign everyone we want (Jackson, Padgett) in the summer, I'd rather have Padgett over Boki & Pike. why should we protect Boki / Pike? I'm not anti-Boki but we just don't need him. or maybe protect A. Griffin ahead of Boki. if they take Boki (or Pike) that's about $1.5mil-$2mil off our salary book, sounds good to me.
I predict that Cato and Taylor are left unprotected. MT might be having a solid year, but he's still overpaid, and that goes double for Cato. Raven
The decisions will be salary based, throughout the league. If a team can get Bobcats to assume a big contract, they'll offer Charlotte draft choice(s) and $3 mil in cash. B;cats can then waive the player, owing him the $ but not having him on their cap. Of the Rox' roster: Yao Ming - protected, of course. Francis - protected Mobley - protected J. Jackson - protected Cato - good chance left out there Taylor - left out there M. Jackson - FA, wouldn't count Padgett - FA, wouldn't count Boki - protected Wilkes - FA, wouldn't count Pike - protected Clarence - left out there That's six protected, by my quick reckoning.
Why not dare the Bobcats to eat up one of our fat contracts? Leave Cato and MoT unprotected. If they bite, we can use the money to sign better replacements.
Mark Jackson, Scott Padgett and Mike Wilks do not have to be protected since they have no 2004-05 contracts. IOW, Charlotte can't select them, they can only attempt to sign them as FA's. The 8 protected are: Francis, Cato, Taylor, Mobley, Jim Jackson, Nachbar, Pike, and Yao Ming. The unprotected will be Adrian Griffin and Clarence Weatherspoon. Because Charlotte will take Cato, deal him to the Knicks for picks and two 1 year contracts like Harrington and Mutombo and all you've managed to do is lower your payroll from $51m to $43m...all you have is the MLE either way. Not a good move.
Seeing as how there are only 5 good players on this team this is a no-brainer. Yao Francis Mobley Mo T Jim Jackson
ok guys, tell me who'd be our back-up center if we left Cato unprotected? he'd be the no. 1 pick if not protected. face the truth, it's not so easy to find a solid true center in this league. why protect Boki & Pike? all they doing right now are just warming up the bench and we clearly don't need both of them to do that. maybe we can just protect 6 players and leave Boki & Pike unprotected, hoping the Bobcats will take one of them. i'd rather save that $1.5~$2mil. to sign a vet. point guard next summer.
In reality, there should be only two "stars" that need to be protected... I say, "there should be...." 1) Yao 2) Francis (and I'm apprehensive about putting him on that list, because...he's not that good a leader).... Now, if these two players aren't that great, then we'll need more help...because as it stands, we don't have any "great" players. So, it wont matter who you protect or don't protect, until we establish a leader on this team. Who is that leader? Once we figure that out we can start building the team around that player.
honestly, i'd leave mo unprotected. i don't feel like checking right now, but how much do we have committed in two years? i'm pretty sure that's when cat, yao, cato, and spoon come off the cap (and maybe more). with mo t still on the team, i doubt we would be much under the cap. with mo t off, we might actually have significant room under the cap. then again, we would want to sign a lot of those guys and isn't there something about unrenounced free agents counting 150% against the cap? and in that case, does renouncing them take away their bird rights and your ability to sign them after you picked up the big name you wanted with all that room? so even though he's damn good rigth now, i don't think he can be our long term PF and he might give us room (if it works out that way) in two years. then again, we don't have other that really need protecting in his place and giving up talent probably isn't a good idea anyway. just something i was thinking about. edit: ok, so it looks like only steve and mo are under contract after 05/06. however, mobley has a player option for 05/06 and, since he's underpaid, may opt out at which point we would have to sign him into 06/07 (assuming we want to keep him). of course, we'll have to pick up other players in the interim but if say half of those could also end in 05/06 we could have some room come then (awful long way away though).
Just like Charlotte would select Cato and deal him for smaller, shorter contracts they'd do the same with Taylor. If cap room is the goal, then why let them do it when you could do it for yourself? Personally, I think winning now (sooner than later) is the goal and by letting Taylor go for nothing Houston is forced into a PF combination of Cato + a vet min or MLE FA signing. We're not getting 12 ppg and 6 boards in 28 minutes with either of those latter two options. Not unless you think Van Gundy has some sort of TWolves/Joe Smith thing going on with Kurt Thomas. Further (assuming Yao and Steve are untradeable), keeping Mo T adds a big buck contract to add to the TE. Mo and Cato have the only big buck contracts that could be added to Mobley to produce a high dollar trade deal. IOW, Mobley + the TE only nets a ~$12m deal...a decent ~$7m player and a bad contract. Adding a Cato or Taylor to the deal means Mobley + Taylor/Cato + TE = $20m deal... $10-12m player + bad contracts. In a league awash in good SG's, there's a big difference in using Mobley to get a $7m player or as part of a deal for a $10m player. By losing either Cato or Taylor, you have lessened the value of the trade exception. 1) Piatkowski is acknowledged around the league as an outstanding long-distance shooter. He is having the worst season of his 10 year career. With 2 more seasons @ $5.7m, if not protected he's as good as gone. (Bobcats version of the Hornets picking Dell Curry). 2) Nachbar played all of 77 minutes in his real rookie year and never fully recovered from hernia surgery. Technically, this is his rookie season. Look at Stojakovic's numbers in his first two seasons. For $1.5m, Boki has too much upside to leave unprotected. 3) Both Nachbar and Piatkowski have trade value. Why give them up for nothing? In case you haven't noticed, even Dan Langhi bounced through the NBA this season. 4) The Rockets will be over the cap and have only the MLE and the vet minimums to fill out a roster. The Rockets have the vet minimums with or without Nachbar and/or Pike's contract. However, losing either one of them for nothing probably means eating into the MLE to fill out the roster. IMO, by having a nearly full roster (8 players + Wilks + Padgett) we would only need 2 vet mins and be able to offer the entire MLE to a FA who could contribute. Using your logic (only keeping a 6 player core), you're filling out the remaining 6 roster spots with some combination of Wilks, Padgett, up to 5 vet minimums and/or splitting the MLE. Your option has much less "bang for the buck". ============================================ Repeating myself....Spoon and AGriff are the only financially logical choices to leave unprotected.
Boki has too much upside to leave unprotected. That is the funniest thing I have read in a very long time.
Good thing you've got such a sense of humor. You'd have needed it as the GM who got fired for dumping Stojakovic after his 8.4 and 11.9 ppg first two seasons. Obviously, you know more than Nachbar's Euro League coach who loved him...you know that guy coaching the Suns now? D'Antoni's in print as having high praise for Boki...but of course, you're a much better evaluator of talent so let's just give Nachbar to Charlotte after one real season.
I can understand protecting Cato since he has trade value, but I don't see any trade value for Taylor. Maybe I'm wrong, 'cause I'd sure love to trade him. He might get some. Eh. Of course, Spoon has absolutely no value. It's a toss up who I'd like to axe more. AG isn't making anything, so why let them off with that? Make them take Spoon or Taylor.
Protect: Yao Ming Francis Mobley J. Jackson Cato Taylor Nachbar Piatkowski Unprotected: Weatherspoon A. Griffin Ineligible for Draft: M. Jackson Padgett Wilks Offer Bobcats$3 million and a conditional pick if they'll take Weatherspoon. Otherwise, he'll stay on our cap through '04-'05 and '05-'06. The Bobcats can cut him so he doesn't impact their cap. The sticking point is that we'd be asking them to spend something like $9 million extra on the guy, so the draft pick would have to be good enough to warrant that kind of cash.
Do you realistically think that Boki upside potential is Stojakovic's current ability (20 ppg)? I just don't see it. The Rox may err on the side of caution and protect Boki given the EG train wreck. Another plus for Boki is that dumping his contract does not free up that much salary.
I really don't think the Knicks will bite that. They have 94 mil salary next year. KVH earns 14.5 mil, Allan Houston about 17.5 mil, Penny's busted knee's got 14.5 mil, Mutombo's long over career contributes another 4.5 mil then Shandon Anderson. The only player they have that is worth the money is Marbury (14 - 14.5 mil) and maybe KT (6 mil?) The earliest cap relief they'll get is around 2006, after all their crap contracts expire they'll have a payroll of 52 mil, right around where the cap is. I know they need inside presence, but MoT and Cato just ain't it. I think even the Knicks aren't dumb enough not to figure out by now that overpaying for crap is stupid.
