Well trying for winning that title has its conseqences. Veterans will often have to take lower pay just to stay in contending teams. Even Tim Duncan had to take a small paycut in order to keep SA's core intact. Scola is by no means a star in this league and come 2010 FA, I don't think he'll be coveted that much to demand a 3 year 25 million contract. Firstly all rebuilding teams that tried hard to come up with capspace by trading away starter veterans (cough cough* pau gasol anyone?) won't be wasting their capspace on a 30 year old PF with no real star power in this league. Ok so that leaves out all young rebuilding teams, which is basically most of the teams that's going to have massive capspace for 2010... now we come to contending teams. a lot of contending teams that has a chance to grab the title come June are going to be over the cap...as they've had to sacrifice 2010 financial flexibility in order to pay veterans and compete now...san antionio is stacked with jefferson etc, orlando is has a mammoth fully blown payroll...cleveland has mo williams, andy varejao, delonte west on the books and are going to have their hands fuller than full with trying to keep lebron and luring other BIG TIME FREE AGENTS (hint: not Scola). I just can't see any CONTENDER being ABLE to offer Scola a big enough contract bigger than the MLE for us to not to match. on a sidenote man theres going to be HEAPS of teams going after Scola for the MLE. In 2010 there's Bosh, there's Dirk, there's Duncan...where exactly does Scola come in? Scola will be third or fourth choices after all the premier big man TARGETS IN FA are gone. I think its realistic Luis gets a 4 year deal worth the MLE from us with full raises. I think Luis will get more touches next season...and I think he DESERVES many more touches. He's as efficient as Yao and I'd much rather give him shots than to Aaron Brooks. And he'll be 2nd or 3rd option at worst next season...with no Tmac or Yao...who's going to carry the scoring? Ariza? Battier? yeah right. If Aaron Brooks had to do it all he'd shoot 30 percent.... Luis seems like a loyal guy to me. And I think come 2010 we'll be legit contenders with Yao and whichever star GUARD we get in free agency. AND WE'RE GONNA HAVE A LOTTERY PICK!
You are forgetting the fact that many rebuilding teams might be contenders right after 2010, for example if Miami adds Camby and Scolam with his current team, and some allstar SF, PG or SG that could be an scary team, Beasley as sixth man, Chalmers off the bench, really scary. Any teams that already has one Star, and adds another can be left with 8 to 10 millions in cap space, that won´t get you Bosh or Dirk, but for sure can get you Scola. And TD is no FA in 2010, his contract extension ends in 2012.
