The Heat are supposedly talking to Mike Miller, since they are going to need shooting. I mean they’ll need players who can shoot, not ‘they need to be shot.’ Having missed out on LeBron by that much, the Clippers signed Randy Foye and Ryan Gomes. I still can’t believe Minnesota wanted Foye instead of Brandon Roy.
This is the same Cavs owner who tried to lure Tom Izzo out of MSU with a busload of cash, right?
Methinks, the owner doth protest too much.
Personally I think the decision to go to Mimai makes the NBA less interesting. What would have been far more awesome is if he upped the personal rivalry and said I am staying in Cleveland because I want to compete against my friends in Miami and win a Championship. The NBA was at its peak when it had rivals, Magic vs. Bird. This just seems so … nice. And championship borne out of struggle are far more admired than ones borne out of design. It just seems that if Miami wins a championship my reaction would be, “Meh, big deal.”
I have to wonder what the Cavs are going to do now. They have about $9 million in cap space (not that there’s anyone left now). I think the Cavs fans had to make their season ticket decisions for next season months ago, so there’s going to be pressure to do something to at least be competitive.
Dan Gilbert may be full of piss and vinegar right now, but having to go back to the drawing board after losing LeBron, and if there’s a lockout…he may just decide to cut his losses in the next couple of years. I wouldn’t be surprised if Seattle got an ownership group together in the next few years to take a run at buying the Cavs and moving them.
The NBA is definitely less interesting now. Even the most irrationally diehard sports fans get that the players really don’t give a crap about the fans. But shouldn’t they at least give a crap about the competition? Michael Jordan may have been a marketing bonanza, but he never lost his competitive edge. If it’s more important to be buddies with the players you’re competing against and be a celebrity than it is win, then the NBA has a real problem. It’s becoming a little too contrived for my tastes.
The best three free agent players just agreed to take a bit less money to sign on the same team and you’re saying this shows they don’t care about winning? What are you talking about?
Things could have played out the way Gangster Octopus said and I think a lot of people would have appreciated it. But these guys (and their teams) weren’t rivals anyway and there is still going to be competition. The Lakers have won two years in a row, the Magic are still going to be very good, the Bulls just got better, the Celtics might have a good year or two left, and the Thunder are improving in a hurry.
Clearly secondary to all the celebrity/commercial opportunities that have now opened up.
First up: new T-Mobile commercial, with Charles Barkley fighting to stay in Dwayne Wade’s new 5.
Also, when you’re talking NBA, it’s much better to be seen as a winner in the Jordan mold of “alpha dog leading a team to a title” than it is to be a winner in the Robert Horry “key part of a title team” mold. I assumed LeBron wanted to be the former.
That’s not clear to me at all. What makes it so clear? And is there anything LeBron wasn’t already endorsing?
Hello? Wade and Bosh have had a fucking camera crew following them around for 2 weeks as part of some ego project. You don’t think we’re going to be inundated with stupid reality television-type crap and Hollywood celebrity nonsense now that these three are together in one place?
Basketball is not a good guy, charity contest. It is a competition among athletes and teams. i don’t care about egos and I don’t care about their desire to take less money to win. I care about the fact that this is not nearly as entertaining or compelling as Lebron staying in Cleveland and competing AGAINST Wade and Bosh.
I’m sure we will, and I’ll be studiously avoiding it. But how does that demonstrate they’re more committed to being buddies and celebrities than to winning? If LeBron had signed with the Knicks or the Clippers, I could see an argument that he wasn’t committed to winning. Those are teams in big markets that aren’t going to win even if he’s there. The Heat aren’t shaping up to be anything like that. There was a ton of attention whoring in this process and I’ve never said otherwise, but there’s a very strong case to be made that in terms of winning, they gave themselves the best chance by going together.
According to this ESPN story about the Beasley trade and Bosh contract arcana, the Heat are hoping to get Miller and are also “looking at minimum-salary options for its backcourt, with a search that sources say has focused on Heat alumni Jason Williams, Mike James and Keyon Dooling along with Earl Watson.” No word about who they want to play center.
I’m a little confused about the sign and trade for Bosh because they’re not going to pay him the maximum amount of money anyway. There is no indication Cleveland wants to be involved in a sign and trade for LeBron, so is Miami going to offer Wade and Bosh six-year deals and LeBron five? I assume they’ll be taking similar terms but I also figured they would each get five years.
Terms of the LeBron, Bosh and Wade contracts have not been made public but supposedly they have signed. And the Cavs and Raptors both agreed to sign and trade deals. Miami is supposedly sending the Cavs two first round picks and two second round picks, plus the right to swap first-round picks one year. Toronto traded Bosh for two other first-round picks, and Toronto and Cleveland each got a $16 million one-time trade exception. So I don’t think Miami is going to have the option of using the draft to build around their trio. I don’t know how many picks they have left over the next few years.
SI’s Fanhouse, which reported the Bosh deal but not LeBron, make the interesting note that James was never the highest paid player on his Cavs teams because of the rookie salary scale and because the Cavs acquired Ben Wallace and Shaq, who were given enormous, bad contracts by other teams and then traded as a result of the same contracts.
The Bulls have added shooting by signing Kyle Korver to a three year deal for $15 million, and they’re also offering three years and $20 million to J.J. Redick. Redick is a restricted free agent, but whether they get him or not they’ve now improved their low post scoring and their shooting. Tyrus Thomas re-signed with Charlotte for five years and $40 million, and the Knicks are apparently going to sign Raymond Felton.
That didn’t last long. ESPN is reporting that James and Bosh signed deals worth $110.1 million over six years and Wade is taking $107.6 million over six years. The maximum is $119 million, so combined, they’re taking almost $5 million less than the maximum per year. According to CBS, at least, Mike Miller is probably going to sign with Miami for $30 million over five years. So they still have the $5 million they saved after trading Beasley to get a few other people, and I think that’s just about all the money they have under the salary cap.
FWIW, I heard an interview with Jim Gray the day before the dog and pony show, and it seems that he approached James and one of his confidantes, a guy named Maverick, during the Finals (in LA); Gray prodded James, wanting to secure the interview, and that the hour long show was suggested by Gray. Maverick took to the idea right away, and the event just grew from there (tho I would guess that he wasn’t the only one whispering in James ear what a great idea it was.
The Bulls landed Kyle Korver for $15M over 3 years and have a tenderfor J.J. Reddick for $20M over 3 years as well. I’m not sure what the Magic’s cap looks like but I get the impression that they won’t be willing or able to match that number.
I LOVE what the Bulls have done in the wake of this Miami LeBracle. They’ll be trotting out Rose, Deng, Noah, Boozer and Reddick/Korver as a starting five with Gibson and Johnson coming in off the bench with one of the two new shooters. That’s a great rotation and with Noah and Boozer we’ll dominate the glass and Rose should have tons of kick-out opportunities to those swingmen. If we get anything productive out of Deng this year, and with him not having to shoulder the load down low we might, we’re in excellent shape. We also gained a 2nd round pick in the deal that sent Warrick to the Suns and cleared a bit more cap room. We still need another PG to spell Rose and we probably need one more big body to pick up minutes from Boozer and Noah, but with plenty of room left under the cap hopefully that will be realistic.
I really like that rotation. Hopefully the Reddick deal comes together. I wonder what the chances of rolling the dice with Shaun Livingston are as a backup/defensive PG are.
I’ve been saying this for weeks, if Lebron really cared about winning, he’d take the MLE and come play for the Lakers! 
Wade is getting 107 mill. The other two are getting 110. No they are not thinking of money. Lebron has tons of endorsement money too. If he wants to win he should take league minimum. then the team could spend money on a point guard and supporting players.
You could say that about any player, though. And you’re right that they could. Nothing is stopping them, including the potential for a lockout. But it’s not going to happen. Sometimes a player will take a slightly reduced salary but not by a whole lot. Almost all of these guys retire by the time they turn 40 so they want to make as much as they can while they can. Even the ones like LeBron who have already made more money than they are likely to ever spend. LeBron didn’t give the time of day to any team that didn’t have the cap space to offer him $20 million a year.
It’s a Chicagoan’s god-given right to punk Indianapolis, Detroit and Cleveland. It’s simply because we are the most important city in the god forsaken Midwest.