No, Miller didn’t have that on the table. I just took what the Rockets are paying Martin—~$10.6 this year—called them comparable players and ran with it. IMHO, the 5 year term might give some teams pause for a 29 year old, but he’s totally a 12 per year player in this market. Even if he’d only make 11 or so this year, with inflation and raises over a long term deal, I could see him making 14 in year 4 and 15 in year 5: money he’d have no shot of making with this Miami deal.
Thanks for the discussion; much more intelligent and interesting than listening to sports talk radio.
I don’t know about the promise of another deal. I can’t see any way Haslem will ever make up the $14 million he just gave up, especially not if there is going to be a labor dispute. Especially not when he’s 35.
If they talked to the Heat, it’s a tampering issue. If they didn’t, it’s not. And there is no evidence they talked to the Heat about it. LeBron even met with Pat Riley during the season - it’s been widely reported that he met with Riley and Michael Jordan, and it inspired him to change his jersey number - and the Cavs didn’t even object.
No. Even David Stern said so.
The Knicks did the same thing, and they did it before the Heat did. The other teams didn’t gut their rosters as quite severely but they left themselves with a lot of money to offer LeBron and another free agent.
It did. He told them he was going to leave Miami if they didn’t bring in at least one more big name.
The Thunder don’t have a shot. Orlando does. And how different is it from this year? The favorites this season were L.A., Cleveland, Boston, and maybe Orlando. Here are ESPN’s picks for the 2009-10 season. 12 votes pick the Lakers, four pick the Cavs, two say the Magic, and David Aldridge had the Spurs.
The Lakers were in talks to offer Miller the same deal Miami. I think you are very much overlooking the fact that he’s 30 and had not done much the last two years. Joe Johnson is a much better and more well-rounded player and Amir Johnson and Rudy Gay are much younger. So I think you are way off here. He did not give up half his potential earnings. he might not have given up anything at all.
Elsewhere Al Jefferson has been officially traded to Utah. Minnesota is getting draft picks in return. The Jazz don’t have to give up any players because it turns out the Bulls got Carlos Boozer through a sign and trade, so Utah had a trade exception. That’s a good job by Utah of replacing an important player. Dallas tried to get Jefferson but they wanted Minnesota to accept players in return.
The Bobcats did trade Tyson Chandler, but not to Toronto. He’s going to Dallas along with Alexis Ajinca for Erick Dampier, Matt Carroll, Eduardo Najera, and cash. I think that’s pretty close to what Dallas wanted to give Minnesota for Al Jefferson. Charlotte may waive Dampier.
Good move on the Jazz and Maverick’s part. It helps them stay relevant though they still need a lot to combat the Lakers. Next season won’t be totally dominated by the East
The word right now is that Ilgauskas is going to sign a two year deal and the Heat are also reportedly talking to Juwan Howard. Both are apparently going to take the veteran’s minimum, which is about $1.4 million each for players with more than 10 years experience. Howard made the minimum with Portland last year, but Ilgauskas made $11.5 million in the last year of his contract with the Cavs. I’m sure he would’ve gotten a paycut anywhere, but not to the tune of $10 million. The second year of his contract is reported to be a player option.
The Hornets are letting go of their GM, Jeff Bowers. No word on who will replace him.
What is MN doing shipping out all their players for draft picks and signing Darko? They weren’t good last year and they won’t be good this year. Might they try to replicate the Thunder’s million-to-one shot at becoming good through the draft? I think it’s too much of a gamble for a team with some assets to get rid of them all and play for broke. That’s what the Knicks did and we all know how well that worked out for them
The funniest thing I heard this morning on sports talk was from Colin Cowherd, whom I generally like but think he’s waay off.
He mentioned that people shouldn’t slam Lebron for leaving because in 7 years all he’s had in Cleveland was trash. Then in the same breath, he praised how all these good FA’s are coming to Miami and making them great and he mentioned Ilgauskus. Hello? Ilgauskus was in Cleveland with Lebron! You can’t call Lebron’s teammates trash in one sentence and praise them coming to Miami in the next! If they get Delonte West or Mo Williams I bet Colin’s tune will take a completely 180
I didn’t think he was that much of an ESPN shill, and I still dont, but I think the network and the NBA is trying desperately to quell this PR nightmare over Lebron and they’ve having their talk show hosts dictate the conversation. It was only last week that Colin alluded to “a story” that happened during the Cavs-Celtics series that made Lebron give up. He’s terrified to mention that “the story” refers to West sleeping with Lebron’s mom, as if that’s a secret anymore. Just report the damn story Colin, you’re better than this! :mad:
And Mike Wilbon too! He had the prime slot after the Jim Gray debacle to ask Lebron the tough questions and he threw him some softball ones! And NOW he says in an interview that he would have asked him tougher questions. Idiot, you had your chance! The only reason you’re saying you would have asked him tough questions is because you know you’ll never get the chance to and you want to try and salvage your credibility!
ESPN needs Lebron. They are coming close to jumping the shark with all of their coverage. I guarantee personalities are told in meetings to tow the company line on Lebron. Aside from columnists, everyone at ESPN has defended his move.
I am very interested to see what happens with the new CBA. Miami might be screwing themselves long term if there is a lower cap, a hard cap, elimination of the mid-level/bi-annual exceptions, etc. My guess is Riley told the 3 that Miami would fill in the roster in the future with the exceptions since those 3 salaries are so large. In the days where you need big men to win championships (since MJ, almost every champion has had a top 3 big man in the game), it will be awfully hard to find and sign quality bigs for pennies. Bosh is a tall 3, so they still need quality bigs. Z cannot play any defense and Haslem is undersized and only shoots Js from the baseline. Exciting times.
In his most recent podcast, Bill Simmons referred to “the story” just as Cowherd did, which suggests that ESPN made some kind of blanket policy about not allowing direct reporting of “the story”. Blame ESPN for being afraid to risk alienating LeBron by muzzling its reporters/commentators.
I can’t wait until miami plays in cleveland next year, there won’t be any way to avoid it then. I imagine most people will be wearing “You may have ran south but your mom is riding West” T-shirts.
ESPN has been raked across the coals for the whole Decision thing, and rightly so. It was bad TV and made them look like LeBron’s PR agency. In fact Jim Gray was paid by the LeBron-related agency that produced the show, not by ESPN, for his “interview.” That’s really bad journalism on top of something that was already crap.
I doubt it.
That could definitely be a problem, but I don’t think the league will change things in such a way that teams cannot compete because of contracts they signed under the current CBA. It sounds like the exceptions and such are history but they’ll have to give teams a way to honor the contracts they have already signed and they can’t void them all.
Mike Miller has finally signed with Miami. He ended up taking about $25 million over five years, so he did give up a little money if the Lakers were thinking about offering him $29 million or $30 million. He’s never played in the second round of the playoffs, hasn’t been on a playoff team since 2006, and hasn’t been on a team that won a single playoff game since 2002. The Lakers also went after Raja Bell, but he’s going back to Utah for three years and $10 million. The Cavaliers made an offer to Kyle Lowry, but he’s a restricted free agent and Houston says they’ll match it. Al Harrington signed with Denver. The Magic have to make their decision on J.J. Redick by tomorrow.
The biggest name still out there is Shaq, and the other significant names include Luis Scola, Richard Jefferson, Matt Barnes, and Josh Howard. Allen Iverson remains unsigned.
This has been quite an offseason. I was hoping Raja would sign with the Lakers for the minimum, but I guess we’ll have to settle for getting Shannon Brown back instead. He’s a decent backup, I just wish he would put his athleticism more towards being a great defender rather than shooting spot-up 3’s.
Shaq’s payday is going to be miniscule compared to what he’s used to making. After seeing Cleveland and the Suns gamble on him and lose, I don’t think any team’s willing to sign him to more than a 1 or 2 year deal. I certainly hopes that he gets signed to some bottomfeeder that won’t sniff the playoffs. His attitude’s gotten worse and worse over the years and I’m no longer amused by his antics. He needs to learn what it is like to suffer on a bad team and maybe he’ll comitt to putting in the hours to get his body into shape.
As I recall, Richard Jefferson had a player option for this year but opted out, right? Why would he do that? Didn’t he have a huge contract? And with the way he underperformed with the Spurs, I don’t get why he didn’t collect his payday and choose to risk free agency where he’ll have to take a severe pay cut.
Jefferson’s opt out might be looked at like Bonzi Wells’ colossal failure in the future. Who knows though. His thinking probably has to do with getting a secure deal with several years before the CBA negotiations. If he is below average again next year, and then there is a lockout the next, he would probably be out of the league or a veteran minimum guy. This way he can lock up $20+ mil for sure. Bird in the hand and all.
I think he’s only planning to play for two more years, so he won’t be disappointed with an offer like that. He wasn’t bad for Cleveland, but he was wrong for their personnel and their offense bogged down when he was on the floor.
Utah is going to let Wesley Matthews go to Portland assuming Raja Bell passes his physical. Either way it’s a good time to be Wesley Matthews. He made the league minimum of $457K last year (not a bad payday on its own terms) but Portland will pay him $33 million over five years, including $9.2 million this year. I hadn’t noticed this before but teams are really front loading their offers to restricted free agents to discourage the original team from matching. The Bulls did the same thing with Redick even if it’s not going to work out. Denver resigned Anthony Carter and signed Shelden Williams away from Boston. I see word that Houston is going to re-sign Luis Scola for five years and $47 million.
In other news the Warriors have been sold for $450 million.
Rumors on ESPN have Shaq going to the Hawks. I don’t really know their roster, but if you’re going to over pay a guy like Joe Johnson who did nothing for you while being swept, I think they’ll overpay for the former Superman as well. Given that Shaq has no mobility left and can’t even play back-to-back games without getting hurt, it’s hard for me to see him have a good role on any team unless it’s the backup TO the backup center on a contender like Boston or Orlando, but he’s already burned his bridges in Orlando
In other news,apparently Dwyane Wade is defending his new teammate about allegations of quitting. I like one of the comments on the page “Did he not watch the playoffs?” Of course he is expected to defend him now that they’re teammates, but just as well we’re expected to call him out on it. Why isn’t Lebron saying this? For a guy who made the last 2 years all about himself, he’s certainly camera shy all of a sudden