Thursday, July 1, 2010

CHRISTMAS MORNING AT SPORTS GUY MANSION: Welcome to the most exciting NBA free agent period -- hell, any sport free agent period -- that I can ever recall. News, predictions, advice ... post it.

16 comments:

  1. Raf Noboa y Rivera12:10 AM

    I think people are counting out Dallas as a potential destination for LeBron James. I'm not saying that it's the most likely, just saying that people are forgetting about it. The Mavs offer James:

    - An owner (and a front office) that aren't afraid to spend in order to win a title;
    - The best two players that LeBron has played with yet, in Jason Kidd and Dirk Nowitzki (the latter is key, as Nowitzki would relieve the need for James to explode on a scoring basis);
    - Dallas as a major destination: LeBron is a Cowboys fan, and he'd have the chance to play games at Cowboys Stadium, in front of 60,000 plus fans.

    The Mavs would have to work out a sign-and-trade deal with the Cavs in order to make it happen. They'd have to include a package with Caron Butler, maybe Erick Dampier and probably Rodrigue Beaubois, and they'd have to eat a bad Cavs contract, possibly Andy Varejao or Danny Gibson. But it's possible.

    The catch? It's going to be tough for James to leave his hometown team. My impression is that teams courting James will have to make a proposal to him that's along the lines of "why should I leave Cleveland?". And if he leaves, he'll instantly become the most reviled man in Cleveland since Art Modell. That's a bigger deal than you think - he's from Akron, his whole family's there.

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  2. Poor Knicks fans.  Every other team has some sort of foundation to build on if they strike out, but if New York doesn't get LeBron, Bosh or Wade, they're going to be amazingly bad with no real hope unless they can steal Melo next summer.  Even the lowly Nets (Harris, Lopez, Favors) and laughable Clips (Davis, Gordon, Griffen, Kaman) are in considerably better shape.  This is not good: http://hoopshype.com/salaries/new_york.htm

    [That statement is assuming the Heat keep Wade and get Bosh (or perhaps Amare) as was reported all day today.]

    Also, we're 63 minutes in, and this has been a blast so far.  Nothing beats the NBA offseason.

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  3. calliekl5:50 AM

    My prediction is that my local sports talk station will spend the next 2 days talking about why LeBron will or will not be coming to Boston (since all of the regular hosts are on vacation). I'm not an expert on cap space in the NBA, but I don't think that would actually be possible.

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  4. Andrew10:07 AM

    And to our Canadian friends, we can also wish them happy free agent day, with NHL players eligible to become free agents doing so at 12 noon today. Such notables as Ilya Kovalchuk, Saku Koivu, Paul Kariya, and Paull Martin will be.. eh, as much better of a sport hockey is than basketball, no one can argue that any offseason is more interesting than the LeBron-athon. 

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  5. isaac_spaceman12:20 PM

    I'm really rooting for LeBron to go somewhere in a package deal with Calipari, so that the recruit that Kentucky stole from the University of Washington doesn't end up going to Kentucky.  I don't care if he goes to Washington -- actually, I would prefer that he didn't -- but I'd like to see him not going to Kentucky. 

    Other than that, the only free agent news I care about will be when (I hope) Durant leaves Oklahoma City.

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  6. <span>I'm really rooting for LeBron to go somewhere in a package deal with Calipari, so that the recruit that Kentucky stole from the University of Washington doesn't end up going to Kentucky.</span>

    Which one, the guy that committed to Washington at a school assembly, or the one that played professional ball in Turkey before committing to Washington, and then Kentucky?

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  7. Benner2:47 PM

    how can the sixers be so bad and yet have no cap space?  in the philly sports power rankings, i'd put them behind the eagles, flyers, phillies, and the UNION. 

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  8. isaac_spaceman3:41 PM

    The one that committed to UW at the assembly.  But I have a whole post written in my head about how one-and-done is worse for college basketball than high-school draft eligibility.  And I have a solution, too, one that doesn't require the cooperation of the NBA (which, after all, is the source of the one-and-done problem). 

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  9. Carmichael Harold5:13 PM

    It looks like about half of the likely 2010/11 cap will be eaten up with Brand and Iguodala (if not traded), and it gets worse as the years go on.   Here is what appears to be an updated salary projection http://hoopshype.com/salaries/philadelphia.htm

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  10. Carmichael Harold5:14 PM

    Benner, I realized I sort of over and under answered your question.  The actual answers to your question are: (1) Brand, and (2) Billy King/Ed Stefanski.

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  11. Benner5:50 PM

    It was a rhetorical question -- i'm less interested in who between Brand and King is most responsible than how an ostensibly just universe would ruin basketball in the city of brotherly love.

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  12. isaac_spaceman6:23 PM

    What ostensibly just universe?  The NBA is run for the benefit of LA, Boston, New York (though New York insists upon squandering the help), China, whatever owner is trying to get the government to pay for a new stadium, and David Stern's social circle.  If you're not one of those things, the NBA would set you on fire to benefit one of them. 

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  13. Carmichael Harold7:12 PM

    Yeah, I guess in the company of Sonics fans, us Sixers fans have little cause to curse the justice in the universe.  It's like my law firm associate friends who complained about the size of their bonuses when their former colleagues were laid off.

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  14. The Hawks just guaranteed they won't win a championship for the next five years by signing Joe Johnson to a max contract, saving Knicks fans some agony since the MSG crew was surely stupid enough to do the same.  Why do teams do this to themselves? 

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  15. Knicks are better off without Melo than with him sucking up max contract cap space.

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  16. Benner9:35 AM

    I'd like to think of the Sixers as one of the league's marquee teams because they were pretty good when i was 11, and is in a major media market with lots of history specifically in basketball.  We're just as important as New York and Boston, god DAMNIT.

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