OK, this summer the new Charlotte Team will get to choose players. We get to protect 8 guys who are either under contract or restricted free agents (if an RFA is selected, he becomes an unrestricted FA). Who do we protect?
Looking over the roster, we turn out to have 10 guys we would probably like to protect. Two guys are going to have to be left open. Dixon and Blake? Jeffries? It seems a shame to give away guys like that, because they seem like precisely the kind of young, cheap players that Charlotte should be looking to take.
Likewise, if we leave Haywood or Thomas unprotected and they get chosen, they'll become unrestricted FAs and could walk for no compensation. I hadn't really thought this through before, and now I'm wondering whether Ernie Grunfeld has either. If I were him, I maybe would have been more aggressive with a trade to combine a few of our younger players' talents into one guy had a realized we stand a good chance of loosing them for nothing.
Protect?
Kwame
Hughes
Stack
Arenas
Haywood (RFA)
Thomas (RFA)
Jeffries
Hayes
Dixon
Blake
Don't protect
Laettner
FAs
Knight
Butler
Whitney