deanwoof

maybe we should trade dor shaq and sign penny while were at it .

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Pain5155

damn, i thought he spent 2 years in college, and this was his 3rd season.

hobojoe

You people act like it's your money being spent. As a fan, I'd rather my team spends the money to overpay a good player rather than being cheap and not getting anyone. It's not the best possible scenario, but it could be worse.

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Sliccat

The fans are the customers of the product an NBA team provides. Their money supports all transactions that the team makes, so yes, it is their money.

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Babir

I agree, but my point is that these 155-160 millions could have been spent on much better players...

deanwoof

like who?? who was available last summer that would have made the team better?

chauncey billups? gerald wallace? chris webber? zach randolph? jason kapono? antoine walker? ricky davis? pau gasol? DARKO?

seriously, who did we have a chance of landing that was an upgrade over lewis and nelson given our situation (no big contracts or young guys to trade, and only cap space)?

the only person we could have had a chance at signing would have been gerald wallace and i guarantee you had we signed him, you'd be here today complaining that wallace didn't have a jumper and he was overpaid as well.

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Babir

Who told you that we had to sign a max player exactly last summer? Why couldn't we wait for another free agent class? Why we gave Rashard this ridiculous contract? Otis was killing himself for the 6th year of the contact which is paying him more than 20 millions...5 years were not enough???
Ok, lets admit that Rashard was the best available free agent..But why we have signed Jameer Nelson to almost 40 million contract extension? He was going to be a restricted free agent this summer, we could have matched any offer and I don't think anyone in the league would have paid him the money Otis committed to pay...
And then this stupid trade with Lakers...
The only bright move by Otis was in his first season when he got rid of Steve Francis...

Enigma

We had to extend Dwight. So we wouldn't have had the capspace for the upcoming free agency period, even if we didn't pursue anyone this past off-season. We'd just have mid-level exception, like everyone else.

So the way we did it, we ended up with Lewis, Dwight, and no capspace, otherwise we would have just ended up with Dwight and no capspace.

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Blue Magic

Exactly! next year is gonna be one the most loaded free agent markets we have seen in a while, thats why i didnt understand why we paid so much last year only to get Rashard (Only thing that would make it accectable would be if Dwight had told them personally "go get Rashard Lewis at all costs or i'm outta here" then i would let it pass but i highly doubt he did that.

Yeah that and not F***ing up by taking Emeka over Dwight, which also during his first year here i think.


Deawoof, think about it. Next year we could've had a legit chance to get Monta Ellis or Agent Zero with that money. Dont get me wrong, i like Rashard and his role on our team but he was not worth his price especially with what would've been available this upcomming summer and neither was Jameer(we're not saying that they should've had the foresight to wait 2-3 years down road to make a move, but that they only needed to wait just one).

I'll just start my argument by throwing some names out there. Not saying we could have just gotten any of these guys but they would be available. This summer Josh Smith is a Restricted Free Agent as well as Deng and Gordon. Other notable players available include the likes of J. Oneal, E. Brand, A. Jamison, R. Artest, and Iggy. At PG there are guys likes A.I., Baron Davis, Calderon, Boobie, JJ Barea, Louis Williams all available, all who i would take over Jameer, and there are also several other quality role players out there that i just dont feel like typing out right now as well who would be nice peices on our team not costing us $120 million.

Fact is, Rashard is a nice peice, but with that money, we could've gotten a star. we need.....and could've gotten.....a star to play along Dwight if we were patient. Now, barring any sort of monster trade, i think we're pretty much locked up for the next 5-6 years with pretty much our current roster. It's not bad but just think what could've been if we had a smarter management. One that had the foresight to look beyond just one season and take a superstars career into consideration. Imagie if we had a roster consisting of Dwight, Hedo, Monta, Calderon, and Darko....we would be pretty much set for the future.

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deanwoof

that is NEXT summer. like enigma said, we just resigned dwight and his new contract of $13/14M will kick into effect this summer and for the sake of argument, we dont touch jameer and just give him the qualifying offer for next year of about $2M. our salary would have been $55M - the $3M of Jameer - Lewis' $17M + crappy whoever PF we may have signed for $1M last summer totalling about $36M with a lineup of Nelson, Bogans, Turk, InsertCrappyFreeAgentBigManHere, and Dwight with Arroyo and Dooling off the bench. We would have been a VERY crappy team and going from 8th place in the East to a 30-35 win season.

then this summer rolls around and we have Dwight, Turk, Battie, Bogans, hypothetically Cook, and Redick under contract. 6 players. We make a "splash" and attempt to sign Arenas for max money (who coincidently over dribbles and chucks up bad shots) or overpay ellis for $7M a year (it's the GS system that makes him good). Ok now we have 7 players and are sitting at $43-48M with a midlevel exception left to get one more guy, sign the lottery pick (and with our draft record, would you really want another lottery pick coming here?) and probably a second rounder.

do we really improve that much more? would arenas really even accept a secondary role like lewis has? would he become another grant hill with his current injuries?

oh and babir.. stop blowing things out of proportion saying he got nearly $40M, when he didn't at all y

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deanwoof

Like you said, smith, deng and gordon are restricted so throw them out of the mix.

jermaine oneal has been overrated since he stepped foot in indiana and i dont see where he is a free agent this summer.
elton brand would be a nice piece. but would you walk away from a $16M player option contract after missing a season because of injury?
jamison... not a bad idea.
ron artest could be had with a trade if we really wanted him easily with sacramento doing so bad and probably going to blow the team up. but at what expense? we know orlanod's track record, we're not going to bring in a crazy player. we only have nice guys here.
iguodala brings pure hustle to the table and not much else. there's a good reason philly doesn't even want to acknowledge him as a franchise player (he's not that good!)

iverson is not a free agent this summer
davis has a player option
good luck prying calderon away from toronto
and it's laughable you'd want miles barea and williams over jameer.

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Babir

That was original information...Later it was reported that he got 38,5 millions...

deanwoof, I am not a gm and you are not a gm...Otis is a lazy idiot who can't even count properly...Once again I want to say that if we had a decent GM we could have a championship team for years...

Blue Magic