Fork

SALT LAKE CITY -- The Utah Jazz have verbal commitments from restricted free agents Mehmet Okur and Gordan Giricek.

The Jazz would not release terms of either agreement, other than to say they were multiyear contracts, Utah vice president for basketball operations Kevin O'Connor said Monday night.

Detroit TV station WDIV said the offer to Okur was for between $42 million and $48 million over six years.

-more-

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Fork

If this goes through, you'd have to figure Oysterbag (sp?) is available.

Also, the Nugs have agreed to terms with Marcus Camby. As these teams with caproom start to run out of space, the bargains will start flowing our way.

It's a great time to be patient.

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When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross. -- Sinclair Lewis, 1935

If you sit by the river long enough, you will see the body of your enemy float by. -- Japanese proverb

SheedSoNasty

I couldn't have said it better myself. I posted a link to overpaid/underpaid free agents' earlier here and it mentions Denver and how they gave way too much to Camby for how unreliable he is in terms of injury. The more that other teams sign players to crummy contracts, the better for the Blazers. As you mentioned, Fork, patience is key as hard as it may be for many of us Blazer fans.

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Storyteller

I agree with Fork about waiting for bargains....

My favorite part of the article:

If that's really true, then Utah is fortunate that Giricek didn't walk away as a unrestricted free agent. July 1st is one day too late to make qualifying offers...

Somehow I believe that they made the qualifying offer at some point BEFORE July 1st, the day free agent negotiations could begin. Or else we could have seen this conversation:


Giricek's Agent: Kevin, I just wanted you to know that we just signed an offer sheet with the Hawks.

Kevin O'Connor: Well, send the paperwork over and we'll review it.

Agent: Why would I do that?

O'Connor: Because we have 15 days to consider whether or not to match it.

Agent: Uhhhh....I think you might want to check with the league office about that.

O'Connor: Hold on, I'll get somebody from the league on the other line. I'll be with you in just a minute...

[2 minutes of "Girl From Ipanema" later]

O'Connor: I hope Gordan enjoys things in Atlanta.....

Yega1979

Okur got 7 mil a year? Utah must be afraid they won't be able to lure quality FA's. If I were Utah, I'd make a deal for SAR, not overpay some backup C.

stupendous

I honestly don't think too much of Okur personally, however he was fairly productive in Detroit before Sheed got there. Since sheed arived and his minutes dropped he has always seemed very out of sync on the floor.

I was just having a discussion with my roomate today about the lack of African American players on their team. If they signed Okur, they would have 10 players on their roster who weren't black. Is this just coincidence and that they are going off the best possible players? Is it something about the system they run and the style of players they like? Or is it geographically stimulated by having the Salt Lake City fan base. I'm just curious to see what your thoughts are.

What makes them different from teams like the Hornets (no white players), and the many others who only have rosters with 1-3 white players (who, by last years roster, the Blazers only had 2 white players - Stepania, and Dickau .... before the draft)

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QRICH

I always thought Okur was overrated. When I see Okur, I see Slavv-va-Medd-va-den-ko (as Stephen A. Smith would say )

But he was a good pick up, he's at least an upgrade over Collins and Ostertag.

cimalee

wow Okur is getting way overpaid , hes getting the type of deal Rasheed should be getting