I'd rather have Lee, Nate, Du and Al than Bosh

[Assassin_1]

If we grab say Blake Griffin would we be the fly chick we have Griffin, Chandler, Harrington, Duhon, and Chandler to go with Lebron plus we have a side kick to go with him and the year after even more cap space for a star player a year after. We aren't the neighbor girl or the Fly chick we are inbetween both and we also have D'Antoni which bring us closer to the Fly chick status, you know what I'm saying?

[blueNorange]

i guess people forgot when walsh said that he won't sign players, re-sign players, or trade for players with contracts that pass 2010.

and everything he's done so far proves that he's sticking by his words and proves that what i say is what will happen.

[truth serum]

How much do you think Lee, Nate, Duhon, and Al will cost? The answer is a hell of a lot more than Bosh. So the comparison is not a great one.

A better question (that I posed in a different thread) would be would you rather have Curry and Lee than Bosh? The salaries are more comparable there, and that is really the question we are facing when we consider packaging Lee with Curry for cap space.

It's true that the guys you mention play important roles, but it's also true that superstars are harder to obtain and you need to give something to get something.

That doesn't matter though. They're already on our team. You extend Lee and Nate for as cheap as possible (I'd say we'd spend no more than 14 million MAX between the 2 of em) and we're still left with plenty of money to sign LeBron. Then you simply extend Duhon and/or Harrington in 2010. Like I said, I'd much rather a team with LBJ and all of those guys on it then a team of LeBron and Bosh and maybe one of those guys if any. Just my opinion I guess...but I won't budge on that stance.

Where else are we going to get talent? Give me LeBron and Wade and I wouldn't care where we find the rest of the roster, but nothing is guaranteed, including the whole LeBron and Bosh pipe dream. LeBron is far from a guarantee to begin with. Don't forget 2011 either. I think if you land LeBron in 2010, outside of Wade, you'd be hard pressed to find a better complimentary player in 2010 than you would in FA of 2011. The key here is patience, and we can afford to have it after the trades Donnie just made. Now once again, if we get rid of Curry over the course of the next 14/15 months, then we can spend willy nilly and still keep most of these guys. That's where Donnie comes in. By the way, did I mention that I have a lot of faith in Donnie Walsh? Am I alone in that?

[blueNorange]

You extend Lee and Nate for as cheap as possible (I'd say we'd spend no more than 14 million MAX between the 2 of em)

here's the funny thing though, teams can offer nate and lee contract offers and it's up to walsh if he wants to match it.

[truth serum]

You extend Lee and Nate for as cheap as possible (I'd say we'd spend no more than 14 million MAX between the 2 of em)

here's the funny thing though, teams can offer nate and lee contract offers and it's up to walsh if he wants to match it.

That's why I'm saying we should just extend them now. We know we're way under the cap in 2010 regardless. Worse comes to worse, you have the opportunity to sign 2 guys in 2010 so you let Duhon and Al walk...bring in Nash for cheap to run the point. Trading them next season for good value isn't out of the question either. Same goes for Lee and Nate. Point is- those are our guys. We should try to keep them in the plans for as long as possible until we're forced to trade them off. You're so dead set on getting rid of them now which doesn't make sense to me. They're good young players that are helping us win. They know the plan for this team, so if they want to be here, Donnie will work out reasonable extensions for both of them. If we let it play out through the summer and someone offers Lee 10 mil a year, of course we won't match it....and then we lose him for nothing.

[jakoub]

lebron can carry a team on his own. Putting another allstar next to him and it's over. That and the fact that if we resigning lee harrington duhan and nate and the 09 draft pick we prob won't have enough for lebron alone. And if nash comes for the vet min why would we want duhan for?

Lebron is only playing 30 min and not even playing the 4th quarter, I think he's not carrying his team anymore, i think his team is just GOOD!

hmm yet he is still avgs nearly a triple doub a game??? yeah he can carry a team

[darkjedi4z]

if we could somehow dump curry and jeffries without giving up any assets, then I say we sign all of them. I have a hard time seeing that happen though. I think curry might be able to be moved on his own but jeffries is probably here for the long haul.

I'd prefer Jeffries over Curry in this system. Can't really see the big guy ever lugging his ass up and down the court, plus look at what happened in the Shaq deal... But I wanna see what more Jeffries' has got b4 I'd wanna keep him, he's coming back from an injury so we'll have to wait and see if he can put up bigger numbers than he is now... If not, gotta package him in some deal...

[baseline_jay]

I call Donnie Walsh, "CHEF" because he's feeding me soup!

Under the cap, on major FA is fine with me!

So I'm with you ATM!

[baseline_jay]

*donnie walsh reads, laughs, takes centrum, then leaves*

you forgot that he used Vitalis on his hair before leaving!

[baseline_jay]

How much do you think Lee, Nate, Duhon, and Al will cost? The answer is a hell of a lot more than Bosh. So the comparison is not a great one.

Yes. but look at Lebron's team now... No BOSH's now. I think that ATM is saying he'd like some homegrown talent on board when we get that major FA to sign.

[baseline_jay]

umm, what if NONE of the superstars, lebron, bosh, wade, amare, etc, don't opt out? then what?

we rub one out while sipping, sniffing and smoking on that ole good stuff!

[baseline_jay]

umm, what if NONE of the superstars, lebron, bosh, wade, amare, etc, don't opt out? then what?

That is a good question. It's a risky situation, no doubt, but we are not the Grizzlies or the Hawks. Players want to play in New York and in D'Antoni's system. The allure of NY is one of our biggest assets.

see CC Sabathia and Vernon Wells.

[baseline_jay]

If Bosh was playing for a team in the US, especially a team that's popular, nobody would say that he wasn't a franchise player. I mean, he was a complete standout on the olympic team, is a good all around player, is currently 5th in scoring, 13th in rebounding (alongside JO), is only 24, and is a 3 time all star.

Nope. A franchise player is a young Shaq, Kareem, Jordan, Magic, Duncan, etc. The rest of these guy may be stars but they ain't franchise players. They don't have that kind of impact. Of the 2010 group, only Kobe and James are legit franchise players, at least IMHO.

Right now there are five franchise players in the NBA: Duncan, Kobe, Lebron, Paul and maybe Wade. That's it. Of course Shaq when he was younger.

Dwight Howard on line 2 for you.

[Scalabrine]

Am I alone??? There seems to be a lot of people flipping out over trading Curry and Jeffries....offering proposals of Lee and Curry for Brad Miller. I mean c'mon. We're already under the cap in 2010. Would it be great to sign two max FAs? Sure. But not at the expense of the rest of our team. Those 4 guys (Lee, Nate, Duhon and Harrington) are in question right now for 2010 because their contracts are either up that year, or due to be extended through that year, but they're also the 4 main reasons we're winning games right now. I personally would be happier with a team of Duhon, Nate, LeBron, Lee and Harrington than a team of LeBron, Bosh and ?????? To me, keeping all of these guys to have around LeBron or Wade or whoever would make us better than stripping the team of them all only to add a guy like Bosh who I honestly don't even like that much. The way Harrington and even Chandler have put up numbers at the 4 spot so far (don't forget about Gallo either) we'd be better off getting a guy like Tyson Chandler to man the 5 spot for us that year for less money to boot.

Let's be less spoiled and more realistic. This doesn't have to be a mad race to the maximum amount of cap space possible. Donnie has done a great job so far of securing a pretty nice future for us and has already guaranteed us enough cap space to at least sign one major FA (King James). If we made half the moves some of you guys are proposing, our team would look like a$$ cheeks in 2010, with or without a big time player or two. Once again, the whole Bosh hype is just too much for me. If you can guarantee me LeBron and Wade in 2010, then I'd probably surrender all 4 of those guys to make it happen...but not for Chris Bosh.

I say- extend D-Lee, extend N8 The Gr8test, Duhon is definitely a keeper past 2010 unless we draft someone better (unlikely) and Al Harrington certainly deserves consideration as well. I'm sure Donnie will be able to work out reasonable deals with all of them. I know there are still some serious Donnie Walsh haters left, but for those with half a brain, it is undeniable how much he's done for this team already. Have a little more faith and patience for him to pull off some other moves to clear more cap space in a reasonable manner. There's no doubt that he's planning on at least trying. If he can work his magic and somehow get rid of Curry's contract over the next year and a half...wonderful. Then we spend big bucks in 2010 and still have guys like Lee, Nate and Duhon on this team. But for now, we shouldn't be in such a rush to dismantle everything D'antoni is working hard to establish here. We have some great role players and even some borderline stars. We'll need those just as much if we think adding a LeBron James or Dwyane Wade to this roster is going to bring us back to glory.

The thing I dont think your taking into consideration is that Duhon wasnt that great before he started getting big minutes for D'Antoni, same goes for Harrington and even Lee and Nate. Instead of having to surrender 8 or so million for Duhon we could pay another 5 or 6 million on a young point guard with similar makeup that would also excel in this system. Harrington is doing so well because hes our go to guy right now, he wont be a go to guy with Bron or whoever we get, if any of these guys want big pay days then they will leave and not experience the type of success they will have if they stay and sign reasonable deals.

I think we can resign Lee and Nate to deals that are front or back loaded so they dont take up that much on the salary during the summer of 2010 but after that make more.

[Bill Bradley]

umm, what if NONE of the superstars, lebron, bosh, wade, amare, etc, don't opt out? then what?

we rub one out while sipping, sniffing and smoking on that ole good stuff!

LOL

[Bill Bradley]

How much do you think Lee, Nate, Duhon, and Al will cost? The answer is a hell of a lot more than Bosh. So the comparison is not a great one.

Yes. but look at Lebron's team now... No BOSH's now. I think that ATM is saying he'd like some homegrown talent on board when we get that major FA to sign.

Yes, I do agree with that, but like Scalabrine said, players look a hell of a lot better in our system than in others. What I think Walsh and D'Antoni's strategy is now is to boost up the value of all of those guys so we can trade them before 2010 for players on rookie contracts and draft picks. Why else would we not try to sign Lee and Nate long-term while playing them huge minutes and building up their stats and trade value? I don't think that the plan is to try to sign them. I think it's to build up their value so we can either (a) package them with Curry and Jeffries, and/or (b) get young talent or picks in return for them to fill out our roster around at least one FA signing.

It's really all about getting good value for each spot in our roster piece by piece. The most important part of building a champion, though, is getting a star, and history suggests that two is really what is needed.

[THEmasterWAYNE]

Harrington could become an all-star, he has the tools.

[Bill Bradley]

Harrington could become an all-star, he has the tools.

I agree, and he is a perfect fit for D'Antoni's system. I'd like him to stay, but it's really hard to predict. I guess it depends on how much he will be looking for and what the market is for him.

[sh00n]

Good, you can keep them.

[kosmovitelli]

You extend Lee and Nate for as cheap as possible (I'd say we'd spend no more than 14 million MAX between the 2 of em)

here's the funny thing though, teams can offer nate and lee contract offers and it's up to walsh if he wants to match it.

Spending $14M on Lee and Robinson would be suicidal if Walsh wants to sign Lebron.
We curently have 4 contracts still on the books after 2010 : Eddy Curry, Jared Jeffries, Danilo Gallinari and Wilson Chandler (total : $24M). You add our 2009 first round pick and it's around $27M.
You spend $14M on Nate and Lee and you're around $41M.
The NBA Salary Cap for 2008-2009 is $58M and the maximum salary is projected to be around $18M in 2010 so we need to be at least $18M under the cap in 2010.

There is no way Donnie will resign both Lee and Nate, at best only one of them will be kept.

I think Donnie's plan is pretty simple : use our cap space on two free agents in 2010 and then add more fire power to the team in 2011 once Jeffries and Curry's contracts will expire.

We're not guaranteed to sign two max free agents but I'm sure Donnie wants to have the opportunity to lure two free agents. It's easier to convince Lebron to sign if you tell him Bosh (or Amare) will join too. If we only have cap room for one player then we're sure to be less appealing for free agents. It's the main reason Donnie pulled the trigger on both Crawford and Zach trades at the same time.

It's been reported almost everywhere Donnie wants Lebron and Bosh and it's probably Donnie's favorite scenario and I'm sure he already did his homework and knows who we can get and who we cannot get. Lebron likes Bosh. Lebron is a superstar and Bosh is a second option, they're perfect for eachother. They both played for team USA under d'Antoni and coach K.

I definitely think Donnie will target Lebron and Bosh. It's his plan A.