You forgot to include Chauncy Billups
With all this time spent trying to disprove me ...
Billups was an MLE signing. Your criteria was: "good FA's ... who signed outright to a team with capspace". Detroit did not have cap space. Thus Billups was excluded.
So enough with the eyeroll. You excluded a TON of guys from your list, and the one you thought I excluded didn't even fit your stated criteria.
And I wasn't trying to "disprove" anything BTW. I actually agreed with you if you read my whole post. I just saw someone say there's only been Odom, Boozer, and a couple other dudes leave their team via free agency, and that obviously stood to be corrected.
The Warriors did not want to sign Arenas for as much money as he was going to command
Actually, the Warriors wanted to spend whatever they could to keep him. But due to NBA cap rules, the highest offer the Warrriors could match was the league's average salary (i.e. the MLE) since they only had his early Bird rights. So that statement is false. The Warriors were willing to pay him whatever he wanted, but couldn't under cap rules.
So quit the petty argument side and answer me this: How many RECENT GOOD players left their team in outright in FA for reasons other than money? The only one I can think of is T-mac and even that wasn't very recent.
Wow - such unwarranted hostility. Petty argument? I agree with your point, tough guy. Re-read my post.
All I did was correct your painfully wrong statement that the "only recent good FA's I can think of who signed outright to a team with capspace were Odom, Ben Wallace, Mehmet Okur, and Boozer."
You left out a TON of OBVIOUS players. I was just trying to inject an honest list into the discussion, and now you're all offended. Maybe you should take your pants off again and relax a bit?
In terms of guys who left despite having the same offer from their current team, ifi it's really that important to you that I answer, I'll play along: how bout McGrady, Shaq, Grant Hill (superstar at the time) were some pretty big gets. Duncan was a near-miss with the Magic, as was Ray Allen with the Cavs.
And since I know you're going to ask this, those guys I just listed account have won 8 of the last 9 NBA championships (with the other having Ben Wallace as a key player, who was also left via free agency twice). And all are surefire Hall of Famers, except Hill now because of the injury, but at the time he was a Top 5 player.
So obviously, you can indeed get franchise talent and impact via free agency, it's just rare. But I agree with you that it's silly for us to plan our entire franchise around this once-in-a-blue-moon event when a Shaq leaves, or a McGrady, or a Hill, or a LeBron, or a Bosh. There's such a small chance that'll happen for us, it's not worth throwing away the next 2 years of Wade's career on trash, shortterm players just to have that tiny chance.
The last player signed to a team that won a championship with that player as the centerpiece was Shaq and that was over 10 years ago.
I'm pretty sure Shaq has won a title since 1998. In fact, he's won 4 since then and is looking for a 5th in Phoenix. So the idea at the time to clear cap space for the all-world talent Shaq turned out to be brilliant considering his 4 rings since. But like you, I just think those events happen so rarely it's not worth waiting around years for it to take place, when we can just improve NOW via trades and signings.
Just look at how the RECENT championships were won (with the exception of the Spurs). A team traded quality talent for a star or even superstar talent. KG and Allen acquired via trade. Shaq acquired via trade. Rasheed Wallace acquired via trade.
I agree. I like trades. Wish we could do some.
It's next to impossible in today's NBA to acquire a superstar talent via FA if a team is willing to pay the money the player wants. Will the Raptors and Cavs be willing to give Bosh and Lebron the money they want? Of course. Which is why the Heat need to start acquiring talent now, forget about those players and if a star becomes available on the trade market, move the acquired talent for that player.
Agreed. Again, I do not like the plan of sitting on our hands for years waiting for 2010. I'm with you 100% on that.
I would point out though that "next to impossible" doesn't mean impossible. I think Brooklyn and NY have a real shot at Lebron, even if it's like 20%. With our shot being more like 5%, I say let's build a champion around Wade ASAP rather than praying against 20:1 odds a couple years from now.
With all this time spent trying to disprove me, you should have been arguing my point: 