RealGM

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5235598

Another big name wants in on the upcoming NBA free-agent superstar summit.

Amare Stoudemire, who is likely to opt out of the final year of his current contract with the Phoenix Suns, told AOL Fanhouse that he expects to join in talks with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh and Joe Johnson before free agency begins on July 1.

Guys don't summit to say, "I don't want to play with you." By pairing up and picking destinations, the elite free agents make our cap space more valuable.

If these guys want to pair up, teams with the max cap space for one guy will suddenly need the space for two, and the rewards for getting that extra cap space will be to get two elites rather than zero.

BrooklynBulls offer of "Anything but Noah and Rose" seems all the mroe plausible, as does similar offers from teams that want to be able to offer double-max cap space to elites to give them another option.

Sounds good to me, but which teams are in the "one max deal but not two" boat?
CHI, - i'd take deng if we robbed them in the deal
LAC, - I'd take gordon or jordan if we robbed them in a deal.
any others?

For each team, the more they can offer, the better. NYK and MIA seem like they'd be hungry for extra cap space too. Perhaps NJN.

LAC would be interesting if they were to offer Gordon and our pick back.

Breakdown777 wrote:LAC, - I'd take gordon or jordan if we robbed them in a deal.
any others?

how about our 1st back?

Come on people, use your heads. Don't just pick your favorite player from LAC and say "I want him." Look at the Clippers' actual situation. Since they have just enough cap space for one max player, they'd need to clear out another $10+ million to have room for a pair. That amount of space means moving one of Kaman or Davis, not simply Gordon + Jordan, two of their cheapest players.

Are we a good destination for either of Kaman or Davis? Of course not. If two max free agents for some reason wanted to go to the Clippers, the obvious deal would be Kaman + picks to the Thunder for cap space.

You can bet Kahn will be hounding the cap space hungry gm's all summer. Forman and Paxson in particular.

If LAC is a legit destination, there's endless opportunities in a Detroit/Clips/MN 3 way w/ Prince to MN, Kaman to Detroit base deal, and then some extra bonus to MN for absorbing Prince's contract

Devilzsidewalk wrote:If LAC is a legit destination, there's endless opportunities in a Detroit/Clips/MN 3 way w/ Prince to MN, Kaman to Detroit base deal, and then some extra bonus to MN for absorbing Prince's contract

our pick back, plus #7

Man, shrink always knows how to get me excited.

It would be nice to get a package of Gordon, Jordan, and our pick back, but as someone else said they really only have Kaman and Davis that make any money on the roster and are expendable...

New Jersey doesn't have enough for 2 max deals do they? Maybe we could get their pick, but they really only have Devin Harris with a big contract.

Miami doesn't have really anything to offer that would entice us.

New York has the space for 2 right?

Washington? Eh...outside of the #1 pick they got squat.

Chicago we could take on Deng for assets...

Houston might want to get enough for a max guy?

Idk I guess, most of the teams are mid-level teams right now and don't have a whole lot to offer. Besides LAC..

moss_is_1 wrote: Chicago we could take on Deng for assets....

CHI and MIA posters have been ahead of the curve on this, and trades are already showing up on the Trade Board like

Deng + CHI 1st + CHA future 1st for cap space

The problem for these teams is that LeBron plus his pal (Bosh? Amare? Wade?) are going to want to sign their deals as soon as free agency opens. Meanwhile, that's exactly when teams with cap space will value it most highly, when the options are still out there, and they are still dreaming. An offer like that may encourage a team to give up their cap space in September, but you get a lot of rejections in July. Moreover, if you're CHI, can you afford to play hardball and hope somebody else doesn't get the needed cap space and swipe LeBron + Bosh from you? That would be a mistake of epic proportions.

I think a team is going to have to tragically overpay, and for CHI, I think that means they'd have to give up Noah to get a team to sacrifice its cap space immediately, especially if they were helping a team get LeBron.

The Suns playoff run didn't help, but I think we still have a good trading partner in Chicago. They got a decent core to convince free agents to come and a lot of the assets we need.

http://www.news-herald.com/articles/201 ... 570842.txt

Dawkins think LeBron should combine forces with another free agent.

6:50 p.m.: James watched the final round of the slam-dunk contest. He laughed and talked with another judge, former NBA star center Darryl Dawkins, who was the first NBA player to shatter the backboard with a dunk. Dawkins played from 1975 to '89.

What did he say to get James to brighten up?

"I was telling him it was nice that (Chris) Bosh, Joe Johnson, (Dwyane) Wade and him can sit down and talk about what they're going to do next year," Dawkins said. "It's about what two of them can get together and do and go win championships. Because that's what they want to do. They've got plenty of money."

the only two motivations are winning and making money, what else could possibly matter to a person

Devilzsidewalk wrote:the only two motivations are winning and making money, what else could possibly matter to a person

it's good that they take care of themselves ... it's professional sports and money matters most.

I get amused when these guys say it's about winning. What they are really saying is, "I want to win ... but I'll only sign there if the money is there (directly or indirectly), and X, Y, and Z are on my teammates." They can do what they want, but trying to hide the real truth (it really is about the money) does get old ... these guys are not going to sell themselves short nor expose themselves to risk unless their is some form of monetary satisfaction - guarenteed.