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Magic fan here and was wondering about the availability of either players.
I noticed that they were free agents but haven't seen anything one way or another about the intent of Minnesota resigning them or how much they intend to offer them. Any insight?

Do you think either would be a good free agent acquisition for the magic or do you think we could pick up someone in the draft better?

Thanks.

I think you could probably get equal or slightly better value in the draft depending on who you take.

I'm not sure but I doubt we'll resign Craig Smith. He'd be a good pick up for you guys though. Not sure how much cash it'd take though.

I think Ryan Gomes is our top FA priority. I think he'll get somewhere around the MLE maybe 4 years. Just a guess though.

I'd echo what collin said. Re-siging Ryan Gomes is a priority for MIN, and as a restricted free agent, the Wolves can match any offer. He was great for us last year (like 16 PPG, 7 RPG as a starter) and I think it would be difficult to outbid MIN for his services.

Craig Smith though might be a different story. MIN fans love the guy because McHale pulled off a second round steal by getting this guy with the #37 pick. He was considered a Top Ten rookie at the end of last year. He is strong and phenomenally quick, and can get his shot off against any opponent, regardless of his height. And that's a big deal, because Smith is not tall. He's a great offensive scorer, but struggles on defense against taller opponents.

MIN would probably like to keep Smith as a back-up, but al Jefferson's arrival seriously hurt Craig Smith's value to the Timberwolves. He'd be a great low post scorer next to a good center who could provide help defense. All last year I suggested ORL would be a nice fit, with your need for bigs.

Smith might be someone you'd want to trade for, however. It would not be only MIN that ORL would probably need to outbid for his services, and he might have a smaller contract in a sign-and-trade. An S&T would preserve your full MLE for other free agent targets as well.

Oh - you won't get someone better in the draft who could help you right away among all the 19 and 20 year olds. Craig Smith is proven against NBA competition, and would be an immediate benefit for a win-now team.

Craig Smith and Gomes probably aren't good fits for Orlando with Battie coming back. There won't be enough minutes to justify the cost.

Devilzsidewalk wrote:Craig Smith and Gomes probably aren't good fits for Orlando with Battie coming back. There won't be enough minutes to justify the cost.

I'm not an X and O's guy, but the way I see it, Battie can't score inside, so Craig Smith would be a scorer with Dwight on the bench. I don't worry about minutes (Smith wouldn't cost too much anyway) because Rashard Lewis is too expensive to be banging around with big PF's for boards, so any minutes crunch is going to be among smaller players as he (and maybe turkoglu) shift out of PF and play more minutes at SF.

Battie is old and not very good anymore.

Smith would be good for you, but he isn't a great jump shooter. He'd be excellent playing off dwight howard though. I doubt we match on him simply because he doesn't really fit.

Gomes is someone we definitely want to keep and I think match all the way up to the MLE.

How'd you feel about McCants and #34 for Brian Cook and #22 with a wink/wink not to match on Craig Smith?

I think that's way overpaying. At a minimum, Craig Smith is worth a TPE to us, since we could simply not make him a qualifying offer. If we dealt him, we're adding salary. Cook's got two years on his deal, and I don't want to detract from our expirings next season.

ORL just doesn't have a lot of trade pieces. A deal would probably have to include Redick (I'm no fan of) just for salary matching purposes, or the expiring Bogans ($2.5 mil), who has been of useful on certain months of the season.

I'm not saying Craig Smith has a lot of trade value, because a team could simply overpay him, and not save all of their MLE. I'm just saying I don't want to take a step backwards to move Smith.