Yahoo: Raps sign Linas Kleiza to 4 year 18.8M offer sheet

[Duffman100]

I'm assuming they don't match as they're over the tax.

[Brinbe]

BC has been on fire with the type of players he's signing. He's doing exactly what I hoped he would do. Go after solid, tough, intelligent players that play D.

Makes me wonder why he went in exactly the opposite direction with his big moves. This is what's been so frustrating over the past few seasons. He does well in the area which has least importance. You can sign all the great role players in the world, it's still not going to amount to much without a great starter(s). Every huge deal, trade or coaching decision has been disastrous on some level.

Yeah, this is true. BC hasn't really been consistent, and I still really am not sure what he's trying to build here... It's all accumulation of assets right now, which is fine, since it's a start, but at some point you need to follow through with a real plan, and I don't think he has ever echoed what his plan is, even when Bosh was here. He was sort of just throwing stuff out there and seeing if it sticks.

[MEDIC]

I love this signing. Too bad we didn't get him last year instead of Turk. Having said that, I think signing Turk was more about the name than it was about the actual player.

BC needed to sign a "big name" free agent to show Bosh that he is trying. Kleiza may have been a better fit here than Turk, but he doesn't have the name.

This whole "appeasing Bosh" thing kind of screwed us. We should have just traded Bosh.

[RomaniaLuvTR]

It's a solid signing I guess.

wow something positive from u and not against BC...i`ll note this day on my agenda

[Jmatt12]

I hope this is the second coming of Jack from the Pacers last season. I hope the Nuggets don't match, and he turns into a beast mode of kapono, but with defense.

I have no idea how this guy is at defending athletic wings or how he got his toughness label. Mind providing some insight ? I don't anything about his game except his 41 point night with Denver.

[ComicBook Guy]

The guy is a solid signing. For this kind of price he could be a steal...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Np8WO4Qx2g&feature=related[/youtube]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ksghsIVO_fk[/youtube]

[whysoserious]

Keep hearing the same arguments Leaf fans have against tanking... and look where they are. Would be funny if we lost the 2nd overall pick too. LOL

How's tanking working for Minnesota and the Clippers and many other teams? Tanking by definition is to just suck hoping for a top pick and landing a franchise player but there's no guarantee that happens.

If you're talking about rebuilding? Sure, I think everyone on this board will agree it's time and that's what we're doing, Kleiza signing doesn't affect that.

So we're rebuilding by signing players to 4-5 year deals at around the MLE, then in a few years we will package them to land... a franchise player???

Here's some numbers that I've totally made up, but are here to convey my opinions about rebuilding.

YOUR rebuilding (aka anti-tanking) = 70% chance treadmill team, 15% chance Championship contender, 15% chance LA Clippers

MY rebuilding (aka Tanking) = 33% chance treadmill team, 33% chance Championship contender, 33% chance LA Clippers

I have a preference for being a championship contender, and I am willing to suffer the fate of the Clippers... while others may be content being first round virgins every year.

The last team with a top pick to win it all was SAS with Duncan (Detroit doesn't count). So I'd say your made up numbers are way off.

By the way, never said those expirings would land a franchise player, but a few exprirings could add some valuable players to joing a young core. The signing of Kleiza has no effect on rebuilding, good or bad. It just brings a guy with a good work ethic around our young guys.

[DreamTeam09]

Good signing. Great actually. He does everything a raptor fan should like. Plays D, shoots well enough, has some grit to him & most importantly, he's actually good. Last time he was in the NBA, he went for back to back 40pt games if I am not mistaken. Melo was injured and he stepped up. Scrubs don't go for 40, especially back to back. And if you think this is a tredmill signing, I say hush up. You are going to need good players to put around your star. Doesn't matter if the star comes 1st and then u add good players, or u have the good players & then u get the star. Either way you need em both.

Outlaw got more than him & prolly wanted a bigger role.
Boo to gomes.
You can debate if Brewer is better keliza, I like em both tho.
Only other player I wanted was Shannon Brown to start at pt, but with jose & jack still here.....

Shout out to BC on this one tho... I don't think the nuggets can match this.

[HoopAndTheHarm]

BC has been on fire with the type of players he's signing. He's doing exactly what I hoped he would do. Go after solid, tough, intelligent players that play D.

Makes me wonder why he went in exactly the opposite direction with his big moves. This is what's been so frustrating over the past few seasons. He does well in the area which has least importance. You can sign all the great role players in the world, it's still not going to amount to much without a great starter(s). Every huge deal, trade or coaching decision has been disastrous on some level.

Last year BC openly said repeatedly that we needed more athleticism, rebounding and defence out of our SF position. He then traded away a guy who does that (Marion) for the absolute antithesis in Turkoglu.

I want to believe there is light at the end of the tunnel but for crying out loud BC throw me a frickin bone here!

[Shevy]

The only thing left for BC to do is to bring back Garbo, draft Motiejūnas next year first overall, resign Bargniani to a max, wave all the Americans after about 3-4 seasons when their contracts expire, move the team to Barcelona and make the final 4 of Euroleague or die tryin...

[rapsrealm]

Paul__Jones

Kleiza does not want Denver to match. Wants to be a Raptor

[Thelonious]

From Doug Smith:

The money seems about right, it takes almost all of Toronto’s mid-level exception out of play. The rest of the mid-level exception will go to Solomon Alabi, the second-round draft pick who’s going to get a bump from the minimum salary and a deal that’s multi-year but not fully guaranteed, I’m hearing.

[RapsFanInOhio]

It's 4 years $18.8 million. We have some of the MLE left assuming it isn't front loaded.

[GP2]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5364021

So it's actually an $18.8 million deal, which saves us that extra $1.1 million over 4 years . I don't mind this signing if Kleiza has game. Honestly, I don't know enough about his game to judge but I was hoping we'd get Brewer. However, since Brewer is with Henry Thomas, I guess that idea was thrown out the window.

[MEDIC]

17.1 ppg & 6.5 rpg last season in euroleague. Not too shabby.

Scored 35 points one game. He is the type of player that can win a couple of games for you on his own during the season.

[Anatomize]

BC has been on fire with the type of players he's signing. He's doing exactly what I hoped he would do. Go after solid, tough, intelligent players that play D.

I really like his direction right now. We need to establish a culture & form an identity of a team that plays hard & plays the right way. The more competive/ hard nose players we have on the roster, the more the softer (or motivationally deficient) players will be influenced to step up their games.

Looks like BC has finally turned the corner.

It's just too bad it took him losing Bosh to finally see what type of players he should be surrounding the likes of Bosh and Bargs with.

I gotta say, if BC is able to move at least one of Jose or Turk, Bargs will have his best opportunity to shine as he will have teamates around him who cover up his weaknesses.

Bosh and Bargs weren't going to work anyway, we let go of a terrible defender in Bosh and replaced him with two defensive bigs in Alabi and Ed Davis. If DeRozan (Belli/Weems are both solid off/on ball defenders) can improve defensively and we ship Calderon out and grab say Keyon Dooling on a cheap contract we're actually looking pretty good (especially on the defensive side of things).

Bargnani's defensive potential is way ahead of where Bosh's is in my opinion, and Bargs is a player who seems to evolve each area of his game one year at a time. That's why I'm more happy sticking with him as our core piece moving forward because it's not scoring we have to worry about.. we have plenty of that.

I always found in games which we won (especially versus strong opponents) this past season, Bosh was moving the ball and played as a part of the offense, and when he often took his time, calculated, and stopped the flow of the offense, he padded his stats but we'd end up losing (this is all through observation of course, no data to support this). Far too many times on the defensive end I see him get bullied by the likes of Kendrick Perkins, Glen Davis, and he yields the way for point guards to score easy lay ups (you rarely see him commit a hard foul on a guard driving in, he usually moves out of the way and avoids contact defensively). The Raptors as a whole sucked defensively, but I find Bosh got dismissed through the excuse that he has to take the offensive load all on himself.

The New Jersey nets series is a perfect example of how to beat Bosh's Raptors in 06-07, they slowed us down to half court, stuck to our shooters and basically forced him to go 1 on 1 the entire series to no avail (was shut down by Moore/Collins). That year, we did a great job moving the ball and finding open shooters (Garbajosa/Anthony Parker/Calderon), offensively we were easily one of the smoothest 'team oriented' offenses in the league. The good teams in this league that faced us this past season put an athletic mobile big on Bosh (Jeff Green/Josh Smith/Turiaf etc.) and were able to shut us down by forcing Bosh to become a 1 on 1 player, I think his departure is a blessing in disguise for this team on both ends of the floor; at least Bargnani is developing his defensive awareness.

[Los Manos]

Could Denver be looking to get in on a S&T involving Kleiza? Perhaps they'd like Beasley?

How about Beasley for Kleiza/Lawson trade?

[Mr. Perfect]

Linas Klieza is not that great, he's quite erratic. He's basically a bigger Delfino. He was nothing special in Denver with their uptempo offense that suited him good, don't see why he'd be anything other than more wasted money by Colangelo over here.

[brownbobcat]

The last team with a top pick to win it all was SAS with Duncan (Detroit doesn't count). So I'd say your made up numbers are way off.

No matter the strategy, it's hard to win a championship. But you keep conveniently forgetting that many good teams in the league usually drafted very high at some point ala Orlando, Cleveland, Denver, OKC, Atlanta, Portland, Utah. It takes a much rarer confluence of events to build a team like Phoenix or Boston.

[PerfectJab]

Another poor defensive player that can score. I don't get it.