Oklahoma City Thunder vs. Denver Nuggets 04/08/2011

[Krodis]

Also, I'm still hoping for the 2 seed.

IT'S BECOMING MARGINALLY MORE LIKELY.

That would be awesome. Guess that 2 game losses recently would hurt us though.

If we could have won that second Lakers' game (the one we played short handed) we'd be in a 3 way tie for 2nd.

[fallacy]

I think they'll retain Nene, Martin will be interesting. He's had a little revival lately, and he might get some interest elsewhere. Might be concerned with his knees. JR Smith doesn't seem very important to them if they can retain Afflalo. Chandler will draw interest elsewhere, but he might not be so important either with Gallinari in the fold.

They have no bad contracts, so I think they are in decent position. Lots of draft picks. They can trade Felton for something nice if they have to. Their GM seems like a smart cookie. I have a lot more faith that Denver can stay afloat and compete than Utah getting back into it.

Al Harrington's 5 year 35 million contract is very, very bad.

Nene will get something along the lines of a 5 year/60 million contract, and he deserves it.

If they do lose JR Smith they lose by far their best pure scorer on their team. He's awful at everything else, but he is an amazing scorer. He'll get 6-8 million a year. He's making 7 million this year.

They'll probably not keep Martin. He'll get something along the lines of 8 million a year. He's making 16 million this year and obviously won't make that much.

Afflalo is restricted and many Nugget fans think that he's their best player. He could easily get 8 million a year from a team that needs a SG and has some money. Matching that will be a tough choice.

Chandler is restricted and will probably get around 6 million a year. Most likely they won't match.

They could easily be looking at a starting lineup of this next year:

Lawson
Chandler
Gallinari
Al Harrington
Chris Anderson



And if they resign all of those guys they would easily have to throw 40 million dollars at them. That would take their team salary for next year in the 70 million dollar range.


Lawson
Afflalo
Gallinari
Harrington
Nene

would be my guess for their lineup next year, with very little depth after losing Chandler, Smith, and Martin

[slick_watts]

Yeah I didn't think of Harrington.

This is all academic until we see what the new CBA will bring. I think they're in pretty decent shape, though. They've got assets, and they are fine with spending money. They can work S&T deals if they want with their RFA players like Chandler. They have enough depth to replace role players.

JR Smith isn't very important. He doesn't play more than 30 minutes a game, players like that are replaceable. He's not an amazing scorer, his only value is in the fact that he can create his own shot and can get hot now and then. That's not difficult to find. Sacramento traded an expiring Carl Landry and got Marcus Thornton, who's basically a better version of JR Smith. Denver can replace him.

They'll match whatever Afflalo gets, probably re-sign Nene, then they can do a S&T with Wilson Chandler or work something out with a Raymond Felton trade to obtain a PF.

Let's say Nene signs 5/60 flat at $12/y, and Afflalo signs 5/40 starting at $7m that gives them a roster of:

Nene / Andersen / Koufos / Mozgov
Harrington
Gallinari
Afflalo
Lawson / Felton

Only ~$49m committed there, Wilson Chandler RFA rights to play around with, and Raymond Felton to dangle. Lots of draft picks. They'll be fine...