Jordan Asks you to Re-Make the Team (Game)

[fluffernutter]

So one day you wake up, and find out that Jordan wants to see you. You go to Bobcats Inc. and you are ushered into his office.

He tells you that you need to remake the Bobcats for next season.

But you have to follow these simple rules:

Either keep a player, or "trade him" to another team during the summer for the number of points listed:

Okafor = 5
GWall = 4
JRich, Felton = 3
AdamM, May, Dudley, Carroll, Nazr = 1
Others = 0

With these points you may purchase a pick in the next lottery costing this much:
4 points - top 3 pick
3 points - lottery pick
2 point - late first round
1 point - 2nd round pick

You can also upgrade our coach by spending points:
0 = scrub (Vincent)
1 = marginally useful coach
2 = adequate coach
3 = up-n-comer, better than average coach
4 = proven quality
5 = has won it all

Jordan gives you one day.

What do you suggest?

What does your team look like next draft day?

{By the way salaries are not referenced here; I assume that some other team will take JRich or Nazr off our hands for the points listed. But salary should be a consideration. If you keep Okafor, for example, know you are going to shell out 10+ per year for multiple years.}

[Gerald3Wallace]

trade okafor to miami..get the first pick

miami lineup is back to contention with wade, marion, okafor

bobcats draft beasely with the top 3

trade away Jrich and Felton..get another lotto pick..draft derrick rose..sign biedrins

pg-rose
sg-dudley
sf-wallace
pf-beasley
c-Biedrins

yes, i know, pipe dream

[bobcatters]

I'll bite but I am not using your rules.

Immediate Moves:

1) First consideration would be the coach. I would fire Vincent on the spot and make Derek Anderson the player coach. This does two things. First, it rips out the cancer and lets the healing begin. Second, Anderson appears from my seats to be the most respected member of the team, is the first one the players go to for advice or to complain and insiders report he has excellent basketball knowledge. I would tell him that he is the interm player coach for the rest of the year. If he decides to retire at the end of the year, he will be considered for the full time job, if not, than he can move on.

2) Waive Harrington and May. This is self explanatory. Neither have any trade value are taking up roster spots without the promise of future contribution. Cutting May tells the fans that the team is serious about personal accountability regardless of where a player went to school.

3) Put Wallace on ice. He is not to touch a basketball until next training camp. Too much money is invested in him to take a risk on this wasted season.

4) Sign the two most promising players from the D-League. Give them some minor minutes and see if there is another gem to be polished.

5) Order Anderson to play Felton only 35 minutes a game, but all at the point. Time to find out one way or another if he can play.

6) Play Nazr and Emeka together rest of the year to find out if that combo has a chance.

7) Give season ticket holders a rebate for the wasted season as an incentive to renew next year. I think next year is going to be interesting. The three year leases on luxury boxes will end and I bet there will be a lot of non-renewals. This season's failure may prevent individual season ticket purchasers (like myself) from renewing. This will be a big story this offseason. Wait and see.

End of Season Moves
1) Fire the entire coaching staff and run thorough coaching search. If Anderson did a good job, offer him the lead assistant job to an experienced coach with a succession plan in three years. If he did a bad job or wants to keep playing, hire a younger assistant with SIGNFICANT experience. Preferably a lead assistant and not a fourth assistant after his first year in the league.

2) Offer Emeka a 4 year - 44 million contract. Take it or leave it with a 2 day expiration period. If he doesn want it, let him walk. I know he is the face of our franchise, but we cannot overpay him. The fact of the matter is that few teams will have enough cap room to offer him more. Tell he we will not do a sign and trade unless we are getting a good deal and dare him to walk. The sad reality is that the drop off from Okafor to Nazr isnt that great. As such, cant overpay Okafor.

3) Let Hollins, McInnis, and Boykins walk. All are replaceable.

4) Sign Antawn Jamison to a contract. He is the perfect 4 that this team needs and the UNC ties will keep the homers on this board happy. Of all the UNC players of the last 15 years, he is by far my favorite and we should offer him a 3 year deal at 12 million per. This is money better spent than on Okafor.

5) Offer Chris Duhon a 3 year, 5 million a year contract.

6) Gauge interest for Felton around the league. I do not want to get into a discussion that we have had ad nauseum on this board. I am not saying move him, I just would want to know what the market will bear.

7) Sign best available backup big for the mid level exception.

DRAFT:

1) DONT F*&K IT UP THIS YEAR!!!! I am no draft expert and do not pretend to know who will be available at this time. I am assuming a top 5 pick and there seems to be a few one and done options coming out like Gordon and Beasley.

Possible lineup:
C - Nazr
PF - Jamison
SF - Wallace
SG - Richardson
PG - Felton

Bench: Top 5 pick, backup bigman, Dudley, Carroll, Duhon, Morrison, Davidson

Three inactives to be named.

I think this five, especially if the Felton/Duhon combo can run the team instead of launching fade away threes is a playoff team. If the top five pick becomes a stud, this team could be even better. Anything you get from Morrison would be gravy.

[Rich4114]

I'll bite but I am not using your rules.

Immediate Moves:

1) First consideration would be the coach. I would fire Vincent on the spot and make Derek Anderson the player coach. This does two things. First, it rips out the cancer and lets the healing begin. Second, Anderson appears from my seats to be the most respected member of the team, is the first one the players go to for advice or to complain and insiders report he has excellent basketball knowledge. I would tell him that he is the interm player coach for the rest of the year. If he decides to retire at the end of the year, he will be considered for the full time job, if not, than he can move on.

2) Waive Harrington and May. This is self explanatory. Neither have any trade value are taking up roster spots without the promise of future contribution. Cutting May tells the fans that the team is serious about personal accountability regardless of where a player went to school.

3) Put Wallace on ice. He is not to touch a basketball until next training camp. Too much money is invested in him to take a risk on this wasted season.

4) Sign the two most promising players from the D-League. Give them some minor minutes and see if there is another gem to be polished.

5) Order Anderson to play Felton only 35 minutes a game, but all at the point. Time to find out one way or another if he can play.

6) Play Nazr and Emeka together rest of the year to find out if that combo has a chance.

7) Give season ticket holders a rebate for the wasted season as an incentive to renew next year. I think next year is going to be interesting. The three year leases on luxury boxes will end and I bet there will be a lot of non-renewals. This season's failure may prevent individual season ticket purchasers (like myself) from renewing. This will be a big story this offseason. Wait and see.

End of Season Moves
1) Fire the entire coaching staff and run thorough coaching search. If Anderson did a good job, offer him the lead assistant job to an experienced coach with a succession plan in three years. If he did a bad job or wants to keep playing, hire a younger assistant with SIGNFICANT experience. Preferably a lead assistant and not a fourth assistant after his first year in the league.

2) Offer Emeka a 4 year - 44 million contract. Take it or leave it with a 2 day expiration period. If he doesn want it, let him walk. I know he is the face of our franchise, but we cannot overpay him. The fact of the matter is that few teams will have enough cap room to offer him more. Tell he we will not do a sign and trade unless we are getting a good deal and dare him to walk. The sad reality is that the drop off from Okafor to Nazr isnt that great. As such, cant overpay Okafor.

3) Let Hollins, McInnis, and Boykins walk. All are replaceable.

4) Sign Antawn Jamison to a contract. He is the perfect 4 that this team needs and the UNC ties will keep the homers on this board happy. Of all the UNC players of the last 15 years, he is by far my favorite and we should offer him a 3 year deal at 12 million per. This is money better spent than on Okafor.

5) Offer Chris Duhon a 3 year, 5 million a year contract.

6) Gauge interest for Felton around the league. I do not want to get into a discussion that we have had ad nauseum on this board. I am not saying move him, I just would want to know what the market will bear.

7) Sign best available backup big for the mid level exception.

DRAFT:

1) DONT F*&K IT UP THIS YEAR!!!! I am no draft expert and do not pretend to know who will be available at this time. I am assuming a top 5 pick and there seems to be a few one and done options coming out like Gordon and Beasley.

Possible lineup:
C - Nazr
PF - Jamison
SF - Wallace
SG - Richardson
PG - Felton

Bench: Top 5 pick, backup bigman, Dudley, Carroll, Duhon, Morrison, Davidson

Three inactives to be named.

I think this five, especially if the Felton/Duhon combo can run the team instead of launching fade away threes is a playoff team. If the top five pick becomes a stud, this team could be even better. Anything you get from Morrison would be gravy.

Wow, I actually agree with almost everything here. The only thing is I would keep May since we're more than half way done with this season and see what he can give me in pre-season next year. We've got nothing to lose, if it doesn't work out we can just let his rookie contract expire or trade him as an expiring contract to someone looking to start cleaning house.

I would also assume we could resign Okafor. The only way he leaves is through a sign and trade, not a walk. He's a RFA so it's impossible for us to lose anything unless we're just that dumb. I think an inside/outside combo of Okafor/Jamison would be one of the better in the EC with Nazr on the bench to fill in.

[floppymoose]

If you are offer a young player a contract that you feel is not overpriced, always offer the full 5 years. No reason to offer only 4 years to Mek.

[fatlever]

love the post catters.... funny you mention liking jamison. ive been a unc fan most of my life (not die hard because i dont care that much about college basketball). but over the years ive found myself hating 90% of carolina players once they make it to the pros (rick fox, rasheed, stackhouse, mcinnis, forte, haywood, vince carter etc.....) jamison has been one of the few tarheels i am still proud of and still root for. strange. conversely, there are many former duke players i love.

fluffer, following your rules:

trade felton and richardson for lottery picks (salaries wont work but whatever)
s&t okafor and carroll to toronto for calderon and parker
assuming none of my 3 lotto picks land in the top 3. trade all 3 for the #1 and draft beasley



pg - calderon
sg - parker
sf - wallace
pf - beasley
c - mohammed

go from there...

[doc.end]

all of this game teams will fail because of no change of coach. That would have more impact than drafting whoever including Beasley.

[amcoolio]

Thats way too much money to be offering Duhon, who has been running the point much worse than Felton this year. I don't know if you are a Duke fan or trying to prove a point, but Duhon will not command a 15million contract.

[floppymoose]

I thought he meant 5 million total? He certainly didn't mean 44 million a year for Mek.

[BeesWax]

For EO he said 4 year - $44 million but for Duhon he said 3 year at $5 million a year. I am not sure I would give Duhon $5 million total for three years let alone per year.

Fat quick question. I am a UNC fan also, more of a college fan than you most likely. But what about the UNC guys don't you like in the pros and which Duke guys do you like? I like Hill and Brand from Duke but that is about it. Boozer is good just don't like his attitude. Sheeds attitude along with Carters is bad, but Stack has a decent attitude and Haywood while not a great player seems like a decent person and servicable big man. I also like Marvin down in ATL.

[_tijo_]

I too like Bobcatters plan. I will put a different one out there, just because.

1. Fire Sam Vincent... it's not working, and he lost his players halfway through YEAR 1!

2. Have Michael visit Larry Brown. Larry is on the record that he couldn't say no to Michael. Make him the new coach. Since he doesn't count toward the cap, pay him what he wants.

3. Wait until some other team signs Okafor to some ridiculous offer sheet. Then express our regret that we won't match.

4. Trade May for a 2nd round pick in 2012. Seriously, that's what we could get.

5. Trade JRich back to the west coast. Make a deal with the Clippers that they S&T Elton Brand to us for JRich and Matt Carroll.

6. Sign Gilbert Arenas. He's crazy, but he's so good.

7. Draft the BPA. Hopefully it's Beasley, but I'll take a Kevin Love type player.

8. Sign Chris Duhon. That would make the Duke/UNC ratio more balanced.

9. Let McInnis, Boykins, Harrington, and Hollins go.

10. Hire the best training and strength/conditioning staff available. Apparently, the Suns have an awesome staff which keeps their players stretched and on the floor. We have millions of dollars invested in our players, let's do our best to keep them on the floor.

Felton/Arenas/Crash/Brand/Nazr

Bench: Duhon, Morrison, Dudley, Love, Davidson, DA, 2nd round pick

[BeesWax]

Please god don't draft Hibbert or Love. Everything else is ok but those two need the entire 24 sconds just to get to the other end.

[Rich4114]

I can't believe everyone wants to just dump Okafor now. We can resign him, and I think we'll simply offer him the same thing we offered him last summer. Nobody else will have the ability to make a serious push for him anyway unless it's via sign and trade.

[spectre_]

Is Mek/Nazr better or less than Jamison/Nazr (assuming we can even get Jamison)?

Personally I'd rather hang onto Mek...but I can see an argument for going the other way.

Good to see you back Catters.

[doc.end]

Sign and trade of Mek would give us an option to draft a center without problems of future use. Too bad draft is sooner than offseason.

I'm ok with sign and trade if he wants too much (which is what?). We need PG, PF upgrade. I don't know about pg stars available - we could consider to throw in Felton for an-allstar. I simply don't know what their market value is.

I hope we'll fire Vincent soon to see what Emeka and Felton are really capble of and what was only burden of bad head coach.

[JValone]

If Emeka signs for a reasonable amount there is no good reason to ship him out. Big men of that quality defensively are rare in the league. Emeka is a guy who can start on a championship team, but if people expect him to lead a contender he simply can't meet that expectation.

Our squad has a lot of problems, but in my opinion Mek is one of the few pieces we have that I wouldn't even consider trading unless we got a monster deal.

Felton isn't too bad either, PG play is kind of down as a whole right now looking around the league and he still has potential to improve. I don't think he's as invaluable as Emeka, but he can get to the rim consistently and that's valuable. At worst he's a great combo guard off the bench.

I think we need to start grabbing as many picks as we can, look at Portland and Seattle for good examples of teams that just stockpile picks. Phoenix is always selling their pick for a few million, why don't we ever buy it? I'm sure they'd rather sell it to a team in the East and we could have gotten a guy like Rudy Fernandez in the process. I don't think J-Rich can fit here long-term either, by the time we get seriously competitive he'll be one the down slope of his career. I love the guy and his commitment to the team but he kills the cap and is significantly older than anyone else who will contribute for us in a year or two.

It might sound like a step backward, and it will be for a year or two, but if we bring in a competent coach and grab as much young talent as possible we can get a solid foundation with flexibility. Portland is the example I'd like us to follow. Get a ton of young guys with good character and even if you have duplicates (Webster/Fernandex/Outlaw) they're all young and valuable and can be packaged for even better players to get you over the hump when the time is right. We banked too hard on Emeka/Felton being perennial all-stars, our entire roster seems to be built under that assumption and it's wrong. If we get two solid drafts with multiple picks to go with our current guys and have a bit of luck we can still turn this whole thing around, or that's what I believe anyway.

[fatlever]

great post jv. where have you been hiding?

[JValone]

I've been lurking around these boards since last season, it took me awhile to get up the nerve to post. It's tough to find fellow Bobcats fans in real life, it seems like any time you bring up the team you get a negative response. I hope people get on board when we finally start winning, the first two seasons I wasn't a huge fan either but when I started watching guys like Gerald leaving it all out on the floor it became tough not to get invested in the squad.

And there's one other thing I wanted to add about Emeka that I forgot to mention earlier. One of the reasons I feel so strongly about his value to our team is because he can hold down one of spots in the post for a decade, how many players can you confidently say that about? He's not a super star, maybe not even an all-star, but he's a solid player with good character whose effort you don't have to question. You can never have too many of those guys.

[doc.end]

Well, my post shouldn't suggest either Felton or Okafor are bad players. Just that re-signing Okafor is our major offseason issueso if something wouldn't go smoothly what kind of sign and trade would be right? If we would want to solve PG position getting proven pg star in return there is no necessary to keep Felton - if throwing him in would bring something and in the same time we would be getting better Pg back, than do it. Another possibility is to sign and trade Emeka for (preferably an offensive) PF. That can be done only because we have Nazr under contract for some years so we would have a serviceable C starter. That PF should be a difference makeresque player (for example I remember some fans on this board suggest Gasol - the older one of course). Anyhow if we trade Emeka we should get a big body in return (even if he wouldn't be a centerpiece of the trade and only back-up) to keep the depth of our frontcourt. Another possibility is trade Okafor for picks. I don't really see how this could work and I'm not fan of this. What i really think we shouldn't do is to trade Okafor for SG,SF another C.

JValone: Would you trade someone of our players for a pick (1st,2nd,08

[Rich4114]

I really would just hold on to Okafor and build around him. We've got talent around him already but we're missing depth and coaching. If we add a guy like Jamison to the front court without losing anything major we'll be an EC contender as long as we replace the coach with just about anyone who has coached in the NBA before.