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According to our wiretaps, the Clippers are set to offer Okafor a starting salary of $10 million.

WOW! Smoove is shunned again. It's abvious that team are reluctant to sign him and he has some more proving to do. His best bet now is to take that QO and ball-out this season....unless the Hawks want to go ahead and sign him to their asking price/ Because Smoove has little, if any, avenues to go to now.

The Elton Brand signing blew everything up for Smoove...and I know he's hating that now!

We can't let Smith play out his contract unless he's demanding a max deal. We need to lock him up right now.

Thanks for the update, where are you hearing this from? I can't find anything on it.

Actually from reading the article at the Charlotte Observer it's not saying that Okafor is going to get an offer from the Clips. It just says that they could easily offer $10-12 million. What is this reporer talking about "from what I'm told" like has some inside info on the amount of the offer? Everyone knows what LAC can offer Okafor, we are all looking at the same cap numbers.

Here's the link I found
http://www.charlotte.com/sports_breakin ... 08305.html

Josh is 22, If he thinks he that good why not sing a 3 year deal with player option 4th averageing 10 to 12 mill and going for big money a age 25.

The Clippers are probably the cheapest franchise in NBA history. They won't throw much money at Okafor, neither Smith. I doubt they would come up with anything the Bobcats or the Hawks are concerned about.

That article doesn't say anything.

Anyway, they might offer to Okafor because he seems a little more obtainable and the asking price is probably lower.

If the Clippers end up with someone like Randolph or Okafor it means we dodged a bullet, not that we can offer him a crap contract. If Philly hadn't lucked out with the Brand situation, there is a very good chance Smith would be waiting for the ASG's decision right now. It would still be in ASG's best interest to lock him up to a good contract because if you let him take the QO because you don't want to pay him more than 5/55 or something, you are almost guaranteed to lose him for nothing next offseason.

Josh is going to get paid big bucks either way. However, we MUST lock him up this summer if we want to keep him. You would also think Josh would not want to play on his QO, as it's a pretty low salary thanks to where he was drafted.

If no one offers Josh a contract this summer, what do you think we could sign him for?

Personally, I've been wondering if Josh Smith would be willing to sign at Bogut's price of 5yr/60M with incentives that could raise it to 72.5M right now instead of waiting to see if the Clippers make a better offer. I'm unsure of the incentive details, but found this line on it: "The contract also includes team-based and individual incentives, with money to be earned for all-star appearances and other accomplishments." Unlike Bogut's deal, I would say we go with a 10M starting salary and raises (Bogut's is a flat 12M per) to gain additional freedom this year. The incentives (if deemed difficult enough to achieve) wouldn't hit the cap until earned, which would leave us in a good position to retain Childress and fill out the roster with veteran minimum contracts without exceeding the luxury tax.

I don't know what dollar figure does it (if any), but the big advantage of getting Josh to accept an extension rather than matching an offer sheet is the absence of a big signing bonus payment up front.