For the team that signs LeBron James, if the majority of payroll is tied up in James' contract. What will be left in additional free agents resigning and overall quality of teammates? James has to understand that his team won't be able to get that much better with the size of his new contract. I mean you think he's frustrated with his help in Cleveland. He hasn't seen anything yet. Take Boston now, with the addition of Ray Allen and then Garnett, Ainge got creative in putting together the rest of the roster in draft picks (young players) and resigning players to short term deals. In other words, his hands were tied as far as how much he can do to improve the roster beyond Pierce, Ray Allen and Garnett. That future team better or Cleveland better realize this point by then, in 2010. Can you say, improvise? Yup, that's what they'll have to do. And they'll have to draft well and/or sign a bunch of aging veterans off the scrap heap. Would you sign for a lesser salary to play with James?
The NBA's latest version of a long-running presidential election involves LeBron James and more than a dozen other high-profile candidates. The issue: Where will they land when they become free agents in 2010?
This promises to be the most provocative free-agent class of the post-Jordan world, with the Pistons, Nets and (launch Darth Vader intro music) Knicks among the dozen or more teams potentially lining up to recruit and sign one or more of the game's biggest names. But ... and a big but this is ... it's a story that won't be consummated until the summer after next. Indeed, nothing may come of all the speculation, should LeBron and his fellow stars decide to re-sign with their current teams, as they very well may do.
"I find it sort of strange,'' said Henry Thomas, agent to potential 2010 free agents Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh. "The reality is it's two years away. I don't know why there's so much talk about it.''
It's because this is the NBA's Next Big Thing. The previous Next Big Things were the impending divorce of Shaquille O'Neal and Kobe Bryant (which was realized), followed by the imminent departure of Kevin Garnett from Minnesota, which was anticipated for two excruciating years (and which happened), which begot the issue of Kobe's on-and-off desires to leave the Lakers (which is now off). That leaves us looking past the next two seasons to a summer of free-agent movement that may never come to be.
Adding relevance to the conjecture is the possibility of LeBron's moving to New York, enabling the NBA to seize its biggest market and instigating an N.Y.-L.A. rivalry of LeBron vs. Kobe that could dwarf the Celtics-Lakers wars of the 1980s.
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/w ... index.html
2010 NBA Free Agents
http://www.sportscity.com/nba/2010-nba-free-agents
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