ESPN: Teams In the 2010 Hunt

[boogydown]

Trade Deng and Thomas for Boozer, and keep Hinrich. Attempt to sign wade in 2010. Nothing in the NBA will be able to top a back court rotation of Rose/Wade/Hinrich.

Yes. This should be our priority. I've been pushing this same thing since the day we lost Gordon. I'd even throw in James Johnson in order to get this deal done.

[Lane1974]

The move that would make the most sense in the world would be for Lebron to walk and join Miami. Someone joining Wade is the only way that 2 superstars will be united via FA, and they could retain Beasley & Chalmers plus any vet ring-chasers who might want to sign on for a year (maybe Camby, or maybe JON sticks around for the vet min?)

Obviously I hope that that doesn't happen. But if Lebron gets disgruntled playing with scrubs and feels content leaving $20-30 million on the table since he'll be earning hundreds of millions over his career, and if he wants to be in a sunny climate with beautiful women year-round, Miami seems like a logical choice. All other teams would be left scrambling madly just to stay barely competitive.

I would expect mass retirements from older guys who physically could stick it out a year or two longer but who instead look at Dwyane and Lebron and say, "why bother?"

Pat Riley's already ahead of you

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/trainingc ... eat-091006

[GM_JAMES]

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/chicago.htm

Confusing? I don't see a long term outlook for Tyrus, Hinrich & maybe Deng. So I see them giving this group until Christmas and then Paxson will start making calls.



"Hello John"........ "You want to trade Deng.....?" ......"How about a case of candy canes.... and a star for your tree?.... That's fair."

[The Force.]

Hold up, LeBron, Wade, AND Bosh???

*covers ears*

Lalalallalalalalala!!!!

No, he just said ONE of Lebron or Bosh. I would add Boozer to the list of Miami possibilities. Miami can't sign two max new FAs. Nobody can. But they have the big advantage of being able to RE-sign Wade and still sign one new max FA, which would give them two elite players.

If Lebron goes there, it's game over for the rest of the league. If Bosh does it'll be plenty bad, although they'll have to rely on Beasley being able to play SF (or just trade him for a promising center). Whatever the case, I give Miami much better odds than us of hitting a 2010 home run. NJ might have a better shot, too.

If that happened I would cry myself to sleep.

[DanTown8587]

Hold up, LeBron, Wade, AND Bosh???

*covers ears*

Lalalallalalalalala!!!!

No, he just said ONE of Lebron or Bosh. I would add Boozer to the list of Miami possibilities. Miami can't sign two max new FAs. Nobody can. But they have the big advantage of being able to RE-sign Wade and still sign one new max FA, which would give them two elite players.

If Lebron goes there, it's game over for the rest of the league. If Bosh does it'll be plenty bad, although they'll have to rely on Beasley being able to play SF (or just trade him for a promising center). Whatever the case, I give Miami much better odds than us of hitting a 2010 home run. NJ might have a better shot, too.

If Miami gets LeBron, they can still sign a decent option with their cap space and still have the MLE. And they can get ring chasers. And they can get "hey its Miami and its Wade and LeBron" chasers. And if Toronto makes the playoffs, Miami gets their pick. So they could legitimately add LeBron, two #1 and two decent rotation guys and only lose JON, Haslem, Richardson and Anthony (who they could keep) from their rotation. Sorry, you put LeBron with any top 5 or 10 player in the league, its over.

The Wild Card team: New Jersey. Could add both LBJ and Wade and a top pick and then you are talking about an owner (crazy Russian guy) who would obviously pay the tax. You put those four (Wade, Harris, LeBron, Lopez) together they might a cool six in a row.

[boogydown]

If Miami gets LeBron, they can still sign a decent option with their cap space and still have the MLE. And they can get ring chasers. And they can get "hey its Miami and its Wade and LeBron" chasers. And if Toronto makes the playoffs, Miami gets their pick. So they could legitimately add LeBron, two #1 and two decent rotation guys and only lose JON, Haslem, Richardson and Anthony (who they could keep) from their rotation. Sorry, you put LeBron with any top 5 or 10 player in the league, its over.

The Wild Card team: New Jersey. Could add both LBJ and Wade and a top pick and then you are talking about an owner (crazy Russian guy) who would obviously pay the tax. You put those four (Wade, Harris, LeBron, Lopez) together they might a cool six in a row.

Miami won't be able to just pick up another player like that. If they add another max FA, they have around 10 to 12 million left where they are going to need fill their roster with mediocre players otherwise they will be short 12 players. Expect Miami to have one of the worst benches in the NBA next year. This will be one of the major turn offs as they really do not have much there after this is all done and said. It will take a couple years even after the signing for them to contend just because they will not have the proper role players.

New Jersey cannot add two max free agents if the cap drops to 53.6 million unless they are willing to take a slight paycut. Nobody is going to join NJ, when they can make more signing in Miami (no state income tax), on a currently better team, with a good reputation. I cannot see how New Jersey can favor Miami even with JZ being close to Lebron just on the basis they can make more money playing in Miami, and the fact it will be hard enough for NJ to recruit 2 players, much less 1 where Miami already has 1, they just need to add another.

The way I see it with Chicago is that we have the talent to S&T. What could happen is before trade deadline we add another star, or we do or don't do that and we still do the same in the summer. An example scenario is we go out, and Wade verbally agrees to sign with Chicago. Then we get say Lebron to agree to the same thing, and these teams either S&T their bird rights, or they gain nothing out of it.

People are completely insane to think these players are going to take pay cuts to join another team. It maybe about winning, bu the #1 factor is money. Nothing can beat that, and these guys want max contracts, and the max money possible. After that, they obviously want to win in a major market. Unless they are going to have their bird rights traded, they are likely not going anywhere. The only exception is forcing their current ball club to trade their bird rights. The odds of New Jersey/Chicago doing that is slim, and with Miami they only need to do it once so they have a much higher chance and they can actually make them earn more money long term as their is no state income tax in Flordia.

Overall, I think Miami has the best shot at landing Bosh or Lebron. We're likely going to be left with the leftovers which is going to make losing Ben Gordon much much worse. Personally, I cannot see us getting either one of Bosh, Lebron, or Wade. I think our best bet is

Joe Johnson - Overpaid, may get the max
Amare - Overpaid, may get the max
Boozer - Overpaid
Rudy Gay - May sign extension now
Dirk - Will get max

These are the likely players above that us along with a few other teams are likely to throw money at. We may end up gaining nothing out of 2010 summer free agency in the end.

[Three34]

Max cap room ain't going to be easy.

http://www.chicagonow.com/blogs/chicago ... nsion.html

[boogydown]

It's sad. Tyrus has been a failure, and many of you just two weeks ago thought he was the solution.

The good news at least here is that Chicago will not give Tyrus what he wants. This is the one good decision the team has made, it's just disappointing we could have had Aldridge and we ended up with Tyrus. However, we can let that one slip by as sometimes you make mistakes and there is no way Aldridge will ever be worth Rose.

Of course even if Tyrus is willing to take a few million dollar a year contract with us, then we don't need to waive his rights until we know for sure we're going to land a max FA. I think we have about 2 weeks into free agency to make a decision on him.

However, if we are really not committed to keeping Tyrus, we really need to consider moving him along with someone else. I'm still pushing that Deng + Tyrus for Boozer + Harpring or Tyrus to OKC, Boozer to Chicago and Deng to Utah deal before trade deadline deal. I personally believe regardless of how Tyrus improves, you can never put him next to Noah. Doesn't it sound more appealing to Wade having a lineup of Rose, Hinrich, Salmons, Boozer, Noah with the ability to possibly get Salmons to sign the MLE which increases (Artest type deal)

It's really time to move the guy.