OffSeason Free Agent Thread...Let's build a DYNASTY! 3.0

[ricochet]

Man, some of you guys are commenting without much knowledge of the situations. Do you know what waiving Whiteside was immediately preceding? The signing of Aaron Brooks. SAC was already at 15 before Brooks and had to cut someone to make room. They have a surplus of young bigs and made a decision on one to cut. His skills don't carry as much weight over there as they would here.

Saying Harrellson "couldn't make it" in Houston isn't accurate. He played 2 summer league games before being waived to make room for Carlos Delfino.

You can declare which players you believe will and won't get PT all you want, but we all know you don't know. No one had Terrell Harris even making the team before the season, but there he was playing crucial minutes against Toronto in the thick of a seed race alongside the full compliment of Heat players. I won't count the ATL game because Wade and LeBron were out. Young players may be inexperienced, but the idea of a young player is that he's getting better. One way to help them get better is to put them next to professionals who do all the right things, helping to curb the learning curve. They can also make their jobs easier and mask some of their flaws in the present time. I'm not envisioning rolling out either guy for crucial minutes of important games, or that they'll find spots in the rotation, but what's wrong with having young guys to develop at the end of the bench, who can possibly even contribute to a win over a Washington or Charlotte at some point during the reg season?

This is 1 min of garbage time with the game already out of reach, what did you expect ?

In that 1 min he was active and had a rebound and a dunk under the basket over the opposition frontcourt, not too bad. He need to work on his lower body strength though as he was being thrown around by Reggy Evans.

Which is why you have to test people's credibility by asking them to verify such claims. Imagine if someone judged Dwyane Wade's overall ability based on G3 of the East semis. They'd say he was hot garbage, and he's a well-established pro who had ample opportunity to contribute positively in that game.
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Great Post ..

[Hallstar]

Man, some of you guys are commenting without much knowledge of the situations. Do you know what waiving Whiteside was immediately preceding? The signing of Aaron Brooks. SAC was already at 15 before Brooks and had to cut someone to make room. They have a surplus of young bigs and made a decision on one to cut. His skills don't carry as much weight over there as they would here.

Saying Harrellson "couldn't make it" in Houston isn't accurate. He played 2 summer league games before being waived to make room for Carlos Delfino.

You can declare which players you believe will and won't get PT all you want, but we all know you don't know. No one had Terrell Harris even making the team before the season, but there he was playing crucial minutes against Toronto in the thick of a seed race alongside the full compliment of Heat players. I won't count the ATL game because Wade and LeBron were out. Young players may be inexperienced, but the idea of a young player is that he's getting better. One way to help them get better is to put them next to professionals who do all the right things, helping to curb the learning curve. They can also make their jobs easier and mask some of their flaws in the present time. I'm not envisioning rolling out either guy for crucial minutes of important games, or that they'll find spots in the rotation, but what's wrong with having young guys to develop at the end of the bench, who can possibly even contribute to a win over a Washington or Charlotte at some point during the reg season?

This is 1 min of garbage time with the game already out of reach, what did you expect ?

In that 1 min he was active and had a rebound and a dunk under the basket over the opposition frontcourt, not too bad. He need to work on his lower body strength though as he was being thrown around by Reggy Evans.

Which is why you have to test people's credibility by asking them to verify such claims. Imagine if someone judged Dwyane Wade's overall ability based on G3 of the East semis. They'd say he was hot garbage, and he's a well-established pro who had ample opportunity to contribute positively in that game.
.

Houston has a euro rookie and Patrick Patterson as it's only bigs and decide Harrelson wasn't worth a spot.

Pittman managed to play more here despite Joel, Bosh, Haslem and Turiaf being ahead of him but Whiteside could only get in 18 games with Cousins, Thompson and the ghost of Chuck Hayes? Not buying it. They didn't even believe in dude enough for garbage time? They were bottom 5 in point differential, so there was a lot of that

If you can't beat out Joel this year I don't want to hear about you being "added"

Different doesn't mean better so can we please stop getting excited over every bum that gets thrown away? If we cut Pittman some other fanbase is going to be excited about possibly adding a young big with size and we'll be wondering what they see.

[ricochet]

Man, some of you guys are commenting without much knowledge of the situations. Do you know what waiving Whiteside was immediately preceding? The signing of Aaron Brooks. SAC was already at 15 before Brooks and had to cut someone to make room. They have a surplus of young bigs and made a decision on one to cut. His skills don't carry as much weight over there as they would here.

Saying Harrellson "couldn't make it" in Houston isn't accurate. He played 2 summer league games before being waived to make room for Carlos Delfino.

You can declare which players you believe will and won't get PT all you want, but we all know you don't know. No one had Terrell Harris even making the team before the season, but there he was playing crucial minutes against Toronto in the thick of a seed race alongside the full compliment of Heat players. I won't count the ATL game because Wade and LeBron were out. Young players may be inexperienced, but the idea of a young player is that he's getting better. One way to help them get better is to put them next to professionals who do all the right things, helping to curb the learning curve. They can also make their jobs easier and mask some of their flaws in the present time. I'm not envisioning rolling out either guy for crucial minutes of important games, or that they'll find spots in the rotation, but what's wrong with having young guys to develop at the end of the bench, who can possibly even contribute to a win over a Washington or Charlotte at some point during the reg season?

This is 1 min of garbage time with the game already out of reach, what did you expect ?

In that 1 min he was active and had a rebound and a dunk under the basket over the opposition frontcourt, not too bad. He need to work on his lower body strength though as he was being thrown around by Reggy Evans.

Which is why you have to test people's credibility by asking them to verify such claims. Imagine if someone judged Dwyane Wade's overall ability based on G3 of the East semis. They'd say he was hot garbage, and he's a well-established pro who had ample opportunity to contribute positively in that game.
.

Houston has a euro rookie and Patrick Patterson as it's only bigs and decide Harrelson wasn't worth a spot.

Pittman managed to play more here despite Joel, Bosh, Haslem and Turiaf being ahead of him but Whiteside could only get in 18 games with Cousins, Thompson and the ghost of Chuck Hayes? Not buying it. They didn't even believe in dude enough for garbage time? They were bottom 5 in point differential, so there was a lot of that

If you can't beat out Joel this year I don't want to hear about you being "added"

Different doesn't mean better so can we please stop getting excited over every bum that gets thrown away? If we cut Pittman some other fanbase is going to be excited about possibly adding a young big with size and we'll be wondering what they see.

Good enough reason for Whiteside not to see any significant playing time.. But you are right towards the end.. No point getting too excited.. still no harm is checking out what the kid can bring to the table.. We know Pittman is trash.. Maybe
Whiteside will be better than trash.. A bigger more athletic and younger Joel Anthony would also be fine..

[Woodsanity]

Man, some of you guys are commenting without much knowledge of the situations. Do you know what waiving Whiteside was immediately preceding? The signing of Aaron Brooks. SAC was already at 15 before Brooks and had to cut someone to make room. They have a surplus of young bigs and made a decision on one to cut. His skills don't carry as much weight over there as they would here.

Saying Harrellson "couldn't make it" in Houston isn't accurate. He played 2 summer league games before being waived to make room for Carlos Delfino.

You can declare which players you believe will and won't get PT all you want, but we all know you don't know. No one had Terrell Harris even making the team before the season, but there he was playing crucial minutes against Toronto in the thick of a seed race alongside the full compliment of Heat players. I won't count the ATL game because Wade and LeBron were out. Young players may be inexperienced, but the idea of a young player is that he's getting better. One way to help them get better is to put them next to professionals who do all the right things, helping to curb the learning curve. They can also make their jobs easier and mask some of their flaws in the present time. I'm not envisioning rolling out either guy for crucial minutes of important games, or that they'll find spots in the rotation, but what's wrong with having young guys to develop at the end of the bench, who can possibly even contribute to a win over a Washington or Charlotte at some point during the reg season?

This is 1 min of garbage time with the game already out of reach, what did you expect ?

In that 1 min he was active and had a rebound and a dunk under the basket over the opposition frontcourt, not too bad. He need to work on his lower body strength though as he was being thrown around by Reggy Evans.

Which is why you have to test people's credibility by asking them to verify such claims. Imagine if someone judged Dwyane Wade's overall ability based on G3 of the East semis. They'd say he was hot garbage, and he's a well-established pro who had ample opportunity to contribute positively in that game.
.

Houston has a euro rookie and Patrick Patterson as it's only bigs and decide Harrelson wasn't worth a spot.

Pittman managed to play more here despite Joel, Bosh, Haslem and Turiaf being ahead of him but Whiteside could only get in 18 games with Cousins, Thompson and the ghost of Chuck Hayes? Not buying it. They didn't even believe in dude enough for garbage time? They were bottom 5 in point differential, so there was a lot of that

If you can't beat out Joel this year I don't want to hear about you being "added"

Different doesn't mean better so can we please stop getting excited over every bum that gets thrown away? If we cut Pittman some other fanbase is going to be excited about possibly adding a young big with size and we'll be wondering what they see.

Houston has over 5 PFs on their roster. 3 of which who are picks in the teens. They have like 20 people on their roster atm. Its not surprise a Harrelson got dropped. Harrelson is at least a better rebounder than Pittman and a decent 3 point shooter.

[SmushedPennies]

Houston has a euro rookie and Patrick Patterson as it's only bigs and decide Harrelson wasn't worth a spot.

Pittman managed to play more here despite Joel, Bosh, Haslem and Turiaf being ahead of him but Whiteside could only get in 18 games with Cousins, Thompson and the ghost of Chuck Hayes? Not buying it. They didn't even believe in dude enough for garbage time? They were bottom 5 in point differential, so there was a lot of that

If you can't beat out Joel this year I don't want to hear about you being "added"

Different doesn't mean better so can we please stop getting excited over every bum that gets thrown away? If we cut Pittman some other fanbase is going to be excited about possibly adding a young big with size and we'll be wondering what they see.

Regarding Houston's big situation, who says they're done operating right now? Maybe he was never in their plans and they'd just kept him around as fodder for a potential Dwight trade. Looking at their bigs right now, they have:

Patterson
Asik
Motiejunas
Royce White
Marcus Morris
Jon Brockman
Chandler Parsons
Terrence Jones
JaJuan Johnson

In fact, they'd been getting mocked all summer by basketball writers for looking as though they'd start 5 PFs. There were a couple guys I left off not knowing whether or not they were camp fodder, since their roster is already at 20. Some of those guys are combo bigs or combo forwards, but the point is all can play PF and many C. They may not view Jorts as a C for them, he doesn't play in the post from what I've seen. His jump shot doesn't mean as much without our creators. I think they're comfortable with what they have at this point. Again, Jorts was waived to make room for a clearly better and more experienced player, and what I forgot to mention earlier is even more important: his contract was about to be guaranteed. I don't think it mattered it was a perimeter for a big on a team without a strong big contingent, but I think they know they can find a C of Jorts caliber on a minimum deal closer to the start of the season who fits their needs better. It was a financial move, probably as much as it was a basketball move. Also, they'd probably have been paying him more than we would, and though I don't know for sure, its possible Whiteside had a similar financial situation.

Can you guys stop using crappy Western teams to gauge a players efficacy on our team? Our star players completely change the game. Nobody has a Dwyane Wade and LeBron James except us, to go along with our lack of talent in the middle. You can't say that because a guy doesn't fit into Houston's or Sacramento's plans they can't fit into ours. We value different things than most teams. On top of that, the Heat being such a top heavy team means the end of our bench is going to be crappier than the end of theirs. I should mention I'm not even incredibly huge on Jorts, just think he has skills that we could use at the end of our bench (rebounding, hustle, spot up shooting). Considering I'd like him to be our 19th/20th man in camp, its not like I'm championing him for a starting spot.

Why is Chuck Hayes a ghost? He's 29. Maybe he didn't have the best season, but its like Spo continually going to a struggling Battier instead of sending out an unready Harris for major minutes. Regarding garbage time, how do we know he was always active to play in garbage minutes? Even if he was, some coaches prefer not to play young guys in garbage time because they can develop bad habits.

I don't think it means much that Pittman played more. Different coaching, different situations, different players. Bosh wasn't playing center most of the season. Turiaf was signed late, and Spo has a tendency to try crazy things with his rotations from time to time. I think we needed to make Pitt work more than they needed to make Hassan work.

And why are you talking about beating out Joel? No one is saying that. Joel is making, what, $5 mill a year? I don't think anyone expects that. Joel has been here 5 years learning the league/system.

Different doesn't mean better, but if you get passed that level of assessment you'll see that these differences most likely do mean better in this specific situation. Hassan just seems like a better fit for our athletic, fast team than Pitt. Again, I'm not exploding in the crotch over him, I just like the possibilities he'd bring to our present/future.

[SmushedPennies]

I should mention, Harrellson's twitter feed ( @BigJorts55 ) the last few days indicates to me we've passed, for what that's worth. Never said he was a lock to make the team, or that he should've been, I just have a problem with your reasoning.

[ricochet]

I should mention, Harrellson's twitter feed ( @BigJorts55 ) the last few days indicates to me we've passed, for what that's worth. Never said he was a lock to make the team, or that he should've been, I just have a problem with your reasoning.

So Jorts is out... does that mean we go with Whiteside as the 19th guy???

[SmushedPennies]

We're working out a US-born, 26-year-old, 6-6, Nigerian journeyman named Chamberlain Oguchi. A lot of teams gained interest in him after he dropped 35 vs. France in the Olympics. 8-14 from 3, so he sounds like a gunner.

[SmushedPennies]

Barry Jackson:

The Heat concluded a several-day audition of former Kings center Hassan Whiteside and will decide whether to sign him, Josh Harrellson or neither. So far, Miami passed on auditioning former Nuggets center Chris “Birdman” Andersen, who would love to play here, or older veterans such as Mehmet Okur… A Heat official said the team was disappointed in Dexter Pittman’s summer league work and “this is a crucial training camp for him. But the slate is clear.” Pittman has a guaranteed contract ($854,389) and seems likely to stick but has been assured nothing.

Look, Heat are getting a great, first-hand look at Whiteside right now. If he can't make the 20-man camp roster on a team starving for an athletic 7-footer, I'll admit his potential has probably been overstated and he's likely hot garbage. With the information I've had at my disposal up until this point, I feel as though that's not the case. We, as layman, only know so much, though.

Should be noted we've had a tendency not to go for the raw, athletic 7-footer type when we've had the chance (DeAndre Jordan, Patrick O'Bryant, Ryan Hollins, Steven Hunter, etc.). Wouldn't be shocked to see him succeed elsewhere if we passed. (Obviously DeAndre is the only one I listed that has, but there might be others)

[OtW]

Damn, wonder why we passed up Okur and Anderson.

and lol, big Pitts days on the roster seem numbered.

[Pimpwerx]

I am fine with cutting Pitt. This is the year to do it, since the luxury penalty won't be as bad as next season. I'm glad to hear the team was as disappointed in his SL performance as we were on the forum. He simply learned nothing. Hopefully JHam can get in shape and develop the necessary NBA skills to be ready for the 13/14 season...if not the end of this one. Pitt's fouling is beyond frustrating now. PEACE.

[SmushedPennies]

He seems to have gained no awareness or comfort with how to use his body beside pushing guys around. We can find that anywhere.

Damn, wonder why we passed up Okur and Anderson.

and lol, big Pitts days on the roster seem numbered.

The realgm front page article about vets vs. inexperienced guys might shed light. I think the last two years taught them we're better off leaving the Dampiers, Ilgauskases, Magloires, Okurs, and Andersens on the FA heap and trying to mine younger talent that may not have the experience, but fits our style and can offer current production. We have more than enough veterans. This team could use youth and guys in their prime level of production or earlier.

[RJM]

I doubt we cut Pittman. Riley has said many times in the recent past that drafting centers is a three-year development process. Miami leaked this information to he and his reps to light a fire under his ass. If Hassan Whiteside can't make this team at his age, size, and physical ability, he won't get much of a shot anywhere else. That said, concerning centers, it's likely down to Pittman vs. Whiteside since Harrellson(sp) is redundant with Rashard Lewis now on the roster. Give me someone that plays big or is at least 6'11, then.

[ricochet]

Barry Jackson:

The Heat concluded a several-day audition of former Kings center Hassan Whiteside and will decide whether to sign him, Josh Harrellson or neither. So far, Miami passed on auditioning former Nuggets center Chris “Birdman” Andersen, who would love to play here, or older veterans such as Mehmet Okur… A Heat official said the team was disappointed in Dexter Pittman’s summer league work and “this is a crucial training camp for him. But the slate is clear.” Pittman has a guaranteed contract ($854,389) and seems likely to stick but has been assured nothing.

Look, Heat are getting a great, first-hand look at Whiteside right now. If he can't make the 20-man camp roster on a team starving for an athletic 7-footer, I'll admit his potential has probably been overstated and he's likely hot garbage. With the information I've had at my disposal up until this point, I feel as though that's not the case. We, as layman, only know so much, though.

Should be noted we've had a tendency not to go for the raw, athletic 7-footer type when we've had the chance (DeAndre Jordan, Patrick O'Bryant, Ryan Hollins, Steven Hunter, etc.). Wouldn't be shocked to see him succeed elsewhere if we passed. (Obviously DeAndre is the only one I listed that has, but there might be others)

Good points..
Could also be that other than his physical gifts he doesn't bring anything that gives him the edge over other trash C's we have right now.. It all comes down to judging the potential there..

[cheenofly523]

OFFICIAL: The @MiamiHEAT have signed Josh Harrellson (@BigJorts55).

[diablerouge]

Miami HEAT ‏@MiamiHEAT
OFFICIAL: The @MiamiHEAT have signed Josh Harrellson (@BigJorts55).

[Time4War]

[Time4War]

Spurs of the East

[Mars]

IraHeatBeat
Josh Harrellson adds an intriguing 3-point element for Heat at center, which would keep all players "live" on court as Erik Spoelstra prefers.

IraHeatBeat
Mike Miller, who witnessed a recent Harrellson session, said ex-Knick was exceptional with his 3-point shooting.

[Vertical Limit]

Glad we got Harrellson. Telling you once you see some of him in preseason you're going to be impressed by his defense.