Ron Artest to Portland?

[Sinobas]

If Portland were to offer Artest a deal worth 13 mil a year, do you think the Houston GM would match that offer? If we cut Outlaw, we'll have some serious cap space this offseason.

By the way, nice job in whipping the Lakers tonight. You guys are some bad mothers. I think the Blazers would still be in the playoffs right now if we had drawn the Spurs or Hornets in round one.

If you get past LA, you've actually got a good chance at winning the championship this season.

[Guy986]

13 mil a year?

No we wont match.

[HTown_TMac]

If you want to pay him 13 mil a year... Good Luck.

[TMU]

We can't even afford more than 5m unless Les agrees to go over the luxury tax.

[Guy986]

We'll pay Ron up to 10 million a year. Anything more than that IMO is just overpaying.

[Roxflynorth]

With the economic downturn, I don't think any team will offer a player 13mil/year except players like Kobe or Lebron. If Portland decide to give ron such a big contract there's no question we would not able to match it and we probably won't match it.

[rocketworld]

how can they afford that...they don't have space do they? i thought their payroll was higher than ours...

[Mr. E]

We are up 1-0 in the semi-finals. Why the hell are you bringing this off-season sh*$ on this board right now????

[HTown_TMac]

We are up 1-0 in the semi-finals. Why the hell are you bringing this off-season sh*$ on this board right now????

He's out of the playoffs

[College Boy]

how can they afford that...they don't have space do they? i thought their payroll was higher than ours...

No, from my understanding they're about 8 mil under the cap right now. But I would imagine they don't want to get tied into anything long term as their young players will be coming out of their rookie contracts soon. The Blazers front office will need the money to re-sign them if they want to keep that budding team intact. I'm sure players like Roy, Fernandez, Oden, Aldridge, and Bayless will be looking for big paydays.

[tisbee]

Portland has team options on Blake and Outlaw. They could be down to $41.7mil,but they'd have to give up Trade Exceptions,some draft picks in Europe and the MLE. They could trade Rodriguez to a team w/trade exception for future pick,kep the MLE and have @$10mil under cap.
A realistic offer would prob be $9mil.

But it's extremely unlikely Portland would make an offer to Ron. Their GM wants high-character players and there's almost no chance he would bring in Ron.

[Fiasco West]

Funny thing is, i've started like three dynasties on NBA 2k9...and he always goes to Portland. I had a friend that said he went to Portland too on their game...

[tisbee]

Ironic that Detroit is one of few teams that has cap room enough to make a big offer.

[PDXKnight]

Quite honestly, I can't see Portland overpaying for Artest let alone fielding an offer to him to begin with. I tend to believe that he's matured as a player in recent years, but with his history, I can't see KP signing him. On paper, he'd be a nice acquisition, but certainly not for 13 million a year and with KP's stress on Portland's character, Ron Artest's past may draw him away from even considering making him an offer. That said, this ultimately benefits the Rockets as it almost assuredly takes one team out of the competition for Ron Artest.

[hackle]

Ron is not going anywhere if we can do very very good in the playoffs

[albatrosskismet]

Ironic that Detroit is one of few teams that has cap room enough to make a big offer.

Yeah, that's funny. Big payback.

[Young_Star11]

Portland would be silly to offer Artest $13m a year.

[Alex_De_Large]

He will stay.

[Rendezvous]

I dont think any team would pay him that 13 million.

[rocketworld]

anyone think mcgrady would be willing to restructure his contract to keep artest??