NBA Off-Season Discussion Thread

[zooz]

I love Rip to death, but he has to go. His time is up here.


It's youthful, I would LOVE it.

wierd coincidence, feltons wiki picture is him guarding stuckey...

 

[Mexi]

wait, Rudy Gay got $80m?!

holy <Censored>

 

[$tunna]

wait, Rudy Gay got $80m?!

holy <Censored>

My thoughts exactly lol I thought the Grizzlies were cheap. Heck! I thought the Hawks were cheap. Everybodies gettin Max deals lol

 

[Mexi]

haha Chris Bosh

Just had dinner w @dwadeofficial. Great way to end day 1 of #freeagency although it feels like someone is missing...

cut the dreads!

 

[snipezo]

He's going back to t-dot dammit.

 

[Yankees2772]

Amare basically agreed to sign with the Knicks

 

[zooz]

My thoughts exactly lol I thought the Grizzlies were cheap. Heck! I thought the Hawks were cheap. Everybodies gettin Max deals lol

I don't understand how come these teams did not try to get one of the top free agents if they are willing to spend so much money on lesser players.

 

[Yankees2772]

Because they wouldn't have the proper cap to sign players that they don't have bird rights to, and even if they did the top FAs wouldn't want to go to lesser teams.

 

[VC15]

PDcavsinsider

Here’s what I hear from yesterday: LeBron interested in Nets pitch but not so much NY. NY trying at moment to secure Amare’ to help cause

Knicks leaked pitch to LeBron

 

[elcheato]

Amare basically agreed to sign with the Knicks

If the Knicks can't get anyone else to go with him, that's an awful signing for the max.

 

[elcheato]

Knicks leaked pitch to LeBron

I'd be interested in the Nets too. They got a solid young core there.. Could probably trade Favors for a near all-star if they wanted to as well.

 

[Yankees2772]

If we get Amare and nobody else, it's horrible.. I agree.

And who said NY did poorly? Their meeting was a full hour longer than New Jersey's.

 

[elcheato]

Well, the Knicks have a lot more convincing to do since they are in arguably the worst situation out of all the teams who want LeBron. Plus they had like 7 more people then the Nets there lol

 

[Yankees2772]

I don't see how it's the worst situation, but to each his own I suppose.

 

[VC15]

Nets 'definitely in the game' as meeting with free agent LeBron James goes well
Dave D' Allesandro

For the better part of the day, you heard nothing but baseball clichés.

They put it in the upper deck.

They hit a grand slam.

Either way, owner Mikhail Prokhorov and the five associates who accompanied him to Cleveland today came away from their historic meeting with LeBron James believing the Nets “are definitely in the game,” a team official familiar with the talks revealed after conferring with several members of the team’s chief recruiters.

Most in-house officials, who required anonymity because they are not authorized to speak for the team, were far more effusive than the owner and his team of pitchmen on the scene.

But the 90-minute meeting at the office of the two-time MVP’s marketing firm was a clear success, as the Gang of Six gave the free agent a lot to think about before James spent the next two hours listening to another pitch from the Knicks.

The Nets’ group — Prokhorov, team president Rod Thorn, coach Avery Johnson, CEO Brett Yormark, Onexim CEO Dmitry Razumov, and limited partner and James confidant Jay-Z — believed they gave a presentation that would be difficult to follow.

Indeed, they were convinced it was a sales job that Knicks and four other teams — the Heat and Clippers Friday, followed by the Bulls and Cavaliers (including new coach Byron Scott) on Saturday — would find virtually impossible to match.

At the scene outside the IMG building on East 9th and St. Clair, where dozens of reporters had gathered, the Nets’ recruiters assessed the meeting on the run. As he made his exit, Johnson exulted, “The meeting went very well,” while showing off a folder that included James’ face embossed over the Nets’ logo. Prokhorov merely said he agreed with his coach.

Hours later, team president Thorn texted a simple response to an interview request on his way to Chicago to meet with Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh: “We told our story,” Thorn said. “Now we’ll see what happens.”

James purportedly found that story very compelling.

He listened attentively to Prokhorov and Razumov as they explained how they will expand his profile on a global scale. He heard Thorn and Johnson share their plan for building a championship-caliber roster with a long shelf life. He was given an evocative demonstration by Yormark about how he could become not only King of Brooklyn, but of all of New York.

And then, according to reporters at the scene, Jay-Z stayed behind to reinforce the Nets’ bullet points and get a feel for how his 25-year-old protégé reacted to the presentation.

It didn’t take long to discern that James was blown away.

According to one Nets official, James also gave them a candid warning that the team should prepare to have enough room under the salary cap to afford two maximum-value contracts should he decide that New Jersey is his next destination.

That decision, which ESPN has reported will be announced as early as Monday, could be affected by the Nets' ability to stretch their current bankroll of $30 million to $33 million, which is the amount the team would need to satisfy both James and Bosh.

The Nets will have to move Kris Humphries’ $3.2 million salary to accomplish this, and it is believed that they have had productive talks with several Western Conference teams that would be willing to absorb the power forward’s contract for the price of draft picks and cash.

Not even the mid-afternoon news of Rudy Gay’s decision to stay in Memphis — he was the Nets’ second free agent option at small forward — seemed to break their momentum.

They were too wrapped up in the possibility that they could still land the grand prize.

“All our cards are now on the table with LeBron,” a team official said. “It went that well.”

“Extremely well,” another official said.

Still, everyone in the organization knew that the critical meeting was last night at 8 p.m., when the Nets tried to sell Bosh on a partnership with James and Brook Lopez across the team’s front line.

If Bosh was amenable, Thorn would be able to take that news back to James and clear enough cap space for the two free agents, and perhaps get both to verbally agree to contracts by Monday.

Asked two questions by text — whether he can tell if his team is on Wade’s radar, and whether he managed to keep Bosh and James on the same wavelength throughout the day — Thorn could not answer specifically.

“There’s no way to know,” the outgoing president replied. “They’re just getting started in the process. It’s too early to tell.”

Players cannot sign until July 8.

Remarkably, the report that James would make up his mind by Monday wasn’t seen as a negative, even if the Nets wouldn’t be able to get him to commit to visit their facilities.

“No, we’re told he’ll make up his mind without a visit,” the first Nets official said. “He knows the area well enough.”

NOTES

With Gay canceling his Friday night meeting with the Nets, they don’t have anything scheduled for the next few days. But Mark Bartelstein, agent for David Lee, was going to try to get Thorn and his client to meet while the both were in Chicago Friday.

Bartelstein, who has more than a dozen teams interested in Lee, believes he’d be a perfect fit in New Jersey:

“He’d be tremendous for them. He never had the advantage of playing with another big like Brook Lopez – he stands out naked by himself every night. To play with another big like that would help him tremendously. They’d be a formidable team.”

Dave D'Alessandro may be reached at [email protected]

http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2010/07/nets_definitely_in_the_game_as.html

 

[elcheato]

I would put LeBron in New Jersey, but they signed Avery Johnson to be coach.

 

[Mooche]

Man, really impressed with what the Nets have done with LeBron thus far.

 

[sheed]

This is where it starts getting interesting. I wonder who else the Nets would sign with LeBron and who else NY would sign with Amare? Bosh is already likely to go to Miami I would assume. Looks like Boozer might be screwed.

 

[Big Bid'Ness]

Suns Agree To $18M, Four-Year Deal With Hakim Warrick

The Suns have agreed to terms on a four-year, $18 million deal with free agent forward Hakim Warrick, sources tell Marc Spears of Yahoo!

Warrick played with the Bucks and Bulls during the 09-10 season.

The signing likely signals the end of Amar'e Stoudemire's tenure with the Suns.

 

[elcheato]

Amare is pretty much in New York, Bosh will go to Miami/Chicago, Boozer will go wherever the other doesnt go.