New Orleans Pelicans MLE Tournament

[jonathanlambert33]

The last two years you all have joined us for the 6th Pick and 10th Pick Tournaments. They were, by far, our most popular series and while most of us would do the Holiday trade again, the big casualty in that deal was that we lost the right to have another tournament this year. Well, a draft tournament at least.

But the MLE Tournament might be even more fun. For those who dont know, the MLE is the Mid-Level Exception. It is an exception that teams at or near the cap can use to sign a player. This year, the MLE will allow teams to give out a contract up to 4 years and 22.8 million dollars. The Pelicans can also get close to $7 million under the cap and give up a slightly bigger contract too if they decline all options and renounce all Bird Rights.

Either way, they are looking at the ability to give up somewhere between $5-8 million per year over the length of the contract to one free agent or they can split that money up amongst two or three cheaper ones. The unique part of this tournament is we have assigned certain contracts to each player in order to make the debate even more fierce. Our writers all got together and gave their best guess as to what kind of contract the player will get. We averaged those out, and that is how we came up with the numbers.

So unlike the Draft Tournaments, it is not just player vs. player, but player and contract vs. player and contract. Keep that in mind when you vote and when you weigh the arguments. Below are the contracts that each player will have. The tourney kicks off tomorrow!

Bracket 1
Trevor Ariza (3 yr/19 mil)
Emeka Okafor (1 yr/5.5 mil)
Marvin Williams (2/9.5 mil)
Kevin Seraphin (3/10 mil)

Bracket 2
Jordan Hill (2/8 mil)
CJ Miles (3/8.5 mil)
Nick Young (3/13 mil)
Andray Blatche (3/15 mil)

Bracket 3
(3/22 mil) Spencer Hawes
(1/ 3 mil) Richard Jefferson
(2/7 mil) Caron Butler
(3/12 mil) Thabo Sefolosha

Bracket 4
(2/5.5 mil) Jordan Hamilton
(2/9 mil) Kris Humphries
(1/5 mil) Danny Granger
(3/16 mil) PJ Tucker

http://www.bourbonstreetshots.com/2014/06/01/welcome-to-the-new-orleans-pelicans-mle-tournament/

 

[jonathanlambert33]

I've brought up PJ Tucker on a number of occasions as to how much I like him.  I think he's the closest thing the league has to Bruce Bowen today, and I don't think the majority of fans know that Bruce Bowen really did not hit his stride in the league until he was 30 or 31.  Think Tucker is headed down a similar road, I watched some footage of him a while back and Phoenix had him defending John Wall one night and Kevin Love the next, and he did it effectively.