Draco's right. You can sign your whole team to 5-year Bird deals if they qualify, but only one "designated" player at a time (unless you trade for someone else's, then you only get two). Because the designated player is a 5-year extension, which makes the contract a 6-year one. Hibbert wouldn't even qualify as a designated player if they matched, because he wasn't signed as an extension of his rookie deal like, say, Westbrook was. More on the DPRE:
And KP owes us for not listening to Born and taking Oden. Indy, you can have Oden next year. We cut him... for you. Throw us a bone.
It was posted earlier that you can only have one 5-year Bird rookie per year under the new CBA, and that's George Hill for Indy. Not saying it's right, but that's what was posted.
I thought that was debunked in this situation, but so much garbage has been posted at this point, I cant remember what has been declared legit.
http://www.iamagm.com/news/2012/05/12/george.hill.declined.6.million.year.extension.pacers Couldn't find the link for his new deal, but unless something drastically changed, they would've had to make him a really decent offer for him to forgo being a FA, essentially. 7.5-8.5 would be my guess. Also, I may be the only one, but I feel like they may not match, to try and go after a few free agents next year, at the C spot. Monroe*, Cousins*, Al Jefferson, Bynum, Howard, Mozgov. * = Team Option, which 99.99% likely they will pick up.
Because they know the NBA is a wing dominated league, where the rules are set up for them to succeed?
That's frankly too strong of a reaction either way. If they match it would kind of suck to "lose" but it might not be the worst thing in the world from a cap-management standpoint and if they don't match, Hibbert isn't going to be some panacea for all that ails this team.
cap management standpoint for what, exactly? Who do you save that for? Is it more than he is worth by a million or three? Probably. Is that about the only way to get RFA to leave? yeah. I don't see the point of "cap management" giving us flexibility for something we will never want to use, to continue to be flexible. It's 4 years, not the old 7 year killers. I don't think a big 4 year deal hurts us. Especially with other smaller deals on the roster.
I still have some false hope that we have a small chance in getting Hibbert. With Eric Gordon verbally agreeing to the max offer sheet of 4years/58mil with Phoenix, there were lots of reports that NO would match the offer. We haven't heard of those type of reports from Indiana about matching Hibbert. I still thinking Indiana hasn't decided what they're going to do.
I'm not talking about saving cap room for a rainy day, I'm talking about teams that overspend and then sometimes find themselves in a corner a few years down the line overextended on players that don't actually push them to title contention. In Hibbert's case I actually think the risk is a little bit less than it would be say on Eric Gordon with his problem staying healthy. I'm just saying that if they do max out Hibbert and then also nearly max out Batum, that's a lot of dough tied up in a couple of guys that I'm not sure I'd call franchise level -- and the luxury tax is about to get severely punitive.
Everybody's one piece away - LeBron James. But, despite myself, I'm getting geeked about Hibbert. When will I learn that that's the sure path to bitter disappointment?
Not to mention even today nobody on the Pacers or Blazers would have ever been eligible to be a designated player.... its for MVPs, allstar starters and multi time all NBA team players.
