Meh... I've seen enough. Neil can call him in the office and offer to tear up his old contract and say "Hey Niccy, we want to extend you for more years and dollars" I don't know what in God's name for.
It is all contingent on LMA. If he leaves, there is no point in keeping RoLo, AA, or Batum. Wes is arguable, depending on his contract demands and how confident the Blazers feel about his rehab.
1.) trade Batum on draft day (hopefully for Hibbert) 2.) resign Aldridge 3.) convince Afflalo to wait one more year 4.) bring everyone back 5.) use MLE to find a vet SF or PG 6.) do everything in your power to give Matthews the best treatment possible
1 LMA 2 Starting center 3 Wes 4 Trade Batum (may be combo with #2) 5 Rolo/AAA 6 MLE free agent Damian is not on the list because Neil needs to focus on the others, Kaman, possibly Wright, Freeland, and Vet min players first. Once he has all those taken care of give Damian a call. We have until the end of October to get him an extension and if we say "hey we were focusing on bringing you teammates to help win" he won't mind.
Hibbert will be a free agent so he can't be traded except for sign and trades. I'd consider a longer deal for AAA if the price is right; this is a great opportunity to buy low with him. Other than that we are thinking very much alike this summer.
Word. Think its being discounted how important long term chemistry is. Nico has been a glue to this team and im counting on him following up his down year with a highly successful one.
Hibbert has a player option for next year for about 15.5 mil, if he exercises it he is UFA, if he doesn't then he can be traded. He has to decide before free agency begins and I have not heard anything yet on his potential decision
I have learned that I can't count on Nic to be consistent or make the Blazers his top priority vs playing almost every summer for France and wearing his body down. It is of course his choice but it can be the Blazers choice to say we have had enough - which is my stance, trade him this summer while we can get something decent back
If I were him, I would keep the money and work for a payday when cap will give him the world. If he went to Portland and just blew up, he could be a close max player on a cap that probably is the same rate as a current max player today
agree and that is one choice, he could also opt out if he wants out of Indy and sign a decent sized 2 yr deal with a player option his second yr, that way if he has a really good year he still can get paid big for 2016/2017 when the big cap increase occurs -
If Indy were to tell him that he can go to Portland if he doesn't opt out, maybe having Olshey confirm, then it's a win win IMO. We could resign everyone and have Hibbert, use MLE to find a vet starting SF or PG. we would have Hibbert and Lopez as the 1-2 punch at center, Leonard and Kaman backing up Aldridge and third string center.
If Aldridge really doesn't want to play with Millard or be in Portland then I'm in favor of letting him go.
