<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">ORLANDO - Unsure what unproven 21-year-old Darko Milicic was truly worth at the time, the Orlando Magic pulled back a five-year, $40 million contract offer at the 11th hour back in late October. Now, exactly a year after Milicic was acquired in a blockbuster of a trade with the Detroit Pistons, the Magic at least have a baseline by which to gauge the value of the promising power forward from Serbia. Milicic entered Wednesday night having played the equivalent of a full 82-game season with the Magic -- 30 last season and 52 this season. In that time, Milicic's minutes have fluctuated as his play has peaked and bottomed out at times. So the question facing the Magic this summer is this: How much is a player who averages 7.8 points, 4.8 rebounds and 1.85 blocks a game worth? Milicic will be a restricted free agent this summer, meaning the Magic have the right to match any contract offer that he gets from another team.Just five teams are expected to have significant salary cap dollars with which to pursue free agents that start off making more than the mid-level exception ($5.6 million). Orlando is expected to take a similar approach to re-signing Milicic as they did with blossoming forward Trevor Ariza last summer. The Magic openly stated that they would match any contract the restricted free agent got, and ultimately wooed him back with a three-year, $9 million deal. Milicic moved into the starting lineup last week when Tony Battie was lost due to a broken thumb. He had one of his best games in a Magic uniform on Saturday in New Jersey, scoring 16 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. He scored a career-best 19 points on Feb. 3 against New York. "He's really becoming more of a solid low-post player for us," Magic coach Brian Hill said. "He has more of a comfort level out there now and he's a guy who we can run the offense through now because he can make shots and pass the ball. And he's helped us defensively." GMs meet. Smith said trade talks will heat up Friday when the NBA's 30 general managers meet in Las Vegas at the NBA All-Star Game.</div> Source
I hope we can get Darko for a reasonable price. I don't know he's quite ready for a $8 million a year kind of deal. Maybe $6 is reasonable. With bigs these days teams overpay for their services so hopefully we can get him at a good deal.
He won't get less than $8 mil and if he continues to play this good in the starting role and given 30-35 mins, I wouldn't be surprised to see him reach in the $10-11 mil range.
<div class="quote_poster">GatorsowntheNCAA Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">He won't get less than $8 mil and if he continues to play this good in the starting role and given 30-35 mins, I wouldn't be surprised to see him reach in the $10-11 mil range.</div> What he said.
I wouldn't give him more than 6-7 million personally I think he overrated. Chris Kaman got 50 million and I don't think Darko is anywhere near as good as he is (not that Kaman is great but IMO he better than Darko)
But the market for bigs is very competitive. We would have to pay for him or someone else. At least he is young and teamed up with Howard he could be a beast. We really need to keep him in a Magic uni.
<div class="quote_poster">Cdub100 Wrote</div><div class="quote_post"> The league min becuase he's a POS</div> Every single one of your 17 posts are dissing Darko or the Magic... that's a really weird reason to sign up for a forum. Everyone should just ignore this guy.
