<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">With Stan Van Gundy its new coach, it's sounding more like Orlando will keep restricted free agent Darko Milicic. Said Van Gundy: <font color=""Blue"">"I think you're sitting on a great situation with that. I remember saying to Otis [Smith, the general manager] in the interview, 'You've got two great assets here [Milicic and Dwight Howard]. You've got two young big guys in a league where everybody else is searching for one.' Can they play together? Yeah. As a coach, that's your responsibility. You've got to take your best players and figure out a way to make it work. But there's certainly no reason they couldn't play together."</font> The Magic was displeased that Brian Hill didn't use the two together much.<font color=""Red""> If Orlando keeps Milicic, it probably puts it out of the free-agent bidding for Vince Carter and Rashard Lewis.</font></div> <a href="http://chicagosports.chicagotribune.com/sports/basketball/bulls/cs-070610smith,1,3623168.column?coll=cs-home-headlines" target="_blank">Source </a> Guys I dont know what to think!! I mean I love Darko...But if we get Darko that probably means no Lewis and defneitly no VC. Both of those guys would make immediate impact, but Id just hate to see Darko go be a star for another team. Whatta you guys think?
Screw VC or Lewis. They'll ask for too much money anyway, and if Van Gundy is smart he'll know how to ultilize Dwight and Darko well enough so that they will not need a star perimeter player like Carter or Lewis.
Keep Darko. Darko should be our #1 priority. There is absolutely no point in trading away a 7 foot 22 year old with enormous potential that complements your 6'11 superstar perfectly. They will both hit their primes at the same exact time, while if we trade Darko to get VC, when Dwight gets into his prime, VC is way past his prime. Anyway does anyone want to pay VC the $20 mil that he wants? I sure as hell don't want that contract on our books. If Shard really wants to come to Orlando we could do a sign and trade deal and give them 3 expiring deals and a draft pick(we suck at drafting, might as well give them all away) to help in their rebuilding process. Or we could maybe trade them 2 of our expiring deals Arroyo and Garrity and give them close to 4-5 mil(our remaining after resigning Darko) for this year. Or we can possibly do a trade with Hedo that gives us some cap relief. There is still potential to resign Darko and still get Shard. I still say no to VC.
I know all the attention is on Shard and VC but man i would love to keep Darko and get G. Wallace. You know he isnt asking for max, he would be perfect. He isnt a star player that will demand the ball and the man actually plays defense. Star power would be nice but winning would be so much better. I think a young group of guys that see themselves as equals would play a lot better together than having VC on board. Thats my $.02...
<div class="quote_poster">smokrockz Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">I know all the attention is on Shard and VC but man i would love to keep Darko and get G. Wallace. You know he isnt asking for max, he would be perfect. He isnt a star player that will demand the ball and the man actually plays defense. Star power would be nice but winning would be so much better. I think a young group of guys that see themselves as equals would play a lot better together than having VC on board. Thats my $.02...</div> I would love to get Gerald Wallace. I would probably rather have Shard the most, then Wallace way over VC.
IDK Gators, I agree to leep Darko, but i think id like to see Gerald "The Alabama Slamma" Wallace in Orlando more than Lewis. Wallace is a better defender,better scorer, and is 24. As a opposed to Lewis who is 27 or 28 i think and relies more on shooting. damn idk why we neve hear rumors about getting G-Force.
Resign Darko and sign-and-trade for a shooter. He could trade Turkoglu and someone else for someone. I don't know that's just a possibility.
When can we resign Darko? I definitely prefer Darko over an aging VC/Rashard. I would like to have Rashard and Darko though, do we have enough money for them both? I'm not aware of the Magic's money situation. Gerald Wallace would be great also, he's a young talent who's getting better every season but he is not the shooter that Shard is. I think Rashard would be better for the Magic. Not to mention I haven't heard any rumors or anything about Gerald wanting to leave Charlotte, you never know though.
<div class="quote_poster">Riot Wrote</div><div class="quote_post">When can we resign Darko? I definitely prefer Darko over an aging VC/Rashard. I would like to have Rashard and Darko though, do we have enough money for them both? I'm not aware of the Magic's money situation. Gerald Wallace would be great also, he's a young talent who's getting better every season but he is not the shooter that Shard is. I think Rashard would be better for the Magic. Not to mention I haven't heard any rumors or anything about Gerald wanting to leave Charlotte, you never know though.</div> We have around $13 million in salary before resigning Darko. We can get an extra $3.5 million if Dooling doesn't pick up his player option, but I bet he does. I don't think many teams would pay him more than that if he declines the option. If you assume that Darko is going to get an $8 million starting contract that only leaves us with $5 million salary cap room. We do have close to $12 mil in contracts that expire after this year coming up(Garrity, Dooling, and Arroyo), so we could legitimately do a sign and trade deal to a rebuilding team. If Shard or Gerald Wallace want to come to Orlando then we would have the leverage to get him. Maybe something like 2 of those expirings plus a 1st rounder for a signed Shard/Gerald Wallace. That would be around $8 mil in salary + $5 mil of our cap room or we could do all 3 of them and keep some cap room for someone like a Steve Blake or Andres Noicioni type FA. The last feasible option is trying to trade players like Turkoglu/Bogans and potentially Battie(but not really expecting that) for a smaller contract to get more cap space. Look for a combo of this. I wouldn't be surprised to see Turkoglu and at least 2 of our expiring contracts traded. This is where I get the contracts..http://www.hoopshype.com/salaries.htm and here is our page... http://www.hoopshype.com/salaries/orlando.htm Oh and about your original question. I'm honestly not too sure when exactly we can give Darko an offer sheet. Honestly I think what will go down is we'll let Darko test the market and get some offers from other teams and then just match any offer, since he is a restricted FA.
Yeah it is, but we can't really make any move before we resign Darko. I think Darko has to be #1 being a restricted FA. I think there's a deadline at some point before July 1st begins where you can give a RFA an offer.
You guys want to keep Darko, young big men like himself are hard to come by in this league, we really probally should have kept him, especially considering out situation now. Vince Carter is only getting older, as is Rashard Lewis, and there are plenty of athletic swingmen going around.
Very good point NTC. I mean although another need for us is a good swingman, I think locking up a young big man like Darko is also a need.
