Summer 2009

What are the plans for Summer of 2009.

We'll be about 7.5-8 million dollars under the salary cap. Raef's Contract and Francis' contract are off the books. Honestly, for all that wheeling and dealing on draft day 07, I thought we would be in a much better position. This does not seem like that much or can deliver much for us.

Exactly, what are our options for this summer?

 

Personally, I would use it to take back more salary in a trade, this FA crop sucks..HARD!

 

I'd start at good players on bad teams with big contracts and work from there as a starting point.

 

I'm guessing that is what will happen. I also wonder how much Rod Thorn is going to kick himself for not moving Carter. The Nets could have been very active this off-season in both trade and FA with $26 million in cap space.

 

The problem is that now we'll have to include some of the players in our rotation in order to get talent back. With no expiring contracts (unless we can "Trade" Darius Miles "expiring contract"), there's not much we can have to deal with. I think in order to get even a team to answer our call, we're going to have to say the words Bayless or Rudy or Batum.

 

We'll actually be about $5 million under the cap, unless we renounce the rights to some guys.

Our plans are that we are hoping some team wants to take our scraps in the summer and send us back an All-Star caliber player.

In other words, we are going to be attempting to sell a Ketchup Popsicle to a woman in white gloves.

-Pop

 

I think that most teams will be in a panic by this summer as the economy continues to tank and it will be even more of a buyer's market.

 

i'm guessing Mike Bibby or Raymond Felton are 2 PG's portland's going to look at. one of them might be able to be had at that price.

 

Right. Because that worked so well for us in the days leading up to this year's trade deadline.

-Pop

 

The problem is that these type of players will be generally much older veterans versus youth, since good players on bad teams, if they are young, will develop. I don't see teams dumping young good players in order to trim salaries...I see them dumping past peak players for young guys and to clear cap space.

 

You mean like Vince Carter? NJ wouldn't even move him and they're on the verge of bankruptcy.

 

Yes. Like Vince Carter. We'll be targeting players like Vince Carter but will be likely have to give up more youth and better players to get him.

 

I don't want Vince Carter.

 

You think we can sign Bibby for 8 million?

 

I think it will be pretty minimal - Frye will probably be renounced or traded for some marginal veteran backup. Probably a cheap veteran backup PF and a 1st round pick for our TE and a free-agent signing of someone like Sessions - with the expected growth of the good rookies Oden/Batum/Bayless and Rudy's expected adjustment to the NBA game - I think we will be in a good place. Might be another smaller deal to move someone like Sergio and either Outlaw or Webster for something - but that's about what I would expect at this point.

Might also bring big bad Joel-F from Spain to plug the backup PF position.

The only thing that might change this scenario is if someone like Washington is willing to let Butler go for some salary relief. Hard to imagine it happening unless more team owners are really into financial problems.

 

Of course. Who else has oodles of cash this summer, regardless of cap space?

 

yeah, well that's the calibur/age/type/salary of players we will have to be targeting if we're going to go after players that bad teams want to dump. They don't usually want to dump young, up and coming players in small contracs...they want to cut their losses with their fading stars with bloated contracts in order to rebuild. those are the guys we're probably going to be targeting.

 

sort of agree with this scenario. don't think we're going to be making huge splashes in Summer 09. We'll maybe trade Sergio and Outlaw for a somewhat more experienced point guard...someone like Heinrich if we're lucky.

 

That's the caliber of player that was "targeted" in the past few weeks. Carter is the only All-Star of the group (I won't count Butler since I heard zilch about him recently), and his days of playing like an All-Star are over. I just don't get how not trading for some non-All Stars means the team dropped the ball. It sure seemed like you were advocating a trade earlier today.

 

So you base a player's worth based on whether he's an "all star" or not?

I'm just advocating some better consistency and skill at the SF position, not the slack-jawed yokels we have there right now. I mean I love me some TROUT but if we could have possibly upgraded to Crash, RJeff or Butler, I would have thought it was a no brainer.