http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4324941 If this stiff is getting $34M over 5 years I think it's a no-brainer that Utah will match for Millsap.
The difference is that Orlando's championship window is open. Utah will be lucky to be the 6th seed next year.
I think your off on that. Utah's record wouldn't have been as bad as it was this year without the injuries, and also you have a ton of players on their team which will now be playing for a contract the next year. A contract during a year where a lot of teams are making room to sign players. So I don't think it will turn out like you say. While they definitly are not a "top contender"(Who besides LA is in the west?) I think they will be right there with the pack (The group of teams that was all within about a game of each other.) Put it this way. They will be quite better than this past season.
I'm glad Orlando matched. Gortat is a pretty solid center and Dallas could have used Gortat more than Orlando. This takes away a very solid acquisition for Dallas.
Dude, nothing has changed. LA is the top dog. None of the other teams in the west did Jack Diddly to counter that. San Antonio worked to improve themselves, but that won't matter unless Ginobili comes back. Until he comes back, I count them out. Utah is better than Dallas. Why don't you go back in your mind to two seasons ago before the injury bug hit and Utah took out roughly the same Houston team we just lost to, and see if that triggers some thoughts. If you want to base your opinion of the Jazz off of one injury plagues season, good luck with that. It's your basketball reputation, not mine.
And we beat LA twice last year. You don't think our players are going to improve next year? We face them in the playoffs next year and I'm not sure we don't come out on top.
I was kind of surprised by this move, they'll be real over the LT for a guy that plays spare minutes for them. They've committed 76.6 million next year already for ten players, will they still use the MLE next season? They'd be around 85 million if they use it all and get a couple of low price players. That's over 100 million in salary after the Luxury Tax, even more of course if the LT threshold falls. My understanding was that they aren't one of the richer franchises either (nothing against them personally :O). To me they should have just let him go like LA did with Ronny Turiaf.
Orlando has really opened up their pocketbooks this offseason with the acquisition of Carter and Bass and retaining Gortat. Ed O.
Which makes a lot of sense. Their championship window is now...there will never be a more impactful time to spend money.
In the playoffs he got like 11 minutes a game though. I'm not sure this helps them much and it does affect their window if they shy away from using the MLE next off-season.
Why is that, exactly? Howard, Lewis, and Nelson are all young enough to have a long run. Carter is probably nearing the end athletically, but Hedo was spry enough for a good 5 year continuation of the window, had they been willing to spend two weeks ago what they apparently are now.
Because they just reached the Finals. Thus, their championship window is now, by definition. They are, right now, championship-caliber. I wasn't commenting on how long that window was. Nor was I saying that the window wasn't open when they decided not to spend on Turkoglu. I assume that they didn't feel Turkoglu was worth the money. I'd agree with that thinking, and they spent money quite well overall.
The question was, how does this sudden spending spree relate to the window of opportunity differently than it did when they weren't willing to spend and still had pretty much the same window. Or something like that... I'm fully aware that they're willing to spend to win.
When weren't they willing to spend, while possessing the same or similar window? If you're referring to not retaining Turkoglu, I did address that.
Actually, S2 just updated their salary figures and it seems Orlando has 83 million due to 10 players next off-season. If they were to use the MLE and a few other minimum type of contracts to get to 13 total players, they'd have about a 115 million dollar payroll (with the predicted 65 million dollar Luxury Tax Threshold). I'm not sure they can afford that can they? I know Jerry Buss is already at his limit at about 105-115 million a year. So yeah if they get shy in free-agency because of Gortat, it'll be a bad deal.
As of their Finals run, they were supposedly unwilling to go into luxury tax territory to retain Hedo. I'm not sure what else there is to say other than plans somehow changed... Same window, different plans.
