The Bulls front-loaded the contracts of Nocioni and Hinrich, IIRC. It's not a bad strategy if you are facing cap hell.
Oden could always gamble and accept the qualifying offer, couldn't he? That would make him an unrestricted free agent, wouldn't it?
You all are missing the key, there is no wating. With the near guarantee of a long lockout in 2011-2012, Greg goes from "possibility to extend now" straight to "unrestricted free agency" in 2012-2013. It's either extend him now or he's probably going to walk -- and who could blame him after his star crossed run so far in Portland. We all hate the risk of signing him to a long term deal and then seeing him flame out again with an injury, but you all should hate the idea of losing him for nothing more.
Sure, but that seems extremely unlikely unless he just hated the Blazers, because it would be a massive risk for him. I don't see a lack of immediate extension now creating that sort of hatred.
I love Oden and I want him to be a Blazer another decade, but without knowing what he'd want as an extension, it's tough to say whether it's better to sign him now or wait. Max deal? Wait. $8m per for four or five years? Sign him immediately. Ed O.
my opinion is you sign him an take care of bunsiess now. The biggest reason is... if you let it go to a RFA status.. someone like Utah is going to seek revenge for being pissed at us for giving them offer sheets to match in consecutive... and they are going to do it back to us and make the numbers worse for us. So you do it now and make the numbers to our liking. You also do it now to get GO cheap while he feels he has let us down. You also make it incentive based.
I have a few quibbles. It won't be a cash strapped team like the Jazz that offer him a huge RFA offer sheet, it will probably be somebody like Dan Gilbert of the Cavs (Utah could never take the chance that we don't match). Secondly, GO won't be negotiating the contract himself, his agent will. So forget about him taking less money because he "feels bad" his agent doesn't feel badly, he's going to try and get him paid based on his potential and also based on what other big men of his ilk have received. I fully expect Greg to earn at least Andrew Bynum money (5/50 million+)
My question is, do the contracts keep ticking through even though there's a lockout or is the lockout treated as a long offseason?
Nobody gets paid while the lockout is in effect (and you don't get paid retroactively). In the past most (all?) contracts that were already signed get grandfathered into the new deal.
What I mean is, does it count as a contract year? Meaning, does everyone lose one year on their deals of the league is locked out for the entire 2011-12 season?
So a front loaded contract would really fuck over Greg in that case. Say the first year is 10 or 15, and the last year is 5, but the first year we have the lockout........ Greg gets owned.
Yeah ... that's certainly a possibility. But with his trade value probably less than his actual value (that includes him missing tons of games) what are you going to get back? It churns my stomach to think it, but for better or worse, we're probably going to have to play this thing out to its end -- that is unless they can maybe pull another Bowie for Buck kind of move (ie. trading him away for a highly productive guy at the tail end of his career to some team willing to take a flier on him).
As far as the lockout goes, most players with new contracts this summer are structuring either their 2010-11 or 2012-13 salaries are paid over a 24-month period. So they "only" get half of what they're paid this coming year, but it ensures that they don't go starving through a lockout. I think the NBAPA put that out to agents and players as a legit option to cover themselves.
I don't think there's any way that a) Greg as is isn't worth 10M a year, and b) that we get anything remotely resembling equal value from the trade. I know that Greg's shown to be brittle, but he's already had 3 less surgeries than Andrew Bynum has on the same knee, and his injuries (aside from that big MF one) are all bone breaks, I don't have a problem thinking that he'll be relatively healthy going forward. Unlike, say, Roy's knees--which make me wonder.
I'd give him this or better. We have a potential top five player in the league and you guys don't want to pay him. Yet half the board wanted 60 mill + for LMA are you guys all fetal affect babies or what the fuck??!?! You can construct his contract wisely (team option etc), but the 30 mill range bullshit I saw is a fucking insult and might have him wearing purple and piss in a year you fucking golf shoes!!!!
