How about going after Taj Gibson? I really like Gibson as he is solid, can grab boards and play D. 6-9, 225+. 9 ppg, 7.5 reb, 0.9 ast. He is the anti-David Lee except in rebounding. With the addition of Carlos Boozer, he could be available. Chicago needs players and could go for BWright and Tolliver. [video=youtube;qPkmcQS8-Bw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qPkmcQS8-Bw&[/video] PG: Curry, Watson SG: Ellis, Bell PF: Lee, Gibson, Udoh C: AB, Gads SF: DWright, Reggie, Vlad This could be a playoff team!
Is he available? Can't see why Chicago would move him though I suppose their starting frontline is set with Boozer and Noah. I liked him a lot at USC and he did even better than I thought in Chi last year. He was kind of Udoh like in that he came out of the draft pretty old so you never know if hes already reached his ceiling. Here's a nice Curry fluff piece that has an interesting tid bit about Curry lobbying the front office to keep Monta. I would agree unless someone knocks our socks off with an offer for Monta. Reading up on some more advanced statistics and thing about David Lee I'm getting a little more encouraged about this club going into the season. Sounds like Lee is an elite level pick and roll player a la Amare, Boozer, etc. The frontcourt looks like it will be able to "eat glass" as Riley would say and I'm intrigued by picking up some players who fit with Curry. Lee and Wright seem like ideal fits alongside Curry. That being said I think we need that second dynamic threat. That guy who you can give the ball to with 5 seconds left and he can get you a high % shot any time. That's Monta. Curry is great and hes the man on this club but I think Monta fits in well as our top go-to or isolation guy. Perhaps this is Curry's line of thought as well.
I guess I'm going to have to backtrack on Luol Deng and Taj Gibson. LOL. Originally, I was thinking trading Monta for Luol Deng and Taj Gibson, but Monta's got the better contract because it's flat. Ellis is a bargain with his production, so we may as well keep him. We got Charlie Bell who plays D, so he would be a good backup for him. Next, here's the thing about Taj Gibson. He's 25 and pretty much what you see is what you get. I think he's a solid backup PF for years to come, but I can see why Chicago got Boozer. We got Udoh, who I think will be better than Gibson. The big question with Brandan Wright is can he stay healthy and not get beat up in the NBA? If yes, then we should keep him. I hope he was able to put on some muscle.
Agree with you that Gibson is a very good backup on a good team. He could start on some clubs but they would likely be losing teams. If I were Chicago I would hold onto him because that's a good PF/C corps. to compete with Boston, Miami, Orlando, etc. Apparently Riley says hes not done yet. Wonder if we can swing Morrow for a backup PG or C. We can platoon at C with Beans starting and Lee, Udoh, Wright, Gadz getting minutes there but having lost Turiaf I'd like to add another bruiser. I'm shocked to see Kurt Thomas hasn't come up as a potential veteran to head to Miami but I've always loved his game and would love to see him off the bench here even if he is a bit short for a C. Even a guy like Craig Smith who's more of a PF. Just someone with lots of beef who could add great depth to this club. Its especially important seeing as how injury prone Wright, Udoh, and Beans have been of late. We've still got something like 2.7 million of the MLE left? Some FAs I would like for us to inquire about are Kurt Thomas, Matt Barnes, Craig Smith, Rasual Butler, Etan Thomas, Jarvis Hayes. I don't see a lot of backup PG options and I'm for bringing Watson back so long as hes not getting more than 2.5 mil/year. Seems like Morrow isn't totally gone yet and he'd be good depth to have but remember that he got very limited minutes behind Reggie last season. No point in paying him 4 million to get 5 mpg behind Reggie, Monta, Wright, Watson if Nellie is sure that hes not going to be ahead of Reggie in the rotation. Wouldn't mind moving him for a decent reserve or at least a low level pick if any teams with cap space want him.
Yeah, I was wondering that: with a qualifying offer, like the one on Morrow for $4mils per year, can GS match the offer in order to sign-n-trade Morrow (instead of letting him go for nothing to NJ?) Or is that only before a QO comes in? Because then GS should at least take advantage of that, if they can. They could threaten to match if NJ isn't willing to swing a sign-n-trade, although I don't know what NJ has... As far as your back-up muscle in the post, what is going on with Chris Hunter? I would take him over many of the vet-minimums right now. I really liked his game, for what it was. And he sure is big. As far as back-up PGs, Kobe Carl is getting some run with Denver summer league team, but I liked what he did with GS and would try to bring him back. Also this little white dude Woodside for the GS Summerleague team has looked decent, has hit some threes and stuff. I just have a feeling Watson's going to get an offer in the 3-4 mils range, and for what he does, I just think we could pilfer the DLeague or summer league again, just like we did with him in the first place. That's what I think Miami should be doing. I don't know why they're set on trying to get all these old guys. (at least that's how it sounds). They should be looking to skim the cream off the top of the DLeague/summer league. That's how Morrow got his shot and is getting paid now. Every year, there are a few guys for which it all just gels, comes together, they get hot, and emerge as NBA ready. There will be some more of those this year. We have Kasib Powell in summer league right now -- he's a former DLeague MVP -- rocked the house in 07-08 for 22pts/6reb/3ast/41% from three... Maybe this is his year to get a shot? (He'll have to get to take some shots at the basket in order to get his "shot," if Reggie will ever pass the ball...)
Yeah the D League has been very, very good to us. But have there been any other D-Leaguers who have been successful in the league at all? Seems like they all come out of GS. Gotta give credit to whoever it is scouting the D-League for GS for finding Watson, Azu, Williams, Tolliver, Hunter. Here's an interesting Larry Riley article: http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_15488315?nclick_check=1 Bolded the particularly interesting parts: 1) Says we're not done with the roster yet which is nice. Obviously we're waiting on Morrow and Watson. We cold use some more depth at nearly every position on the bench and have some more of the MLE to play with. 2) lol @ the "puppet" part. Do you buy it? 3) Says he was never told by Cohan to dump contracts for salary. Interesting. Does that change the view we have toward some of his past trades? Is it all worth it since it lead to us landing Lee and perhaps having more cap room next offseason? I suppose he just wanted to dump the garbage on the roster and re-do it his way. If nothing else the team sure does look different as of today. 4) I like that he flat out says Nellie isn't the future and he may not have done some of the moves that Riley did. One thing I do like with Riley is that hes given us a pure PF and a big SF this offseason plus Udoh who is a defensive minded PF. Hes building an NBA sized team. Seems like his vision is D. Wright, Lee, Biedrins as our starting frontline. Will Nellie actually work it that way or are we stuck with D. Wright as a PF and Lee as a C? I'm still ecstatic that we traded "Nellie favorite Corey Maggette". Still my favorite move of the offseason lol. 5) WTF is he doing admitting the S-Jax deal sucked? I suppose hes actually proven to be a pretty straight shooter in the media (aside from saying Gadz and Bellare good players but I suppose that's expected). I don't think he could have got a much better return on Jack at the time since he had a contract that ran till he was nearly 40 but he doesn't exactly inspire confidence with that quote.
I'm gonna pull my Alley Oop here and say we should match Morrow. Players who shoot 45 - 46% from 3-pt land do not grow on trees. I already posted this on another thread, but also found that: http://www.toptenz.net/nba-3-point-shooters.php As for backup PG, we'll have to live with Bell and go to the D-league if necessary. Matching Morrow will put us over the cap since his deal is front loaded at around $4 M the first year.
Hes definitely unique and I like him a lot. But I'm just not sure its worth it to us if hes going to be behind Reggie Williams in the rotation. 4 mil a year just doesn't make sense for someone who will be behind Monta, D. Wright, Reggie Williams, and probably CJ Watson if hes playing at the 2. I would put the feelers out on Raja, Rasual Butler, Matt Barnes, etc. right now and see if any of them bite on a contract. We can offer up to a 2-3 year deal starting at $2.7 mil or whatever it is that we have left over of the MLE and that would be cheaper than Morrow for guys who can shoot and have other skills to offer and are more capable of playing the 3. Again, I like Morrow. I just don't think hes worth 4 million a year to us. He might be to some other teams who lack any depth at SG/SF. Hes got an amazing skill but its just not economical to pay him that much if hes buried behind a few other (cheaper and more versatile) players. If they came cheaper, I'd rather have one of these other guys who can bring good shooting but also other skills to the table.
We're not going after Barnes. I suspect we'll get Devean George back. So far we have eleven players under contract -- CBell, AB, Curry, Ellis, Gads, Lee, Radman, Udoh, Reggie, BW, and DWright. George will make twelve, so that leaves room for one or two more. We'll probably take the cheapest out of Morrow, Watson, Tolliver, and Hunter. I'd match Morrow. Maybe cheapskate Cohan would be willing to go for matching Tolliver or Hunter.
I wouldn't mind re-signing Tolliver if possible. I don't want to see him as a starter, but dude did a good job filling in last year.
Just looking at the teams around the league who want to shed salary...Houston is up to 60 million in payroll for 2010 and they said they'll match any offer for Scola and would match anything reasonable for Lowry. Speculation that NJ wants Scola bad and could frontload an offer. Wonder if we could steal Chuck Hayes away from them (hes making 2.3 million). Or we could take David Andersen or maybe Jordan Hill. NOH is ALWAYS looking to shed and do ridiculous trades to lower payroll (see: Aldrich, Cole). Maybe we could take Julian Wright or one of their rookies. Orlando is 15 million over the lux tax. How about Ryan Anderson? He doesn't get a lot of burn for them right? It would be like saving 3 mil for them since everything counts double. PHX is in good shape cap wise but they're another club that's always down to shed some payroll.
In speaking on the "State of the Warriors" has anyone seen any comments from Ellis? I know this is going to be Curry's team and have read his comments about the trades, but the silence from Ellis makes me wonder if he is "on board" or if he has been told he would be traded during the off-season or at the deadline.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/07/12/SPL91ED4EL.DTL - Nice job by Riley getting something for Morrow because I didn't think he would match. - Dorrell Wright signing official. Just saw Barnett interview him on the Warriors website. Seems like a good guy. - Wouldn't be upset by bringing Tolliver back but I'd rather try to find an upgrade with whats left of the MLE or the TPE. Would rather have a player who can bang down low and play some C.
According to Larry Riley, he has been speaking to Monta and Monta is very excited about the team (Warriors), asserting that he intends to be on the Warriors.
UPDATE: Lowry offered 4 year, $24 million contract by Cavs and I heard Houston is willing to match. That's a stroke of luck for this scenario. Luxury tax is 70 mil. That contract averages to 6 million a year and Cavs may have frontloaded it? Probably not so it would start maybe in the 4.5 mil range. Scola still hasn't signed any offer sheets but I would think he'll get a 3-4 year deal starting at 7 mils at least.
Ford's Twitter regarding NOH fans wanting Pritchard. Just conjecture though. Seems like if anyone on SL is going to get a training camp invite its Kim Tillie, a frenchman who went to college at Utah. 6'11 230 lbs, unimpressive stats in college but played very well in SL and looks athletic in youtube highlights. Word is it'll take 60-90 days for new ownership to become officially league approved. Wonder if Riley is still going to be signing guys because that's a key time leading up to training camp where we need to fill out the roster.
He'd probably get roasted on D until he learns but check out local boy Jeremy Lin from Harvard (against Wall no less): [video=youtube;PvkXmMcGfLo]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvkXmMcGfLo&feature=player_embedded[/video] Solid backup PG material, can handle, pass and score with great court vision. As you can tell I'm more of a traditional PG guy, rather than the "scoring" PG like Arenas/Evans/Flynn.
Even though I think CJ Watson is a better fit as our backup PG, I'm secretly rooting for Lin to make the Warrior roster.
