I believe he is an unrestricted free agent this offseason and after playing as well as he has been, I assume his price will be going up significantly. What do you think the market will command and at what price is he worth our cap space?
We have his Bird Rights, though, yeah? We can offer him more and longer (trying to remember through the whisky haze)...?
He's a C/PF that can start or come in and play solid defense and make a few shots. I think he'd be a valued commodity. Maybe a 4 year deal at about 3-5 million per year. Maybe a team with a rich owner may take a flyer at 6 million or so.
3-5 is low and wishful thinking, IMO. As a comparison, a guy like Ilyasova last season averaged about 13 and 9, and got a 4 year, 32 million dollar deal. Humphries put up 14 and 11, and got 2 years 24 million. Taj Gibson just extended 4 years 33 or so million. Glen Davis before last season got 4/25. Maybe working in our favor is the lot of big men hitting the market. Milsap, Jefferson, Hickson, Josh Smith, West, Blatche and others. But 3-6 seems unlikely to me. I dunno. He's putting up a double double currently. I thin he can get 7 on the market.
Right now I would think a minimum of 6-8 a year if he continues to play the way he has. It's early in the season and things can change, but he is getting a raise.
Fortunately there are a lot of talented bigs on the market this summer. OJ Mayo, on the other hand, will be grossly overpaid.
Agreed with this sentiment. I know I've come down on the guy a lot this year, but it's for a reason. The guy cannot be anything but a #1 option. If you run the offense through any other player on your team, Mayo's going to do nothing but hurt your squad, because he's a guy who needs the ball in his hands at all times to be effective. That's why the Grizzlies started playing him with the second unit, so he could be that #1 guy, amongst the back-ups. So unless you think Mayo can be the #1 option on your squad, avoid him like the plague. With Hickson, you have to consider his history when you consider his value. He's having a great year, but he's also had an up-and-down career with disappointments in Sactown. That could scare away a lot of teams from offering the upper MLE exception. Also, along with there being a lot of talented bigs in free agency, check out the upcoming draft. The entire first round is shaping up to be a bunch of centers and forwards.
I don't know man..... he wasn't even in Sac for a full year. He was good in Cleveland and he has been great for us. He's still really young too. Only 24. Reminds me a bit of Dale Davis, but with better offense.
Dale Davis... haven't heard that name in a minute... Hickson's way more explosive than Davis was though man! On the Sactown year though, I'm just saying that'll make some GM's think twice. I get that the Sactown year was probably an outlier, but if you're a GM that's backing an upper multi-million dollar deal to grab a big man in a big man-heavy FA and draft class, that's got to factor in your decision making process. You know they're all going to be thinking, "Okay, he's playing like this now, but it's during a contract year." It's not even his Sactown stint either really, because his Cleveland play was inconsistent as well, although that may be unfair to pin on him because he was young, but in general, most people were expecting him to have bigger post-LeBron years than he did at the time. I always forget how young Hickson is though. I remember him at NC State like it was yesterday, but it always seems like he was there for more than just one year. His age could get a team interested, and really, it only takes one team to drive up the price of a FA.
If he averages 12/10 for the year you may be right. Big men with attitude and can put up numbers are hard to find.
