He put up good numbers on a terrible team while playing less than half of the season. I hope he will play at least 75% of the games for the upcoming season.
I remembered when many were up in arms about the Lopez trade, saying "is this all we can get?!" I have a feeling Kaman may turn out like Lopez, in terms of being a "steal"
The key to kaman is he isn't on a shitty team, which means he isn't asked to do way more than he's capable. Just block shots, rebound and score occasionally in the post and he will be a good asset.
That wasn't my biggest worry with Lopez. He played in about 75% of the games each season. I'm hoping the same from Kaman, however, his track record indicates less than that. Hopefully our new training staff finds that lightning in a bottle. And Lopez eventually became one of my three favorite players on the team!
And his minutes 'should' be limited this season, coming off the bench. In theory, he should be fresher, able to play harder in shorter stints, and avoid the injury bug. While helping Lopez do the same.
Blazers new training staff for MVP! Seriously. We were screaming for the Blazers to clean house for years. Can't argue with the result and here's to more of the same.
You can say last year was a limited sample size... but almost half a season, there isn't going to be a huge fluctuation overall compared to a full season. Especially when you can look at his career numbers, which include an all star season.
Also you can look at his career numbers which are pretty decent (as a starter) an also see an upward tren over the last 5 seasons with him averaging over 18 and 9 per 36 with an average per around 17. Perfect kind of numbers for a very good reserve center.
It's really a breath of fresh air. Too many years we've had the injury report as common as a teen age homeless kid in Portland begging for cigarettes
Hawes choosing the Clipps definitely stings as a Blazers fan. I was excited to add him to our core. He is a huge addition to the Clipps because they got zero contributions from their back up big men. Hawes can give DeAndre or Blake extended rest. With his solid FT% he might be the one to close out games instead of DeAndre. When we signed Kaman I assumed Hawes was getting more than the MLE. This reinforces the stigma of Portland being a difficult place to attract free agents. We have to spend $2 million more than the Lakers for the same backup center. Our first big man target took the same money from the other LA team over us. I think this should show that the Blazers are not going to build a contender primarily from cap space free agents. A team like the Knicks or Lakers might be able to clear all contracts from their payroll and sign multiple stud free agents. The Blazers will have to utilize all asset acquiring vehicles in the draft, trades, and cap space. We can still benefit from cap space even without signing a player; last season we added Lopez and TRob with cap space. They weren't direct free agent signings but cap space is a means to add starting level talent to the roster. Once players spend a year in Portland I think we have a great chance of resigning them; we can always offer them more money at that time and many players seem to have a fondness for the city once they spend time living here. Maybe this will be a Hedo situation where we dodged a bullet and Kaman will have an unexpectedly good year. The next NBA season is always full of surprises. But right now this should be chalked up as a loss for the Blazers.
Looking at Wallace's contract history I think Matthews next contract should take him past him. http://www.spotrac.com/nba/detroit-pistons/ben-wallace/
I'm not a member of that site so I can't see his contracts but I thought he made over 100m during his playing time.
Try this link, Rhal. Just scroll down to the bottom for the yearly salaries. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/w/wallabe01.html
Transactions Jul 10 2013 Detroit (DET) renounced their free agent exception rights Jul 27 2010 Signed a 2 year $4.32 million contract with Detroit (DET) Aug 12 2009 Signed a 1 year $1.3 million contract with Detroit (DET) Jul 13 2009 Waived by Phoenix (PHX) Jun 26 2009 Traded to Phoenix (PHX) from Cleveland (CLE) with Sasha Pavlovic, cash and a 2010 2nd round draft pick for Shaquille O'Neal Feb 21 2008 Traded to Cleveland (CLE) from Chicago (CHI) with Joe Smith and a 2009 2nd round draft pick as part of a 3-team trade; the Chicago Bulls traded Adrian Griffin to the Seattle SuperSonics; the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Shannon Brown, Drew Gooden, Larry Hughes and Cedric Simmons to the Chicago Bulls; the Cleveland Cavaliers traded Donyell Marshall and Ira Newble to the Seattle SuperSonics; and the Seattle SuperSonics traded Wally Szczerbiak and Delonte West to the Cleveland Cavaliers Jul 13 2006 Signed a 3 year $46 million contract with Chicago (CHI) Aug 3 2000 Signed a 6 year $34 million contract with Orlando (ORL) Aug 3 2000 Traded to Detroit (DET) from Orlando (ORL) with Chucky Atkins for Grant Hill Aug 11 1999 Traded to Orlando (ORL) from Washington (WAS) with Terry Davis, Tim Legler and Jeff McInnis for Isaac Austin Jan 27 1999 Signed a 2 year $1.7 million contract with Washington (WAS) Jul 21 1997 Signed a 1 year $327k contract with Washington (WAS) Oct 2 1996 Signed a 1 year $248k contract with Washington (WAS)
