Regardless Of His Role, Chris Kaman Says You Don’t Need To Worry About Chris Kaman

He said that he still thinks he can play. I've never seen someone who still thinks that they can play readily accept a role at the end of the bench, mentoring young guys.

"But Kaman also admits that feeling as though he can still help a team on the court makes it hard to accept that he might be more useful tutoring his teammates on the finer points of, say, playing in the post than doing the posting up himself. You don’t thrive for over a decade in the NBA without being supremely confident in your abilities, and that confidence doesn’t necessarily wain just because you’re on the wrong side of 30.

“The only thing that will mess all of this with me is I know I can still play the game, I know I’m still really good at what I do and I can help a team,” said Kaman. “That’s the hard thing to swallow sitting there trying to help mentor and do the different things that I’ll probably have to do this year. That’s the only thing. But I’m not going to be the bad guy. That’s just not me. Me and Neil have a great relationship, I’m sure he’s probably going to get calls. But right now I’m happy where I’m at. I really love the organization.”

 

Of course he wants out. But unlike past situations, he intends to keep his nose to the grindstone and make the best of it.

 

He wants to play, and he wants to stay in shape if he gets traded and actually is valuable. But he has a kid now too. He probably thinks about being a coach long term.

 

I'm totally okay with him sticking around if he wants to coach and set a good example. I don't have a problem with it at all.

 

From the interview, I took that he would be fine if he got traded to a contender that wants to win; but he'll be fine here in a sporadic minute backup role too. He is mostly just glad we picked up his option because he is overpaid on it so even if some days he thinks he could play more minutes he won't cause any problems.

Unless he returns to form at an all star level in the minutes he's out there this season I don't think we trade him. Contenders aren't going to give us any sort of a decent second round pick unless he looks better than the last few years.

 

I disagree. I, and I bet Neil can imagine a team that suddenly has too many injuries at the center position and wants to contend before their star player becomes a free agent.

 

We will see. If it's next years second round pick from a contender your talking about picks in the #50+ range. I don't think teams will be offering more than that. Veterans like Josh Smith, Amare Stoudamire become available for the league minimum and they have more value than KMan. Zaza Paculia was available for free in a trade to the Mavs and performed better than Chris last year. Kaman is slightly overpaid on a $5 million contract so how would he have trade value beyond the cost of his contract? And that value is worthy of a decent second round pick? I just don't see it.

 

I think this is a concentrated effort by Kaman to reshape his image. That said, I think he's sincere. He did good work with Meyers last season and I think he envisions a career in coaching once his playing days are over.

Although he's ridiculously overpaid compared to the average working stiff, Kaman was never a max contract kind of player. Also, what's considered old by NBA standards is very young among the general working population. Kaman has a kid and he's thinking ahead to life beyond his playing days. Guys who have a rep as a hot head who can't get along with their head coach aren't going to be someone's first choice in an assistant coach. Acknowledging his past transgressions and making amends, and being a good mentor/teammate at the tail end of his playing career can go a long way to help reshape that image.

Again, I think he's sincere. After mentoring Meyers last season, and looking ahead to a possible coaching career, he's starting to see things from the other side. With age comes wisdom (sometimes).

Personally, I hope we don't trade him. After the work he put in with Meyers last season, I'd like to see him continue that mentorship and also bring Vonleh under his wing. That will help our young bigs improve much more rapidly, will help Kaman on his path to a coaching future and be worth way more than some late second round pick that Paul can always buy anytime he wants to.

BNM