<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">The Eddy Curry cardiology tour has made me so dizzy and exhausted, I'm worried about my own heart. I'm also troubled that this saga is drifting even deeper into the unknown, toward a tangled, perilous web in which medical opinions are doomed to differ and city-wide compassion gives way to hard financial decisions. I would like to believe the conclusion of Dr. David Cannom, the Los Angeles specialist who has cleared Curry to resume basketball activities and says his arrythmia doesn't pose life-threatening dangers. But this information comes from Curry's agent, Leon Rose. Understandably, the Bulls are pushing their 6-11 center to have a face-to-face meeting with Cannom, but now comes word that the Curry camp might not arrange the sitdown until Saturday. The timing is too peculiar to be discounted as coincidence. One day before, Curry becomes a restricted free agent. All of which only feeds my belief, at the risk of sounding insensitive, that the Bulls are better off parting ways with their big man rather than locking themselves into a pricey medical gamble. If you're John Paxson and you have rebuilt this team from the ashes, do you really want to lock in Curry for $10 million a year or more when you aren't sure about his heart? Do you want to tie up your salary structure with a speculative health risk? Paxson says the Bulls will move forward with a one-year qualifying offer of $5.13 million this week, which will allow them to match any offer he receives from another NBA franchise. But if a team with ample salary-cap room -- Atlanta and Cleveland are among several -- chooses to buy into Cannom's report and make a major offer of $60 million-plus, Paxson and owner Jerry Reinsdorf would be crazy to match it. They'd be much better off executing a sign-and-trade deal for Curry and moving on without him. That way, they don't have to deal with the blind hope associated with his heart condition. Disgusted as I am about the team's wish that Curry take a DNA test -- if you have a heart, Pax, you'll stick to the heart here -- I do agree with the Reinsdorfian notion that you can't waste a fortune on a mystery. Unlike Magglio Ordonez, who was squabbling with the White Sox over money long before he injured his knee last season, Curry has been in line for a sizable contract ever since he and Tyson Chandler began to break through last winter. This isn't about Reinsdorf trying to be a hardliner in Curry's time of need. This is about a basketball team, down for seven years, trying to make the right financial calls to reach a championship level again. If the Bulls match a big offer this summer or give him a huge deal next summer, they'll be banking on Curry to be a healthy cornerstone for years to come. Realistically, can you do that without benefit of a crystal ball?</div> Source
I still believe barring some type of medical report coming out saying that his heart condition is something that may effect him in the future he will be a Chicago Bull next season. He is the best young big man on the free agent market this season I think questions about his health or not. You took four seasons to mold this guy into what he is now, he got in shape for your team, and provided the team with, they are first winning season since the Jordan era leading the team in scoring, and being the anchored that held the Bulls offense together. Only other option I see for Curry is probably doing a side and trade for a big guard which is something that Paxson has been looking for, and then using the MLE and some other money they may have, due to the new collective bargaining agreement to sign a big man such as Jerome James, Stromile Swift, or a long shot Big Z. Honestly, I do not feel any of these players are near the level of Eddy Curry except for Z, and even in that case he is older, has been injury prone as well, and would want a big pay day. You never gain anything in this league without taking a risk Curry I think is worth it. He has improved his scoring each of his NBA seasons in the league. He is probably top five in centers in the eastern conference possibly even top three.
Any way you look at it, Curry is still 22. So if his heart is OK, i say resign him, even if he commands a really big contract. Only the true greats come into this league and dominate right away. Most players need more time to come into their own. And this is especially true for high school players (not talking about Lebron/Kobe/Garnett type of guys here...). I feel we need to give him his 5 year deal no matter what. By the end of it, he will be 27, starting his top years, and we will his true value. So it's his next contract that will be the really important one.
