Since Miami doesn't have his Bird rights, they can only offer him 4.5% raises. *Edit - Correction: they have his Early-Bird rights - so they can offer him 7.5% raises. (However the early-bird exception only allows them to pay him up to $1.7M if they go over the cap to sign him.) Here's a look at Miami's cap situation: Signed/Guaranteed: - C Bosh, $23,741,060 - G Dragic, $15,891,725 - J McRoberts, $5,782,450 - J Winslow, $2,593,440 ** $48M Guaranteed Assuming the CAP is at $92M, that gives them $44M of CAP space. Here are their CAP holds: - D Wade, $30,000,000 - L Deng, $13,197,096 Everyone else is non-guaranteed, or minimum salary. A team must have a minimum 12 man roster, filled out on minimum contracts, so if they only keep the 6 players noted above, there's a $3M CAP hit to reserve the minimum roster spots. Since Whiteside is only a 4 year vet, his max salary will be about $21.5M. $44M - $3M - $21.5M = $19.5M Essentially, to be able to keep Whiteside, Miami would have to let everyone go on their roster with non-guaranteed salaries, including L Deng, and get Wade to sign for $19.5M or less. Highly unlikely.
Alright, I think I have to add Barnes to my "don't even consider" list alongside DeRozan. I just honestly don't get what all the fuss is about - he's SO MUCH WORSE than "Bad Nic" was.
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/15596878/dwight-howard-qa-superman-returns Does this change anyone's opinion?
Not really. When youre in an everyone for themselves environment its easy to feel the same way. Plus morey is an idiot. Dwight would be signing with us knowing about dames leadership. Harden didnt have that, neither did kobe. They both are me first players. Dame would let howard have whatever spotlight he wanted, and is intelligent enough to know that he would need to get dwight to buy in. Dame and dwight seem to be very friendly when around each other. So if we sign him, dame and olshey have vetted him properly and approve. Thats way more important to me than a bunch of forum geeks that are gonna shit themselves.
The article starts off by calling him "The 32 year old center." Howard is 30. Not good fact checking for the opening line. Howard seems well spoken and sincere. Yes, there are some red flags, but this might be the perfect 'buy low' scenario. He sounds like he has a chip on his shoulder and something to prove. Sounds a lot like the rest of our roster that out performed this past year. He could blend right in with that mind set.
Also. So he went to Morey, but came out of it saying the comment shouldn't come from Morey, but the coach? Huh? So why'd you go to Morey then?
TBH, the article makes me want him less. He comes off as a diva kinda mentally fragile. We just got rid of a similarly fragile dude last year and have another one waiting in the ranks in Meyers. Don't need to add to that.
Dwight does come out kind of whiny in that interview, but I think he could thrive in our team culture.
We have interesting results in the Poll. Let's sign him is at 21 Hell No is at 20 Depends on the price is at 51%. So You can interprate this as a draw basically. Because if the price is right 79.2% of voters would bring him in... Or you can read it as if his price is too high 78.1% so No Ho!
Do these responses give anyone pause when thinking about signing Howard? ESPN: One of the other criticisms of your game is you never expanded your range beyond the key. Why not? Howard: "I used to shoot 1,000 shots a day. I called Kobe when I was still playing in Orlando and asked him what I should do. He's the one who told me to do take 1,000 a day. So I'd practice and practice them but then I'd be so afraid to take them in a game because I was so worried I would miss. I hate messing up. I hate failure. I was just talking to (WNBA) star Tina Thompson the other day about it. I told her about my fear of missing and she said, 'Dwight, you're gonna miss. Everyone does.' But I want to be perfect.'' ESPN: So you don't take perimeter jumpers because you are afraid you will miss them? Howard: "I don't like messing up. I didn't want to turn on the TV and see people say, 'Dwight is taking all those outside shots, he's screwing around, he doesn't care, he doesn't want to win.' So that's the war I'll be having in my head. I'm working on it. I have a sports psychologist I used in Houston and I have one in Minnesota. If my spiritual and mental game is right, the physical part will follow.'' Source: ESPN.com I'm not sure if Portland would be the right fit. We're a one horse town and all major contributors to the Trail Blazers are always put under a microscope. How would Dwight handle being looked at through that type of lens?
Howard's comments certainly don't suggest being willing to embrace a smaller role. He likely sees himself as an offensive centerpiece type of player which, to me, isn't great news. If Olshey signs him, I'll hope for the best but won't be expecting a lot. I don't think Olshey will sign him, though.
Sounds like we could sell him on Stotts. I agree he does come across whiny, but maybe he went to Morey because Morey is the one who convinced him to sign. Maybe he made promises that were not kept. I would never want to have Dwight as the focal point of our offense, but there definitely would be enough shots for him the way our team is made up now. On the other hand maybe Dwight needs to go somewhere that features him. Maybe home to Atlanta is his best option. But then Atlanta would need to move some players. I heard yesterday Horford wanted close to 30 million...per
http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/1...ne-wade-hassan-whiteside-offseason-priorities "I really think we took a major step forward this year," Riley said. "When you objectively look at where we were two years ago and where we are today, the possibilities ... the flexibility we created." That flexibility leaves the Heat with at least $40 million in salary-cap space to spend in free agency this summer, though most of that amount is likely set aside to retain Whiteside and Wade. Riley said Wednesday that the team's top goal is to bring back Whiteside, who hits the open market in position to command a deal that could be worth up to $100 million over four years.
Yep. That matches my calculations. With that $40M of "space", they have $43M of Cap holds. Let go of Deng, and sign Wade at a discount, and they can get Whiteside back. Is he worth gutting a team for?
They don't have to renounce anyone until they really need the cap space. If Wade agreed to a $10M contract, it'd free up $20M in cap space.
What constitutes "gutting the team"? Because I guarantee you 30/30 GMs in the league would take Whiteside over Deng/Johnson/Green/Stoudemire.
