Offer sheet timing

Jason Quick ‏@jwquick
For those curious about timing of the offer sheet signings of Hibbert and Batum: Signings based on calendar day received, not time of day

 

How do you interpret this in terms of what Neil & Co. have in the plans?

 

They won't have use for my services as a lighting fast fax specialist

 

That we will know Saturday at 8:59:59 pacific time if Hibbert will be a blazer or not

 

So, the moratorium officially ends on July 11th. If that's when NBA teams can officially sign players, shouldn't that mean that's when the three day offer sheets officially begin?

 

Yes. July,11th 12:00:01 am eastern time, or July 10th 9:00:01 pm pacific time

 

I already knew this from the Mayan calendar.

 

I guess that also means you try to get the Hibbert offer sheet in during the last hour of the 11th. If Batum signs an offer sheet (and you intend to match) you also may want to adjust how Hibbert's offer sheet is structured (if you have time) in the event you end up with both.

 

So the Blazers may not be able to base their decision on whether or not to match Batum on whether or not the Pacers match the offer to Hibbert.

Some have been talking about letting Batum go if we miss out on Hibbert. So if it were based on time of day, and Hibbert signed his offer sheet before Batum, the Pacers would have to decide on Hibbert before the Blazers had to decide on Batum.

 

Which almost guarantees that they match Nic's offer ... yay?

 

From all the comments coming out of the Blazers camp, I think that was already clear (unless they're doing a great job of deception). And I don't think an $11 million per year contract constitutes anything absurd that would scare the Blazers off.

 

I think the notion was circulating that the Blazers might let Nicolas walk if they can't get Hibbert (Kevin Arnovitz's article on Olshey last week if I recall).

Personally I'm not going to cry if they match; it's about 2 million per year more than I'd want to give him, but it's not going to be the end of the world. However I can't wait until next year when the inevitable forum meltdown comes after he's not quite living up to the money ... hell even if he is mostly living up the contract I feel like this is going to be the new meme around here.

Yay!

 

The other issue is using the remainder of our cap space before Batum's cap hold goes up on the 14th.

If the Pacers don't match Hibbert we will want to use all that cap room before it disappears. Perhaps we use it on Claver and or Freeland.

If the Pacer do match Hibbert we may be better off keeping the cap space to go after amnesty waivers or a starting center such as Kaman or McGee.

It would be much more advantageous if Batum would sign his offer on the 12th.

 

Yeah that is always an inevitable event. Once any player signs a contract he is immediately judged by his salary slot. Some guys never can handle it. Greg Ostertag was a great example. He went from a fan favorite in Utah to the "least favorite" player because IMO his contract. He played the same way before and after, but once he got a big contract he was crucified on their local talk shows by fans for years. It was kind of sad, but when you get paid the big bucks it comes with the territory. Right or wrong.

 

Not only will the contract be an anchor around his neck to fans, but his agents tactics in this whole thing will be remembered by everyone on here as well. It won't be nearly as bad with the "general" fans that don't care about this stuff, but the diehards will.