IIRC, Camby came off the bench with the Clip Show. I don't think he'd mind, especially as he gets older. Playing fewer minutes will help lengthen his career. Besides, he's enough of a vet to know that it's not important to start as it is to finish.
I think it means that they arent confident Joel will return and if he does he wont be the same defensive force he was.
This means Joel's contract will be traded at the deadline because it is a goldmine. It is being paid for 80% by insurance and it is expiring.
It is only being paid 80% till he comes back which is expected to be December. Still nice for a penny pinching team, especially when 3 mil is added.
This "goldmine" sounds eerily familiar to another contract the Blazers had last year. I wonder what they got for that... Or a few years earlier when Nick Van Exel/Shareef/Damon had expiring deals, those must have been worth sooo much. And a few years before that there was Sabonis and his super valuable non-guaranteed deal.....
Maybe they made the large contract offer to Camby because they already know they will get 80% of Joel's salary back next year.
Andre Miller. Hope JPEC works out as well. Of course, with JPEC, it'll have to be a trade since Portland can't use it to get under the cap like they could with RLEC. Which KP knows (and hopefully Warkentien understands too, when he takes over).
This is something I thought about. We're signing Camby for about $10 mil + some incentives. Where does that place the value of Oden? And was this contract structured with the idea of insinuating to Oden, "look, you're good, but not as good as Camby at age 36 so we'll resign you at less (around $8 mil per year)". Now, I doubt that, but Vulcan works in strange ways.
No way will he expect a max extension this summer, unless he's got some evil agent whispering nonsense into his ear.
but oden is better than camby(at any point in camby's career), so that wouldn't really send that message.
Love the Camby resigning. What a pleasant surprise, and a real boon to have a defensive player of the year mentoring Oden for the next couple of seasons.
He may not expect one, but that may not prevent him from going after one. Let me put it this way. He was a #1 pick and I think it's safe to say that if we don't offer him a deal worth $10 mil per season, he'll sign a qualifying offer and become a free agent after next season. If he has a remotely good year, teams will line up to give him a max deal. And because Vulcan diss'd him the year before, we won't be in the mix. Or, he becomes a restricted free agent and a team like OKC offers him $12 mil for 4 years. Do we match? I'm not saying it will happen, but it's a very easy scenario.
They will let it go to restricted FA and see what happens. If someone makes an offer, they will match.
It is certainly realistic. And if he plays well enough (and long enough) to justify it, I think Paul would have no problem cracking open his checkbook for that and more after next season. I just don't see him (or the Vulcans) overpaying for Greg until he can show that he is physically capable of surviving a season relatively intact.
I hope you're right. Overpaying for Oden would be a terrible decision....but if he leaves, it will be terrible PR. The Oden/Bowie comparisons will never go away. It really is a can't win scenario for the Blazers.
If he doesn't play well or gets another major injury next season, it is indeed a "can't win" scenario. However, if he is even moderately successful and (just as importantly) healthy on the court, I wouldn't mind giving him a fat contract in the slightest.
