Kyle Lowry stays in TOR

[slamtheking]

The player to watch is Eric Bledsoe.  He wants a big payday, but the teams that can afford to give it to him might not want to.  His best hope for a max is with the Lakers, or maybe Philly.

good point.  I don't see Philly chasing him because they're still in tank mode for next year to keep that first rounder and to snag another top pick in the next draft. 

I could see him going to the Lakers if they strike out on the bigger names and Phx decides not to throw a lot of money at him. 

[MBunge]

That is a fair contract price. Maybe all players are not going to get inflated deals this summer. Maybe Ainge and Co just overpaid.

He didn't overpay.  Avery is worth that on the market.   Would you rather have Meeks?

No, I'd rather not sign him if that's he's worth, which he's not.

Ok, great.  So then everyone is crying because we lose Bradley and don't replace him with anyone.  Basically Danny is in a lose/lose with the fans right now. I understand that since we haven't brought in a big name, but you guys are dead wrong on Bradley.

Except we replaced him with Marcus Smart, it's not a lose/lose if Bradley walks. Danny should have tested the market and let the offers placed before resigning him. If that's really what he commands in the market, let him walk. We Rondo, we drafted Smart and Young, we have Chris Johnson, we have Pressey. We have a load of guards, so that issue is solved.

Chris Johnson?  Pressey?  Young?  If you think any of those guys can replace Avery's contribution, you're nuts.  And one of the reasons why Ainge could give Bradley this kind of deal is because he drafted Smart, which means he doesn't have to spend a bunch on another guard (assuming Smart doesn't turn into a bust).

I wish you amateur GMs could grasp that cap room or cap flexibility don't mean anything if your team sucks.  And swapping out Bradley for Smart just to save a couple of million dollars a year is exactly the sort of "trapped in mediocrity" move of which everyone is so afraid.

Mike

[pearljammer10]

Lol Pat Riley is running out of options!

The best option in Pau Gasol is still out there.

OKC and SA are reported to be after Pau, tough road for the cHeat.

I hope he ends up with one of these teams, mainly OKC. Durant, Westbrook, Ibaka, Gasol would be pretty stellar.

Gasol and Duncan next to each other would be ridiculously good too though.

[BballTim]

That is a fair contract price. Maybe all players are not going to get inflated deals this summer. Maybe Ainge and Co just overpaid.

He didn't overpay.  Avery is worth that on the market.   Would you rather have Meeks?

No, I'd rather not sign him if that's he's worth, which he's not.

Ok, great.  So then everyone is crying because we lose Bradley and don't replace him with anyone.  Basically Danny is in a lose/lose with the fans right now. I understand that since we haven't brought in a big name, but you guys are dead wrong on Bradley.

Except we replaced him with Marcus Smart, it's not a lose/lose if Bradley walks. Danny should have tested the market and let the offers placed before resigning him. If that's really what he commands in the market, let him walk. We Rondo, we drafted Smart and Young, we have Chris Johnson, we have Pressey. We have a load of guards, so that issue is solved. They are not an all NBA Defender, true, but Smart has the potential to be, if not, still a very good defender.

There's no reason to use that much cap room for a guy who did average 15 a game (on 14 shots BTW, so inflated IMO), who plays GREAT defense and shoot well but is completely undersized for his position and cant do anything else.

They should have done what T-Dot did. I'm not going to go quote a source, this is just me, but chances are they are willing to spend a ton of money for Lowry, but they started in what they think is fair value at $12mil and work from there, and it happened. Danny could have started by looking at what he commands, as he can always match if he really wants to keep him anyway. He's got that and replacements, him deciding all of a sudden to use $8 mil of our cap room is a bad move.

That is a fair contract price. Maybe all players are not going to get inflated deals this summer. Maybe Ainge and Co just overpaid.

Fixed it for you.

They did overpay for Bradley. I mean Lowry coming in this Free Agency had the season worthy of a big payday, worthy of an All Star bid even though he did not make it. And yet he got Ty Lawson money, in Toronto. That's great negotiating on the FO side of things for T-Dot. Absolutely fair price. Compare to our FO here who are just throwing away cap room.

Guys like Courtney Lee get 5 mil deals.  Is Bradley better than Lee?   They didn't overpay for Bradley.  How much did you want him to make? 6 Mil?  And when he's scoring 16+ this year .... you don't think he's worth more than 6 mil?  Plus, we have his bird rights so I know that has affect on cap and what not, so it's not like we had 8 mil to go spend on a FA.  This deal makes plenty of sense. 

Lee is better than Bradley and he gets $5 million. Yeah I said it.

He's not a better defender but he can defend. He stays on the floor a lot more than Bradley does, he's not undersized. He can handle the ball BETTER than Avery. He's more efficient (although by a couple of % but still). Their stat line are pretty similar per 36 (with Bradley scoring 4 points more but shooting 5 more times). And Lee gets $5 mil while Avery gets $8 mil. So, who's not overpaid?

BTW, 15 points on 14 shots, that's not a stat line I'm going to use to determine how good a player is.

  First of all it's silly to think that Danny had no idea what the market was for Bradley before he made the offer. Secondly you can't really put Toronto in a better light for the deal they gave Lowry. They'd be crazy to pay him much more than they did and he's someone who's about 5 years older than Bradley, has spent much of his career on the trading block and had a career year in a contract year. And Lee isn't a better player than Bradley, at least in the eyes of nba coaches like Stevens or Rivers. They both started Bradley over him when they were both healthy.