Boston and LA: Offseason Moves

[Cooldude5t5]

1. Re-sign James Posey (If not then get Matt Barnes)
2. Draft Chalmers to be back up pg
3. Steal Haslem from Miami because they are shopping him.

[Brickowski]

If Miami is shopping Haslem, the deal probably is, if you want Haslem, you have to take Marcus Banks too.

[Bahku]

Along with the starting five, priority should be given to retaining as a core: Posey, Powe, and House, (in that order), and extra attention given to developing Big Baby and Pruitt. I see the "expendables" as being: Pollard, Scalabrine, Cassell, Brown, and Tony Allen. I still like the idea of a true back-up point guard or two guard, and we obviously need shoring up in the height department ... a true center would be nice, but it's such an incredibly rare commodity these days.

[cordobes]

What do you think the odds are that Danny will try for one of the "big fish" in the free agent pond?  Consider Baron Davis, for example.  He has been paid just over $17 million per year from Golden State.  If the Celtics let go of the expiring contracts (House, Tony Allen, Pollard, Cassell, Brown), they could easily match that. 

Plus, we have seen that some are willing to take a pay cut to play for the Celtics, so they could try to keep one of the aforementioned for longer, or at least put the team closer to the salary cap.

Nil. First, the combined salaries for the 5 guys you mention is about $7 million, nowhere near enough. Second, the salaries of those guys is irrelevant to what we could pay a free agent. We can only pay a free agent whatever money we have available under the cap. We're already well over the salary cap (and even luxury tax) for next year with the 9 guys we have (starting 5, Powe, Davis, Pruitt, Scalabrine). Because of this, the most we can offer a free agent from another team is the mid-level exception, about $5.6 mil. Eddie House is the only guy from the above list who would effect that number, since he'll be getting more than the veteran's minimum and we don't have any Bird rights for him since he's only been in Boston one season. Third, Baron has a player option I believe, and wouldn't walk away from a guaranteed $17-18 million to sign with Boston for $5 million. Even if he gave a "ring" discount, he's not going to take less than a third of what he's guaranteed. Same with any other big fish like Jermaine O'Neal or Elton Brand.

Bottom line, we're not going to get an All Star player with our MLE. In all likelihood, we'll be spending the money on Posey and looking for minimum contract guys. Our best chance at being able to make any real offseason moves remains Posey exercising his option for next year (which would probably require a promise from Ainge to extend him during the season).

Questions for CBA experts:
(1) Can we talk with Posey/his agent before he has to make a decision on his option?
(2) Can we negotiate such that he exercises his option and we immediately sign him to a 3 year, $18 mil extension under his "early Bird" rights? I know that after 2 seasons with a team, a player can resign with that team for 175% of his previous salary without affecting the MLE or LLE. But does the player have to have completed the two years before an early Bird extension can be signed (i.e., he can't sign an early Bird extension until after next season)?

I'm not an expert, but:
1) He already made a decision in his option, the limit was June 15th.
2) No, he has to complete the 2 years. Though we can offer him the non-Bird exception (5 years - $22.5M) right now.

[cordobes]

I would be curious about people's thoughts if the Celtics were unable to resign Posey.  Which FA would you try to target instead?

My two (both from GSW): Pietrus, Barnes.
Both can hit the three.
Pietrus is longer.
Pietrus is known as more of a defender than Barnes, but I think both would thrive outside of Don Nelson's system; specifically, I think both would thrive in a defensive oriented system like we have got going here in Boston.

Other 2/3s that people have in mind??

I keep saying this, but I haven't seen anyone else mention him:

Mo Evans.  Do you guys know who he is?  Well, he's good, and he's a great fit on this team.  Plus, stealing him from a conference rival wouldn't be a bad thing.

I agree, he'd be a perfect back court backup. But we'd need to have the MLE availabe to have a chance of getting him.

[IdahoGreen]

What do you think the odds are that Danny will try for one of the "big fish" in the free agent pond?  Consider Baron Davis, for example.  He has been paid just over $17 million per year from Golden State.  If the Celtics let go of the expiring contracts (House, Tony Allen, Pollard, Cassell, Brown), they could easily match that. 

Plus, we have seen that some are willing to take a pay cut to play for the Celtics, so they could try to keep one of the aforementioned for longer, or at least put the team closer to the salary cap.

Nil. First, the combined salaries for the 5 guys you mention is about $7 million, nowhere near enough. Second, the salaries of those guys is irrelevant to what we could pay a free agent. We can only pay a free agent whatever money we have available under the cap. We're already well over the salary cap (and even luxury tax) for next year with the 9 guys we have (starting 5, Powe, Davis, Pruitt, Scalabrine). Because of this, the most we can offer a free agent from another team is the mid-level exception, about $5.6 mil. Eddie House is the only guy from the above list who would effect that number, since he'll be getting more than the veteran's minimum and we don't have any Bird rights for him since he's only been in Boston one season. Third, Baron has a player option I believe, and wouldn't walk away from a guaranteed $17-18 million to sign with Boston for $5 million. Even if he gave a "ring" discount, he's not going to take less than a third of what he's guaranteed. Same with any other big fish like Jermaine O'Neal or Elton Brand.

Bottom line, we're not going to get an All Star player with our MLE. In all likelihood, we'll be spending the money on Posey and looking for minimum contract guys. Our best chance at being able to make any real offseason moves remains Posey exercising his option for next year (which would probably require a promise from Ainge to extend him during the season).

Thanks for the info; this clears this up for me. 

If we're going for MLE fish then, I'd like to see the Celtics in negotiations with a backup point guard such as Beno Udrih or Roger Mason and a backup center such as Melvin Ely, Alonzo Mourning, or Dikembe Mutombo. 

[lon3lytoaster]

Here's what I'd like to see from Boston...

Locking up Tom Thibodeau 
Draft Jason Thompson/JJ Hickson and DeMarcus Nelson
Resign Eddie House, Tony Allen, and James Posey
Let PJ retire and Pollard and Sam walk
Sign Ryan Gomes or maybe Kurt Thomas at if all possible. Not a great FA class I'd even consider signing Ricky Davis... Or maybe not.
Look for any trade where we can package Scal with Powe or Baby that helps us in any way.

Then I hope the Lakers get Gilbert Arenas to fight with Kobe over shots and Ron Artest to beat the hell out of both of them. That'd make my life to see that haha

[Triboy16]

Must do list for the celtics

1. re sign posey to a 3 year 15 million contract (danny prob couldn't risk to sign for more years anyways with pierce and ray allen uncertain to resign, who knows). Have a chance to make a dynasty(three in a row)

2. Sign house, draft to supplement of loss to pollard and pj brown. (lots of pf/centers over 6'10)

Doing these two things will creep up near the 80 million dollar mark payroll. Danny won't go higher from there. With the experience that powe, big baby, tony allen and development of pruitt, we don't need another pj brown, cassell hopefully

Must do list for the lakers

1. Trade odom for more defensive capable players

2. Sign Artest if he opts out(i think artest in a lakers uniform makes them good)

3. Maybe resign sasha vujacic. He was nowhere in the last two games of the finals. Kept whinning instead of concentrating on playing

4. Practice and work together with a possible starting unit that includeds, gasol, bynum, artest, bryant, farmer. Bench radmanovic, walton, ariza, possibly sasha or new player from odom trade

Lakers with bynum and artest will be scarier to play.

[Barnabas]

I've been giving this a lot of thought this morning. 

For the Lakers: 

1)  They've got a couple of bad contracts in Luke Walton and Vlad Rad.
2)  They've got athletic, talented but unproven youngsters (Farmar, Vujacic, Bynum, Ariza), but we know experience and maturity are just as important during the playoffs. 
3)  They have the height and the length inside and out, but they need to get tougher.
4)  On the positive side, they've got tradeable assets.  In other words, Odom and maybe even Gasol.

For the Celtics:

1)  The 4th best player on the team is looking to opt out for more money.
2)  The primary backups (PJ, Posey, House, Cassell) are all presumably leaving.
3)  We have to have long range shooters at the backup PG, SG, and SF to compensate for Rondo.
4)  We don't really have many bad contracts other than Scal. 
5)  Powe and Perkins increased their market value during the playoffs.

The Lakers might want to trade off some youth for experience and maturity.  They also need to get tougher on the defense.  And they need someone to cover Paul Pierce.  The best case scenario is they sign a very professional veteran who can fulfill all of those.  Bruce Bowen and James Posey can address most of those, except tougher inside play.  Bowen is under contract though.  If I were the Lakers, I would make an effort to get Posey.  And then sign a veteran big man, just like we did with PJ, to cover the other need.  And they have Odom to use as trade material to do several things:  They can use him to obtain the player(s) to fulfill their needs, as well as use him in a package to get rid of their bad contracts.  I think Odom is a much better player than how he played during the playoffs. 

Boston should make a good effort to retain Posey.  He fulfills all of our needs at his position.  While we can certainly find another defensive guy, it would be hard to find one who also has his shooting range.  Do we give him a lot of money and handcuff ourselves?  That's a tough question to answer.  I don't think Posey should be making more than 4-5 mill per year.  Unfortunately, his stock may have over-inflated.

I haven't been a fan of House, but now I am starting to rethink my opinion.  Yes he is flawed, but if he weren't he wouldn't be available.  So maybe this is a case of accepting a player for his best qualities, as well as making a choice to live with his shortcomings.  If Pierce can play alongside Eddie and handle the ball, we should be fine.  But that would mean more minutes for Paul and limited minutes for Eddie if we play a team with extreme backcourt pressure (Detroit).  On other hand, Eddie should be fine being the ballhandler against most teams.  We need Eddie's shooting range and offense off the bench.  Powe should be developed, either for keeps or for future trade material.  His value to us is that he is the only one who really likes to play physical in the paint.  And despite his lack of height, he can score in the paint.  He is a legit NBA player and should be able to stay in the league with no problem because of his ability to play inside.  If he were 6'10" he probably would have been a pretty high draft choice.  The other guys on the bench right now are a non-issue. 

Remember how Danny kept two open spots on the roster, waiting patiently for the right players to come along?  I think we should maintain that same flexibility.  We don't want to get too enthusiastic about retaining and signing to the point that we lose that flexibility.  You guys seem to like Diop for the backup Center job.  I know nothing about him, but trust some of your opinions enough to accept.  If he becomes available and affordable, he would be worthwhile.

Draft:  With the idea of not taking on any more contracts except those who can provide immediate help (we are a mature team in contention mode, not rebuilding mode after all!), Danny should consider trading away the first round pick.  While Hardin is an attractive prospect, we need to have the discipline to stay the course and seek out only those players who can make a contribution while the Big Three are still in their prime. 

[Roy Hobbs]

The primary backups (PJ, Posey, House, Cassell) are all presumably leaving.

No need to presume that.  Maybe P.J. and Sam, but I think there's a very good chance that Posey and House stay.  I just hope no bridges were burned when House didn't get run in the playoffs.

[bucknersrevenge]

I've been giving this a lot of thought this morning. 

For the Lakers: 

1)  They've got a couple of bad contracts in Luke Walton and Vlad Rad.
2)  They've got athletic, talented but unproven youngsters (Farmar, Vujacic, Bynum, Ariza), but we know experience and maturity are just as important during the playoffs. 
3)  They have the height and the length inside and out, but they need to get tougher.
4)  On the positive side, they've got tradeable assets.  In other words, Odom and maybe even Gasol.

For the Celtics:

1)  The 4th best player on the team is looking to opt out for more money.
2)  The primary backups (PJ, Posey, House, Cassell) are all presumably leaving.
3)  We have to have long range shooters at the backup PG, SG, and SF to compensate for Rondo.
4)  We don't really have many bad contracts other than Scal. 
5)  Powe and Perkins increased their market value during the playoffs.

The Lakers might want to trade off some youth for experience and maturity.  They also need to get tougher on the defense.  And they need someone to cover Paul Pierce.  The best case scenario is they sign a very professional veteran who can fulfill all of those.  Bruce Bowen and James Posey can address most of those, except tougher inside play.  Bowen is under contract though.  If I were the Lakers, I would make an effort to get Posey.  And then sign a veteran big man, just like we did with PJ, to cover the other need.  And they have Odom to use as trade material to do several things:  They can use him to obtain the player(s) to fulfill their needs, as well as use him in a package to get rid of their bad contracts.  I think Odom is a much better player than how he played during the playoffs. 

Boston should make a good effort to retain Posey.  He fulfills all of our needs at his position.  While we can certainly find another defensive guy, it would be hard to find one who also has his shooting range.  Do we give him a lot of money and handcuff ourselves?  That's a tough question to answer.  I don't think Posey should be making more than 4-5 mill per year.  Unfortunately, his stock may have over-inflated.

I haven't been a fan of House, but now I am starting to rethink my opinion.  Yes he is flawed, but if he weren't he wouldn't be available.  So maybe this is a case of accepting a player for his best qualities, as well as making a choice to live with his shortcomings.  If Pierce can play alongside Eddie and handle the ball, we should be fine.  But that would mean more minutes for Paul and limited minutes for Eddie if we play a team with extreme backcourt pressure (Detroit).  On other hand, Eddie should be fine being the ballhandler against most teams.  We need Eddie's shooting range and offense off the bench.  Powe should be developed, either for keeps or for future trade material.  His value to us is that he is the only one who really likes to play physical in the paint.  And despite his lack of height, he can score in the paint.  He is a legit NBA player and should be able to stay in the league with no problem because of his ability to play inside.  If he were 6'10" he probably would have been a pretty high draft choice.  The other guys on the bench right now are a non-issue. 

Remember how Danny kept two open spots on the roster, waiting patiently for the right players to come along?  I think we should maintain that same flexibility.  We don't want to get too enthusiastic about retaining and signing to the point that we lose that flexibility.  You guys seem to like Diop for the backup Center job.  I know nothing about him, but trust some of your opinions enough to accept.  If he becomes available and affordable, he would be worthwhile.

Draft:  With the idea of not taking on any more contracts except those who can provide immediate help (we are a mature team in contention mode, not rebuilding mode after all!), Danny should consider trading away the first round pick.  While Hardin is an attractive prospect, we need to have the discipline to stay the course and seek out only those players who can make a contribution while the Big Three are still in their prime. 

well supposedly hardin is big athletic, smart and ready to play defense in the nba right now. he could help this team. that said as far as the frontcourt is concerned id rather the youth be served with perk, powe and big baby right now. and then maybe sign another vet big man if need be again. with the wing potential in this draft(rush, cdr, lee, walker, giddens, weaver) i think you draft a wing on the off chance you do lose posey and you dont feel tony will be himself next year. plus the chance to have a young athletic talent to be mentored like paul and ray(and hopefully posey) is why you go wing now.

[12417]

I think the Lakers were legitimately suprised to be in the Finals and for good reason. Their playoff run had a lot to do with the matchups they had rather than their actual being a championship caliber team. Denver is a mess and were just happy to get that last slot in the playoffs and play no defense. The Jazz suffered from poor play our of Boozer who should have dominated the soft inside like Boston, they also were stretched unnecessarily so by the Rockets in the first round and they had the real short turnaround from a Fri night game to a Sunday afternoon game 1 on the road. The Spurs suffered from Manu's injury, the travel debacle that led to fatigue in the game 1 loss and Duncan's lack of post muscle to exploit the soft defense inside.

If the Lakers stand pat I wouldn't be suprised to see them struggle to even make the playoffs next year. Kobe is their only legit star (after Gasol being exposed as a fraud) and he's following up a lengthy postseason run with playing in the Olympics? He's heading for a body fatigue type injury like a stress fracture, tendonitis, plantar facitis.

The C's definetly need to retain Posey because losing him would cut two-fold. They would be losing his beneficial play and he'd be signing with a team that could knock the C's out of the postseason next year.

Signing Gomes and playing Pruitt next year are also good moves. Next year Doc has to get PP's, KG's and RA's under 35min/per. Winning the division should be a slam dunk but #1 overall has to again be the regular season goal as we've seen how important that is to this club.

[expobear]

I've been giving this a lot of thought this morning. 

For the Lakers: 

1)  They've got a couple of bad contracts in Luke Walton and Vlad Rad.
2)  They've got athletic, talented but unproven youngsters (Farmar, Vujacic, Bynum, Ariza), but we know experience and maturity are just as important during the playoffs. 
3)  They have the height and the length inside and out, but they need to get tougher.
4)  On the positive side, they've got tradeable assets.  In other words, Odom and maybe even Gasol.

For the Celtics:

1)  The 4th best player on the team is looking to opt out for more money.
2)  The primary backups (PJ, Posey, House, Cassell) are all presumably leaving.
3)  We have to have long range shooters at the backup PG, SG, and SF to compensate for Rondo.
4)  We don't really have many bad contracts other than Scal. 
5)  Powe and Perkins increased their market value during the playoffs.

The Lakers might want to trade off some youth for experience and maturity.  They also need to get tougher on the defense.  And they need someone to cover Paul Pierce.  The best case scenario is they sign a very professional veteran who can fulfill all of those.  Bruce Bowen and James Posey can address most of those, except tougher inside play.  Bowen is under contract though.  If I were the Lakers, I would make an effort to get Posey.  And then sign a veteran big man, just like we did with PJ, to cover the other need.  And they have Odom to use as trade material to do several things:  They can use him to obtain the player(s) to fulfill their needs, as well as use him in a package to get rid of their bad contracts.  I think Odom is a much better player than how he played during the playoffs. 

Boston should make a good effort to retain Posey.  He fulfills all of our needs at his position.  While we can certainly find another defensive guy, it would be hard to find one who also has his shooting range.  Do we give him a lot of money and handcuff ourselves?  That's a tough question to answer.  I don't think Posey should be making more than 4-5 mill per year.  Unfortunately, his stock may have over-inflated.

I haven't been a fan of House, but now I am starting to rethink my opinion.  Yes he is flawed, but if he weren't he wouldn't be available.  So maybe this is a case of accepting a player for his best qualities, as well as making a choice to live with his shortcomings.  If Pierce can play alongside Eddie and handle the ball, we should be fine.  But that would mean more minutes for Paul and limited minutes for Eddie if we play a team with extreme backcourt pressure (Detroit).  On other hand, Eddie should be fine being the ballhandler against most teams.  We need Eddie's shooting range and offense off the bench.  Powe should be developed, either for keeps or for future trade material.  His value to us is that he is the only one who really likes to play physical in the paint.  And despite his lack of height, he can score in the paint.  He is a legit NBA player and should be able to stay in the league with no problem because of his ability to play inside.  If he were 6'10" he probably would have been a pretty high draft choice.  The other guys on the bench right now are a non-issue. 

Remember how Danny kept two open spots on the roster, waiting patiently for the right players to come along?  I think we should maintain that same flexibility.  We don't want to get too enthusiastic about retaining and signing to the point that we lose that flexibility.  You guys seem to like Diop for the backup Center job.  I know nothing about him, but trust some of your opinions enough to accept.  If he becomes available and affordable, he would be worthwhile.

Draft:  With the idea of not taking on any more contracts except those who can provide immediate help (we are a mature team in contention mode, not rebuilding mode after all!), Danny should consider trading away the first round pick.  While Hardin is an attractive prospect, we need to have the discipline to stay the course and seek out only those players who can make a contribution while the Big Three are still in their prime. 

well supposedly hardin is big athletic, smart and ready to play defense in the nba right now. he could help this team. that said as far as the frontcourt is concerned id rather the youth be served with perk, powe and big baby right now. and then maybe sign another vet big man if need be again. with the wing potential in this draft(rush, cdr, lee, walker, giddens, weaver) i think you draft a wing on the off chance you do lose posey and you dont feel tony will be himself next year. plus the chance to have a young athletic talent to be mentored like paul and ray(and hopefully posey) is why you go wing now.

When Cal played Kansas State earlier this year, Michael Beasley took an 18 ft jumper to start off the game and Hardin swatted it about 10 rows into the stands. You could see everybody turn around and go "Whoa, who was that?" So, the athleticism is there.  Unfortunately, Hardin drew a couple of fouls early and was never a factor in the game. And that's been the story of Hardin's career, foul trouble. I'd be surprised to see Hardin go in the first round. His teammate at Cal, Ryan Anderson, has much better skills but is said to be less athletic. Anderson, a sophomore, probably needs to bulk up a bit but had similar numbers as Powe did in his sophomore year. Big difference is Anderson can shoot the three.