Free Agents are signing now.....who's left? (who i think we need2get)

[fanofgreen]

Ben Wallace (safe pickup, still decent defensively)
Ian Mahinmi (my favorite, he can be Cliff Rays new project)
Earl Barron (would be good pickup in my opinon, solid big)
Jamaal Maglorie (solid)
Kwame Brown (servicable)
Steven Hunter(solid when healthy)
Randolph Morris (solid, young enough to mold still)
Jarron Collins (solid)
Craig Smith(replace baby, combine Baby+Sheed as a trade package)
Sean Williams??(yes, I'm bringing back the Sean Williams idea)


Shaun Livingston (wouldnt mind)
Tracy McGrady (want)
Rasual Butler (really want)
Josh Howard (really dont want, but may have to settle)
Sasha Pavlovic (servicable)
Bobby Simmons (servicable, maybe most injury riddled player on list {including T-MAC})


If we could find away to sign: T-Mac, Rasual Butler, and Ian Mahinmi. that would be my dream situation. plus we would still have Sheeds contract to use.

Rondo/T-Mac/Bradley
Ray/TA/T-Mac
Pierce/Butler/T-Mac
KG/Baby/Harongody
JO/Mahinmi/(perk)


I love T-Mac's versatility...he's no longer a franchise player or even an #2 or #3 guy on a team. But I think he is still capabale of the occasional Franchise player night, or #2 guy night...and with that plus his ability to play 3 positions comfortably, teams will have to (defensively) respect Tracy, when he is out on the floor. Also with T-Mac you can have games during the regular season, where you can play PP and Ray low minutes, to rest them, knowing you can throw T-Mac out there and is capable of bearing the scoring load (not like he use to, but you dont just lose that scoring knack like Tracy has, He's just one of those natural born scorers)

So my ideal situation  with free agents would be:
T-Mac
Rasual Butler
Ian Mahinmi

[Rashi]

I want Ben Wallace. He still averages about 8 rebounds a game and could be a good backup for JO till Perks doesn't come back.


Besides another big body who is a great rebounder can never hurt the team.

[jr_3421]

Well since we can offer the most money to Nate and TA, they are the players I would expect Danny to sign. As for other free agents, we should be looking at bigs who will take the vet min. Kwame I think who be a nice addition. He is definitely a good 3rd big and a serviceable back up for half a season. It also gives us more versatility in that O'Neal is more of a finesse player while Kwame is a banger.

[fanofgreen]

Well since we can offer the most money to Nate and TA, they are the players I would expect Danny to sign. As for other free agents, we should be looking at bigs who will take the vet min. Kwame I think who be a nice addition. He is definitely a good 3rd big and a serviceable back up for half a season. It also gives us more versatility in that O'Neal is more of a finesse player while Kwame is a banger.

Well I wouldn't go as so far to call Kwame a "banger", I liken him to being "less-finesse"
haha

[Surferdad]

Well since we can offer the most money to Nate and TA, they are the players I would expect Danny to sign. As for other free agents, we should be looking at bigs who will take the vet min. Kwame I think who be a nice addition. He is definitely a good 3rd big and a serviceable back up for half a season. It also gives us more versatility in that O'Neal is more of a finesse player while Kwame is a banger.

Well I wouldn't go as so far to call Kwame a "banger", I liken him to being "less-finesse"
haha

Right.  We used the MLE on JO, right?  That means the chips left are Sheed's contract and vet min deals, so any FA would have to take the vet min.  Thst eliminates a lot of players, and a lot of the players on the OP's list are going to hold out for better deals before they settle for the vet min.

[fanofgreen]

Well since we can offer the most money to Nate and TA, they are the players I would expect Danny to sign. As for other free agents, we should be looking at bigs who will take the vet min. Kwame I think who be a nice addition. He is definitely a good 3rd big and a serviceable back up for half a season. It also gives us more versatility in that O'Neal is more of a finesse player while Kwame is a banger.

Well I wouldn't go as so far to call Kwame a "banger", I liken him to being "less-finesse"
haha

Right.  We used the MLE on JO, right?  That means the chips left are Sheed's contract and vet min deals, so any FA would have to take the vet min.  Thst eliminates a lot of players, and a lot of the players on the OP's list are going to hold out for better deals before they settle for the vet min.

Yeah. I think for the most part, all of the bigs, on my list, are vet. min type of players at this point. I think if they all walked away from this offseason with vet. mins heading into the season, i dont think anyone would be surprised. (Kwame might be the exception though)

as far as the wings on my list, I think Butler and Livingston will get more than the vet. min maybe J. Howard too. But I dont think its a stretch either that they could all easliy only recieve vet. min offers.

And as for T-Mac, he's really the wild card. he could wind up getting a much larger deal, someother teams MLE, or vet. min. However,
I think though the lure of playing for a contender, and playing for Doc again could, and playing with vets kind of from his era, would be enticing enough for him to agree to play for the vet. minimum.

[OhioGreen]

Hope you liked our summer league team, cause that's probably who will end up being 11-15 on our team.
Any FA with any decent skills at all is either going to sign with the Heat or with teams like the Nets who have boatloads of unused $$$ after not being able to sign any big FA's.
Guys like TMac will probably end up with 3-5 mil per year from Nets.
Erden, Gaffney, Lafayette, JC Carroll, and Kravtsov(Parakhouski) could be your third string!
Uggghhhh!!!!

[fanofgreen]

Hope you liked our summer league team, cause that's probably who will end up being 11-15 on our team.
Any FA with any decent skills at all is either going to sign with the Heat or with teams like the Nets who have boatloads of unused $$$ after not being able to sign any big FA's.
Guys like TMac will probably end up with 3-5 mil per year from Nets.
Erden, Gaffney, Lafayette, JC Carroll, and Kravtsov(Parakhouski) could be your third string!
Uggghhhh!!!!

Yeah, I mean unfortunately thats a not so far off real possibility.

However I feel like Danny will be able to do better than that

[pearljammer10]

I know we used the MLE to sign JO and I know we have vet min deals for the rest of the free agency crop, but how come no one has mentioned the LLE? Do we not have that for some reason or since we are over the cap we dont get to use it this year?

Im guessing we will have most of our team from last year back and our current roster will probably look like this...

Rondo/Nate
Allen/TA/Bradley
Pierce/
KG/Baby/Harongody(sp?)
JO/Perk

Leaving Wallace off the current list leaves us with 11 players... Looking at the roster, which consists of some undersized men on the front court, I would look to pick up at least one more center and the biggest target would be for a back up three... I still think we need a 6th man capable sf/wing man to come off the bench for us...

Plan A for me at center would be to give Ben Wallace a vet min contract. He can still bang down low defensively and will always be able to bang the boards. If that doesnt help I would sign Kwame to the Vet min and let him ride the pine and give us some sparring minutes while Perk is still out.

Plan A for the wing: T Mac. Would love to have him off the bench first however I dont think we could nab him with the vet min. I wouldnt mind trading Wallace's contract to pick him up. Second option would be using Wallace's contract on a guy like Barnes or Battier. Third option would be Josh Howard.

Leaving us with a best case scenario lineup of

Rondo/Nate
Allen/TA/Bradley
Pierce/TMac(or Barnes/Bat)
KG/Baby/Harongody
JO/Wallace/Perk

Leaves us with two open roster spots. With that i would add a veteran PG on the verge of retiring and try to nab a young athletic project power forward. I would even like to trade Big Baby to get a little more athletic at the back up forward spot now that Harongody could fill the undersized PF hustle role.

[fanofgreen]

I know we used the MLE to sign JO and I know we have vet min deals for the rest of the free agency crop, but how come no one has mentioned the LLE? Do we not have that for some reason or since we are over the cap we dont get to use it this year?

Im guessing we will have most of our team from last year back and our current roster will probably look like this...

Rondo/Nate
Allen/TA/Bradley
Pierce/
KG/Baby/Harongody(sp?)
JO/Perk

Leaving Wallace off the current list leaves us with 11 players... Looking at the roster, which consists of some undersized men on the front court, I would look to pick up at least one more center and the biggest target would be for a back up three... I still think we need a 6th man capable sf/wing man to come off the bench for us...

Plan A for me at center would be to give Ben Wallace a vet min contract. He can still bang down low defensively and will always be able to bang the boards. If that doesnt help I would sign Kwame to the Vet min and let him ride the pine and give us some sparring minutes while Perk is still out.

Plan A for the wing: T Mac. Would love to have him off the bench first however I dont think we could nab him with the vet min. I wouldnt mind trading Wallace's contract to pick him up. Second option would be using Wallace's contract on a guy like Barnes or Battier. Third option would be Josh Howard.

Leaving us with a best case scenario lineup of

Rondo/Nate
Allen/TA/Bradley
Pierce/TMac(or Barnes/Bat)
KG/Baby/Harongody
JO/Wallace/Perk

Leaves us with two open roster spots. With that i would add a veteran PG on the verge of retiring and try to nab a young athletic project power forward. I would even like to trade Big Baby to get a little more athletic at the back up forward spot now that Harongody could fill the undersized PF hustle role.

I'm not exactly sure on how the LLE works, good question though.


Yeah. I like this scenairo.
Although I think we may have a log jam at that back wing, with PP/Tmac/barnes or battier.

And even if we signed Ben Wallace, size wise we dont get bigger.
So for the extra two roster spots, I would try and get Ian Mahinmi, and then leave the other spot open, for our annual "mid-season pickup".
And then you would still have Sheed's contract, and if your willing to move Baby.....maybe you package Baby and Sheed's contract and try and get something out of that.

[Jon]

According to ESPN, Raja Bell is a FA.  He'd be interesting.  He has experience, plays D, and can shoot. 

[BballTim]

I know we used the MLE to sign JO and I know we have vet min deals for the rest of the free agency crop, but how come no one has mentioned the LLE? Do we not have that for some reason or since we are over the cap we dont get to use it this year?

  I think you get the LLE every other year and we used it last year.

[blackbird]

If an absolutely awful player like Jermaine O'Neal is getting the full MLE there's no way T-Mac is settling for anything less than that.

I would be more interested in Mahinmi if the team that drafted him (the Spurs) seemed even remotely interested in him. Yeah, I guess he's an athletic big guy, but Buford and Popovich have a very good record of judging talent and they've given up on him. Usually when teams don't pick up player options on young guys, then those guys don't belong in the league (see: O'Bryant, Patrick).

Any chance that Michael Sweetney lost 50+ pounds in a year?

[manl_lui]

i would consider

Ben Wallace
T-Mac
Josh Howard

Ben Wallace is a very good rebounder and plays very good D
T-Mac is injury prone, so if we can monitor his minutes to 20-25 minutes behind Ray Ray, then i believe he could be pretty good
Josh Howard, no need to say, we know how he plays

[oldmanspeaks]

Celtics cut Ben Wallace and he ended up being pretty good.