Houston going after Asik?

[Eddie20]

It's back loaded.

Year 1 - 5M
Year 2 - 5.225M
Year 3 - 15M

Ahhh...

Makes it almost impossible for the Bulls to match.

[Scribbles]

Serviceable bigs are always over paid, why are so many people on this blog seeming to be shocked by it? Its nothing new.

[goCeltics]

i would match if i were the bulls, in 2 years deng is off the books and boozer is in the last year which they can still amensty.

[goCeltics]

but it does make taj a problem

[goCeltics]

exhibit 1,908,284 as to why fab melo will be extremly valuable as a trade chip if he can play.

[henr1k]

Interesting move by Morey. First two years around 5M a year is a decent deal.

I guess he feels he can use that 15M expiring as a trade chip while making it almost impossible for Bulls to match.

[dreamgreen]

I would rather have no Center at all than pay that kind of $ to him. Give me a *&%$#@& break.

[Roy H.]

Since these deals are non-binding at this point, I wonder if Chicago would try to get Asik to agree to the same amount of money and years (3 years, $25 million) while structuring it differently.  Basically, tell Asik you're going to match, and try to get him not to sign an offer sheet with Houston at all.

EDIT:  Of course, if I'm Chicago I'm not sure I match this.  If I did, it would only be for purposes of trading him.  You can't pay your backup center $8 million per season, and a Noah/Asik front court doesn't work even if you amnesty Boozer.

[Roy H.]

Also, for clarification:  the structure of this contract isn't something clever Morey came up with.  Rather, offer sheets to restricted free agents playing in their first two seasons can't be for more than the MLE in the first two years, as part of the "Gilbert Arenas rule".

Larry Coon explains it well here: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q44

[nickagneta]

It's back loaded.

Year 1 - 5M
Year 2 - 5.225M
Year 3 - 15M

Ahhh...

Makes it almost impossible for the Bulls to match.

Unless they amnesty someone with a huge contract in 2014-15, like Boozer.

[chambers]

Haha the Rockets forums are having a major melt down.

His third year he'll be on 15 million. Wow that's amazing.
On here we were discussing if he was worth an 8 million dollar offer sheet.
Good thing about this is that Chicago loses more depth with Rose gone.
Only increases our chances this year.
Go west Asik! Goooooo

[LooseCannon]

Just to clarify, if Asik goes to Houston, they will be charged the average ($8.4-ish million) per year on the salary cap.  He would only have a $15m final year salary cap figure if Chicago matched.

[mctyson]

I feel like Asik is overhyped on this blog. Solely because he's an above mediocre C, and we need an above mediocre C. I'd take him, no doubt. But he will be vastly overpaid for what I'm predicting will be an underwhelming career, relative to the hype.

Celticsblog members tend to like mediocre to below-mediocre big men who don't smile and play defense.

[SHAQATTACK]

I knew this center thing was going to get out of hand. I proposed taking the three best centers avaiable as we picked .

DO some polishing work on them, keep the best one , and use the others for trade bait to get top quality FA' sat other positions.

A sort of FARM system for centers, get them young like FAB , get them going good , then trade em for higher round picks for other postions , but always bring in another CENTER project. 

[clover]

Here's an interesting piece from Forsberg comparing Asik and Stiemsma:

http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/celtics/post/_/id/4695786/restricted-access-bad-news-for-cs

One bit:

"There's no denying Asik's talents on the defensive end. Of all NBA players with at least 250 defensive possessions against them last season, he ranked No. 1 allowing a mere 0.653 points per play, according to Synergy Sports data.

Stiemsma? He ranked No. 7 at 0.711 points per play and often was the first big off the bench to spell Kevin Garnett, so it's not like his numbers were overly inflated by sharing court time with Boston's defensive anchor (it did help that Stiemsma and Brandon Bass worked together often, as Bass and KG were two of the six players ahead of Stiemsma)."

Also, as to rebounding, I think Greg was integrating things bit by bit last year, given that he hadn't had a regular preseason and wasn't practicing during the season.  But he was coming on strong with his rebounding, averaging over 10 per 36 minutes through the playoffs (best on the team), despite his injuries.

My guess is that the C's would go up to the BAE for him, which would make it pretty easy for another team to beat.