“I’m a one-on-one player.” So true — that’s both the best and worst thing about Kobe’s game.
Category: NBA (Page 104 of 595)
Joakim Noah wasn’t happy with the Bulls’ $55 million offer, but Chicago upped the ante and it seems the two parties have agreed to an extension.
The deal is worth $60 million plus additional bonuses, Dan Fegan, one of Noah’s agents, told ESPN The Magazine’s Ric Bucher.
I compared Noah to Andrew Bogut in a previous post, and this contract sound a lot like the one Bogut signed two years ago. Bogut’s deal raised a few eyebrows then, but he has since developed one of the best two-way centers in the league, earning All-NBA 3rd Team honors last season in his best year as a pro.
Between this contract and their refusal to include him in a deal for Carmelo Anthony, the Bulls obviously value what Noah brings to the table. According to 82 Games, his net points (per 100 possessions) was +0.9 last season, while Bogut’s was +8.0. In three head-to-head matchups last year, Bogut averaged 22/14 on 52% shooting, while Noah posted 10/16 on 42% shooting.
I think $12 M+ per season for a defensive/rebounding specialist is steep, but maybe Noah will develop offensively in the same way Bogut did. The difference is that Bogut started with a pretty good post game and developed from there, while Noah’s current post moves are rudimentary at best.
Carlos Boozer has a broken hand that is going to require surgery and he’s set to miss the next eight weeks.
Boozer suffered the injury on Saturday during the Bulls’ day off. Boozer tripped over a bag in his house and fell.
“[I was] at my house, came around the corner, fell over a bag, put my arm down to kind of brace myself,” Boozer said. “I’ll get surgery on Tuesday and do my rehab, be conditioned and run with the guys. The good thing about it was at least it only happened in the preseason.
The team says Boozer broke the fifth metacarpal bone in his hand. He was evaluated by team physician Dr. Brian Cole and hand specialist Dr. Marc Cohen of Midwest Orthopaedics at Rush.
There’s injury-prone, and then there’s this. Good grief. I wonder who put the bag “around the corner” — whoever it was, they’re probably going to cost the Bulls a few wins in November.
Boozer has already missed 145 games in his career, and now he’s going to miss around 15 more with this injury, including a particularly brutal seven-game road trip that includes the Spurs, Nuggets, Suns, Lakers, Mavs and Rockets. In fact, nine of the Bulls’ first 15 games are on the road, so it wouldn’t be surprising if Chicago is sitting at 6-9 or 7-8 at the end of November.
The good news is that Taj Gibson is a very capable power forward, so the Bulls won’t lose much in the starting lineup. But Gibson will have to be replaced on the bench, and that’s where Boozer’s minutes will really be missed.
K-Mart is upset that the Nuggets haven’t offered him an extension, per the Denver Post:
And Martin, who will make roughly $16.5 million in the last year of what was a seven-year, $90 million deal that started in 2004, isn’t taking the snub lightly.
“…I feel me being here and what I’ve done for this (team)… (an offer) would have at least been extended, and it wasn’t. So who made that decision, I don’t know. If those people are no longer here, I don’t know who made that decision. But the decision was made. And I ain’t happy. They know it. Everybody knows it.
“But I’m not going to keep on about it. I’m not going to distract from the team and everything else. I have enough going on with this knee. If they want to give me another contract here, they will. If not, I’ll go somewhere else and play.”
If he had an extension, “I’d be playing right now,” Martin said. “I’m not rushing, whatsoever. The day I come back is the day I come back. I’m in the last year of my deal, we all know it. Ain’t nobody in a hurry to give me one, so I’m not going to be in a hurry to come back. Think about it: Ain’t nobody in a hurry to give me a contract, so why would I be in a hurry to rush back and risk further injury. Makes all the sense in the world, right? Trust me, I’ve thought about it plenty.”
Good grief.
The Nuggets gave Martin a deal with $90 million in 2004 and he rewarded them by missing 169 (or 34%) games over the next six seasons. And he’s dealing with another knee issue that is going to force him to miss the start of training camp. Why in the world would the Nuggets want to extend him now when they don’t even know how healthy he is? And why bother extending him when his next contract is going to be a fraction of his current salary ($16.5 million)? He’s a 32-year-old with bum knees — I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s playing on a two- or three-year mid-level deal this time next year.
The Nuggets thought they were getting a perennial All-Star back in 2004. He was coming off a season where he averaged 17/10 for the Nets and was named to his first All-Star Game. Unfortunately for the Nuggets, that was the only All-Star appearance he ever made. He has averaged 13/7 in his six seasons in Denver.
It’s no one’s fault that he has had all of these knee injuries. But for Martin to sit there and complain about the lack of an extension after the Nuggets gave him $90 million (NINETY-MILLION!) is completely insane. Moreover, he has the audacity to admit that he’s sandbagging his knee injury because he’s upset he doesn’t have a long-term contract.
Part of me is jealous that Martin gets to live in his own universe. I wish I had the balls to grumble about my financial situation as I’m getting paid $16.5 million for the upcoming season after giving my team two-thirds the production they expected in two-thirds the games. (That works out to four-ninths, or 44%, for the fractionally-challenged.)
This guy should count his lucky stars that he didn’t start having major knee issues until after Denver signed him to such a sweet deal. And he should enjoy the $16.5 million that he’s making this season because there’s a good chance it will be more than his next contract.
He’s not helping himself with this attitude. If I were a GM, I wouldn’t touch this guy with a 10-foot pole.
In a relatively short interview with CNN, LeBron James and Maverick Carter were asked whether or not race played a role in the backlash after “The Decision.”
O’BRIEN (voice-over): According to industry insiders, James and Carter have done just fine, striking multi-million dollar deals with State Farm, Nike and McDonalds. But those deals were overshadowed by this summer’s decision and negative headlines which seemed to tarnish LeBron James, the athlete, and the brand.
CARTER: It’s just about control and not doing it the way it’s always been done or not looking the way that it always looks.
O’BRIEN (on camera): Do you think there’s a role that race plays in this.
JAMES: I think so at times. It’s always, you know, a race factor.
CARTER: It definitely played a role in some of the stuff coming out of the media, things that were written for sure.
O’BRIEN (voice-over): LeBron James and Maverick Carter say what does bother them is that lost amid the controversy is the fact that “The Decision” TV program raised $3 million for Boys & Girls Club of America.
CARTER: We own the advertising time. We went out and sold it to brands and we took every dime and donated it to charity.
FRANK SANCHEZ, V.P., BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF AMERICA: LeBron was using a significant moment in time to benefit young people. And a lot of people can take those opportunities and make it about them. He really was — his goal was to make it about kids and make it about giving opportunities for kids.
JAMES: For me to have an opportunity to give back to the Boys & Girls Club of America, that I would never change that. And if I have to take heat to give back to kids, I would do it the same way every single time.
I included the bit about the Boys & Girls Club because it is admirable that they donated all the advertising revenue to charity, but it still doesn’t change the way that LeBron ripped the heart out of his fans in Cleveland during an hour-long, primetime special. Again, it’s not the fact that LeBron left Cleveland that non-Clevelanders have a problem with, it’s the way he did it.
To be fair, Carter said that race played a factor in “some of the stuff coming out of the media,” but “The Decision” was such a big blunder that had it been Steve Nash or Larry Bird (in his day), the backlash would have been brutal.
It’s a free country and LeBron has the right to do whatever he wants, as long as he’s willing to deal with the consequences.
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