Per the Miami Herald…

The eve of free agency offered more convoluted speculation. One potential deal involved Toronto agreeing to send Bosh to Miami, with forward Michael Beasley, guard Mario Chalmers and center Joel Anthony, a native Canadian, going to the Raptors on July 8.

But multiple league sources disputed the deal, including a high-level Raptors source who said the team had no real interest in Beasley or Chalmers. Toronto would, however, consider a $16 million trade exemption and the return of its first-round pick from Miami in the 2009 Jermaine O’Neal trade for a potential Bosh move.

Bosh, who ranks the Heat among his top choices, would lose about $30 million in a guaranteed sixth-year salary if he bolted Toronto without a sign-and-trade deal.

That Bosh rumor was the hot topic on the eve of free agency, but it appears that the Raptors aren’t all that interested in Beasley. The Heat don’t have quite enough cap space to offer Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh max contracts, but if they were able to move Beasley, they’d be very, very close. The Raptors disinterest doesn’t mean that a deal can’t happen, however. If the Heat got a third team involved, one that was interested in Beasley, then a deal could still be struck.

The Raptors disinterest makes some sense. Beasley is a face up power forward, and that’s the natural position of former #1 overall pick Andrea Bargnani. The Raptors need a post up center to play alongside Bargnani.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

What is a “thin line,” you ask? Well, I’m not 100% sure I coined it, but it’s my term for a player who scores, but brings almost nothing else — rebounds, assists, steals or blocks — to the table.

In order to determine who has the thinnest line in the NBA, I divided the player’s points by the sum of their rebounds, assists, steals and blocks to come up with the Thin Line Ratio (TLR). The bigger the number, the thinner the line.

To be eligible, a player has to average at least 20 minutes per game. And to be fair to the biggest scorers in the league, if their rebounds, assists, steals and blocks add up to 10+ per game, then they’re not eligible. So players like Carmelo Anthony, Kevin Durant, Danny Granger and Kobe Bryant are in the clear. I figure any player who is posting 10+ in those four categories is bringing plenty to the table.

So here’s a look at the 10 thinnest lines in the NBA:

1. Kevin Martin (TLR: 2.89)
2. Jamal Crawford (2.79)
3. Marcus Thornton (2.69)
4. Ben Gordon (2.51)
5. Eric Gordon (2.43)
6. Ray Allen (2.43)
7. Jason Terry (2.36)
8. Richard Hamilton (2.33)
9. Corey Maggette (2.31)
10. J.J. Redick (2.28)

Surprise, surprise…that’s a list of nine or ten shooting guards, depending on how you classify Corey Maggette (and maybe Jamal Crawford). These are players whose job it is to shoot the ball and they obviously embrace that role. You won’t see these players battling for rebounds or doing a lot of penetrate and dish.

The top point guard in TLR? Aaron Brooks (2.19), winner of this year’s Most Improved Player award.

The top small forward (other than Maggette)? Josh Howard (2.12)

The top power forward? Bill Walker (2.14), but he played in just 35 games. Al Harrington (2.12) was the next highest PF on the list.

The top center? Andrea Bargnani (1.91), but is he really a center? The next highest eligible center is Channing Frye (1.33).

Who has the thickest line (i.e. the lowest TLR)?

PG – Jason Kidd (0.61)
SG – Thabo Sefolosha (0.72)
SF – Luc Mbah a Moute (0.78)
PF – Jared Jeffries (0.71)
C – Marcus Camby (0.43)

Jason Kidd plus four defensive specialists. Boy, that would be some ugly offense, but they’d be a bitch to score on.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

When I estimated the extensions that the big names from the class of 2006 could potentially sign this summer, I pegged Andrea Bargnani at $7-$8 million per season. It turns out I underestimated his value to the Raptors.

The deal, according to NBA front-office sources, would span five seasons starting in 2010-11 and earn Bargnani an estimated $50 million.

Bargnani did go through something of a transformation in his third season, averaging 15.4 points on 45% shooting from the field and 41% from long range. The previous year, he shot 39% from the field and less than 35% from deep, so he made a big jump, efficiency-wise. His PER (14.66) is still below average, mainly due to his suspect rebounding for a seven-footer (5.3 rpg) and lack of assists (1.2 apg).

The bottom line is that Bargnani will have to continue his career trajectory to earn the contract that the Raptors just awarded him.

Around this time last year, I tried to estimate the kind of contracts the big name players from the class of 2004 and 2005 would sign, and here’s how I fared:

All in all, I think I did a pretty good job. Of the 12 players that signed a contract last summer, I correctly predicted the range for seven and was within $1.5 million for the other five. Granted, I underestimated what the Lakers would give Vujacic, but I find him so annoying that I have a tough time objectively determining his worth. (Though it should be noted that he didn’t do anything this season to justify $5.0 million per season.)

This year, I’m going to list the top names from the class of ’06 to try to determine what kind of extension they’ll get if their current teams choose to lock them up this summer instead of letting them hit restricted free agency in 2010. (I’ll tackle the restricted free agents of the class of ’05 in my free agency preview, which will run on 6/29.)

Due to the economy and the unwillingness of most owners to spend, the summer of 2009 promises to be tougher for free agents than years past, so we may see a few players stubbornness get the best of them. One executive predicted a “nuclear winter” of sorts, so at the very least, it will be interesting.

So here are the top players from the class of ’06 and my best estimate of the kind of money they’ll command. I’ll list their age, Player Efficiency Rating (PER), along with a few comparables.

Read the rest of this entry »

The answer is yes, according to Stephen A. Smith. Bosh has apparently told the team he doesn’t have any interest in staying in Toronto, and Smith said that Miami and Dallas were likely suitors in a possible trade.

Bosh’s contract runs through the 2009-10 season, so he is one of the members of the vaunted free agent class of 2010. Raptors GM Bryan Colangelo is no dummy, so his first step will be to try to convince Bosh to stay. If that fails, there’s a chance that the team could move him before the trade deadline, which is about three weeks away. They should be able to get more for Bosh now than during the offseason since whatever team trading for him will have his services for the remainder of this season and the playoffs.

Smith mentioned the Heat and the Mavericks as possible trade partners. Miami’s major trading chip is Shawn Marion, but he’s in the final year of his contract and most of the league seems to be unwilling to pay him what they believe he is going to ask this summer. For that reason, trading for the Matrix is a dicey proposition. In Dallas, Josh Howard would presumably be the centerpiece of a deal for Bosh, though he has now stated publicly that he wants to stay in Dallas.

One team that should put a trade offer together is the Cleveland Cavaliers. They do have Wally Szczerbiak’s expiring contract ($13 M), so the Raptors could get immediate salary cap relief. They could package Wally’s contract with J.J. Hickson and two or three future first round picks and see if the Raptors bite. It would be a heck of a lot easier to re-sign LeBron if Bosh were already in Cleveland.

I’d also like to see the Bucks make a play for the talented power forward. Would the Raptors take Michael Redd and Charlie Villanueva for Bosh? I realize that Bosh would be unlikely to re-sign unless the Bucks vaulted into the top four in the East, but with a starting lineup of Ramon Sessions, Charlie Bell, Richard Jefferson, Bosh and Andrew Bogut, that would be one of the better teams in the East.

I really don’t know what happened to the Raptors. After re-signing Jose Calderon to a long-term deal, acquiring Jermaine O’Neal to help down low, and the emergence of Andrea Bargnani as a legitimate scorer, the Raptors should be a lot better than they are. They’ve already lost two in a row and they have the Lakers, Cavs and Hornets coming up in a brutal three-game stretch. And now the news breaks that their franchise player doesn’t want to return.

Things are bad in Toronto.

2/2 Update: Bryan Colangelo says the rumors about Bosh not wanting to re-sign with Toronto are untrue.

“It isn’t true,” said Colangelo. “It’s a complete fabrication.”

“It’s a non-story. Stephen A. got a little carried away. I’ve e-mailed him to talk about it but he’s in bed with the flu. Maybe the basketball Gods have something to do with that. I don’t know where that story came from.”

It will be interesting to see what Smith has to say about this. He didn’t cite a source or act like he was breaking a story; he just said that Bosh has already told the team he doesn’t want to return as if it were common knowledge. I’d like to see Smith defend himself here.

2/3 Update: Chris Bosh speaks out about the story.