Tag: Summer of 2010 (Page 31 of 63)

      Phil Jackson will return for one ‘last stand’

      July 1, 2010 /

      In a rather unsurprising turn of events, Phil Jackson will return to coach the Lakers next season.

      “Count me in,” said Jackson. “After a couple weeks of deliberation, it is time to get back to the challenge of putting together a team that can defend its title in the 2010-11 season. It’ll be the last stand for me, and I hope a grand one.”

      Love or hate the Lakers, NBA fans have to respect Jackson’s ability to coax the best out of the great teams that he has coached. If the LeBron/Wade/Bosh dream comes to fruition in Miami or some other locale, they’ll have a powerful foe to overcome, as the two-time defending champs will be at full strength led by the Zen Master.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      Grizzles, Gay agree to five-year extension

      July 1, 2010 /

      Panic has set in in Memphis, as the Grizzlies have agreed to a five-year extension for Rudy Gay without letting the restricted free agent test the market.

      The Memphis Grizzlies and restricted free-agent Rudy Gay have agreed in principle on a five-year contract, The Commercial Appeal has learned.

      NBA sources indicated that Gay will sign the deal on or soon after July 8 when teams are allowed to finalize contracts.

      Gay’s starting salary will be the maximum allowed a player with his experience – projected to be roughly $13.3 million – according to sources.

      I highlighted the key part in bold. The Grizzlies waited all this time, said over and over that they’d match any offer he received, and then they turned around and gave him a max deal before he had a chance to sign an offer sheet.

      Why not let Gay go out and negotiate a deal and then match it? Why agree to pay him the max when there’s no proof that he’d get a max offer?

      Yes, he was likely to get a big offer, and perhaps the Grizzlies just wanted to be proactive and keep one of their star players happy. But by making this deal, they may have cost themselves millions of dollars. Rudy Gay is no ‘max’ player, at least not at this stage of his career.

      But he’s about to make max money.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      How good would a LeBron/Wade/Bosh combo be?

      July 1, 2010 /

      ESPN’s John Hollinger used his Player Efficiency Rating to estimate the number of games this group would win if surrounded by 10 minimum salary veterans.

      Using my preseason prediction model, I plugged in a team with those three players and used fairly conservative estimates for what they might produce in the coming season — a Player Efficiency Rating of 29 for James, 26 for Wade and 23 for Bosh. I gave James 3,100 minutes, Wade 2,850 and Bosh 2,600.

      For every other minute played by Team Trinity, I inserted my replacement-level figure of a 10 PER — this is what I input when a team has an empty rotation spot or has it filled by a player projected to produce less than 10. I never go any lower than this and have never felt a need to, as virtually anyone who produces at a lesser rate (once we include defensive value) is quickly replaced.

      OK, that’s my methodology; now for the result. This team, believe it or not, projected to win 61 games.

      And that assumes all replacement level players. The roster could improve at midseason when a vet is bought out or waived, and next summer when the team would have the various exceptions available to add higher-priced talent.

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      Raptors not interested in Beasley

      July 1, 2010 /

      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

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      Hawks offer max to Joe Johnson…

      July 1, 2010 /

      …and he’s expected to accept the deal.

      The Atlanta Hawks offered Joe Johnson a six-year, $119 million contract Thursday morning, and sources close to the All-Star guard expect him to accept the max deal soon.

      The Hawks moved quickly at midnight ET to try to secure their franchise star and offered the contract that Johnson’s agent Arn Tellem sought from the organization. Sources say ownership OK’d the max offer and general manager Rick Sund delivered it in Los Angeles.

      The writing seemed to be on the wall for Johnson, but the Hawks stepped up with a big offer that is probably too good for Johnson to pass up. He could sign the deal and stay in Atlanta, but now he has the leverage necessary to force a sign-and-trade to another team.

      Johnson isn’t a ‘max’ player, but that doesn’t mean much when there are so many teams with cap space to burn this summer. I suspect the Hawks will be regretting this decision in 2-3 years.


      Photo from fOTOGLIF

      External Sports, Fantasy Basketball, NBA, News, Rumors & Gossip

      « Older posts Newer posts »

      © 2026 The Scores Report – The National Sports Blog

      Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑