im missing something... couldn't they sign the max guy, or two max guys whatever and be at the cap... then sign nate and lee after the fact since they are exception signings

Ok...I'll try to explain realllllllllllllly slow.

At the end of this season they are going to have a bunch of money to spend on Free Agents (LeBron, Wade, Bosh, etc).


The most likely scenario is that they sign Lee and Nate to one-year deals this summer. That makes them Unrestricted Free Agents with Bird Rights in the Summer of 2010.

I'm going to use round numbers for simplicity

If the cap is $58million, and the 1.5 Max Free Agents brings them to that number (which it will), they can still sign Lee and Nate using their exceptions. This will put their salary at something like $75million.

Here is the problem...

After the 2010-2011 season, $18 million dollars comes off the books by way of Eddy Curry and Jared Jeffries. The summer of 2011 also has a bunch of juicy free agents like Parker, Gasol, Yao and Prince. If we give Lee and Nate long-term contracts in the summer of 2010, we won't be able to sign ANYONE (besides for the MLE) in the summer of 2011.

There is absolutely no reason to lock into Nate Robinson when there will be much more valuable players available the following summer. Lee is close, but we'll have to wait and see how the market goes.

The bottom line is don't think like a homer. Lee and Nate are coo and we'll miss them, but they aren't championship players. You'll forget all about them if we have Bosh, Joe Johnson, and Tony Parker running around together.

oh my bad.. i was just thinking end of this season as 2011 when i read your post originally

thanks again, and good job

no problem, the nba salary cap is confusing as hell

First off, There's 0% chance the cap will be $58m next summer. We'll be lucky if it's $53m.

Second, Joe Johnson is not a "0.5 max player." He's not taking a $8m contract.

Third, there's no guarantee that any of the 2011 free agents will sign with us. That's the biggest downfall of putting all your eggs into the free agent basket. Even if you nit the **** out for 4 years, you still might not get the players you were banking on. Gasol and Parker seem pretty comfortable at their respective teams. Yao's career might be over. and giving a max contract to Prince? Really? When we have Chandler and Gallinari at the 3 anyway?

Fourth, your math doesn't work out. A max contract for most of the big free agents is 30% of the cap. For the sake of argument, let's say the cap stays at $58m (it won't). This leaves $23m to fill out the rest of the roster if we sign 2 max contracts. Getting that third big player will leave, what, $7m or so + MLE with 9 roster spots to fill? Yeah, that's not gonna happen. It's pretty much mathematically impossible to have Bosh/JJ/Parker or any combination of 3 big free agents on any team.

Finally, I think you're being more homer-ish than most. You seemed to have been conditioned to think "contracts = bad." Yes, Isiah made some terrible signings that made you wary of going over the cap without being 100% sure of something. But the bottom line is, you have to take some gambles and go over the cap to become a contender in this league.

I'm not talking about giving DLee a max contract here. More in the range of $8m or so. He's a much better gamble than waiting a year, and hoping one of the 2011 will sign for less than market value. And saying DLee's not a championship player is stupid. Sure he's not a great post defender, and he doesn't have a jumpshot. But he's a smart player that rebounds, and works his ass off. He'd be a great complement to a Bosh type player down low.

BTW, I want to make this very clear: I DON'T like Nate. I think he's the most obnoxious, annoying player I've ever seen. But if we're stuck with no cap space, I wouldn't mind spending an exception on him. Having a decent scoring 2 guard like him is worth $3-4m. If he wants more, **** him.

I'll take the over on $53m for any amount.

Yeah I undervalued him. Some team is going to give him $15mm a year and it's going to be a horrible contract. No biggie, give me Ray Allen or Ginobili instead.

The core of this team couldn't even eek out the 8th seed in the East this year. How is it a mistake to put their eggs in the Free Agent basket? Wilson Chandler's name should never be discussed with the future of this team unless he's going to sign for $2m/year forever. He's not even remotely close to a good player. He helped them out last year because they were a dreadful team last year. He doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Tayshaun Prince. Gambling long term with Gallinari is just as risky as gambling in the free agent market. He played 400 minutes last year and got hurt twice.

Paul Pierce: $20 million
Ray Allen: $20 million
Kevin Garnett: $17 million
Championships: 1

That was easy.

Little Known Fact: When the Salary Cap goes down, salaries are also going to go down. If it really goes down to $55mm, it doesn't mean that teams aren't going to sign players, it means that players are going to take less money. It's all relative. We'll be able to sign two players better than Lee and use our MLE on a decent role player. I wouldn't be that opposed to using an exception on Lee if we can get him for less than $8 million, especially since the cap will probably go back up at some point. There is going to be a much larger market for him next than there was this year though as a lot of teams are waiting for next summer to shop.

It also might be a moot point if we sign-and-trade him in the next few weeks (which would be amazing as you figure it'd dump Jeffries).

What I meant was AFTER they signed a a big free agent or 2 and was at the soft cap. At that point, re-signing DLee would be better than waiting until 2011. This also depends on which free agents we sign in 2010, and if we trade some players by then.

I'd like to see how Chandler and Gallinari do next year before giving up on the, especially Gallinari.

[ ] 3 big free agents
[x] Boston is almost $25mil over the cap

Oh I'm not even coming close to giving up on Gallinari. I just worry about people who pencil him in as a guaranteed part of the future. I don't know how it turned into me arguing against signing Lee. If it makes us go <$10mm over the cap to use an exception on him and add him to two big FAs than that obv gives them a good shot at a ring. But they need to be careful not to abuse Bird rights and just throw stupid money at Lee and especially Nate.

It'd be the shock of the year if Chandler shows us something this year. He's just such an offensive liability and his defense was overstated last year because he was the only player on the team that could occasionally stop a great scorer, but he still got smoked a lot of the time.

Top 10 reasons LeBron will come:

http://knicks.realgm.com/articles/39...oose_new_york/

Anti LeBron-NY bias of ****heads like ESPN and Mad Dog who want an idiotic hometown fairy tale:

http://knicks.realgm.com/articles/38...ias_on_lebron/

From that article:

Did you know about this Untouchable? Does this have any effect on things?

It could have a small effect in theory, but I'm not sure the incentive is there for Curry to just piss away $2.26 million dollars. He definitely wouldn't be favored to make more that on the open market. If he signed with a team for the minimum, he'd end up losing over a million on the deal. I don't see why he'd do it when he's out of there in a year anyway.

There's a better chance it would work with Jeffries, who'd have to forfeit $1.38 million, but the same incentive problems occur.

It would take a team willing to spend money to sign these guys after the buyout for it to be a possibility.

http://www.newsday.com/sports/basket...s-fix-1.812055

awful news, I really want Sessions

what do you like about sessions? How does he fit in for the future?

He's a great, no not great, elite defensive PG. He's miles better than Nate and at the MLE would be on a very short list of best value players in the entire league.

He was one of my favorite players to watch last year, and when I saw this quote...

...it really confirmed how good he is.

just ****ing teach nate how to pass

sessions would be pretty sweet tho

And his QO is 1 mil? Wow. He must be one of those Billy Beane type players that are way underated and can be gotten for cheap. That's how you build a championship. If he's not gettable this year, is there a chance he'll be available next year? Don't these types of players only get 1 year deals?

All but officially that David MF Lee is signing a one-year contract next week. Probably for around $7million.

Yea, nate is rumored to be also getting a 1 year. We'll see if a trade occurs in the next week though.

lol, knicks sign 3 players to partially guaranteed deals, including 6-9 PG Sun Yue. This offseason is becoming downright comical.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/13/sp...icks.html?_r=1

wtf is partially guaranteed

Not sure, but I think it means they are invited to camp to try out for the team. Even if they don't make the team, they still get X dollars.