Free Agency Extravaganza Open Thread

what the f*ck I’m getting on about. I had a little internal breakdown, but I’m okay now. I’m usual chill (For the most part) but I become a real stubborn bastard when I lose my cool.

If you begin the off-season under the cap, you do not have the MLE…well, you do but, if you sign players and get to the cap, you have to waive the rights to it.

Say a team is at 50 million and the cap is 56. You have the MLE to work with or the 6 million but not both. If you begin the off-season at 57 million, you still have the MLE.

is sign two huge contracts and eat up all the cap room and then sign Wade to circumvent the cap. The Heat have a 17.1 million dollar “cap hold” for Wade. That cap hold remains until either he resigns or they waive that cap hold (and his Larry Bird rights). So basically, even though he isn’t under contract, Wade is still on the books for the Heat until he signs with them or someone else or they waive his right. This is why you hear that the Heat cap figure is something like 24 million right now.

It makes sense to wait. With all these max or near-max guys waiting you don’t know the financials or how competitive a team will be.

That is what really sucks for a team like the Knicks. They have Gallinari and Chandler. If they get shunned, they are going to have to sign a bunch of shit bags to get to the 75% mark. Miami has Beasley and nothing else. Cleveland has a bunch of mediocre talent with crappy contracts. The Bulls and the Nets have players but not multiple players to that they could give up without breaking the foundation.

Especially with how the Kings have set themselves up to be rather protected with the new CBA>

Memphis would match a 5yr/50mill. To get Gay, you are going to have to overpay, maybe even front load a deal to make Memphis shy away from matching. They have given him a qualifying offer so they retain the right to match any deal, regardless of salary cap.

Oh and I had 100 points with amar’e.

every aspect of the game is better

I’m a very pathetic bastard these days. I can’t even get my arguements right anymore. I have sinned Bignerd, and I can’t wash away the sins of being a laker fan :(

this one took me a second to realize who that was in the pic.

If I was Lebron or Bosh or Wade and entering into an offseason where I was about to be a free agent, I think I would basically just want to party a lot right before. Before the media is all over you (obviously talking about you but you don’t necessarily have to be in the lime light doing press conferences or setting up official meetings with teams), before you have more commitments, and considering it’s their only free time after basically traveling non stop for 9 months I would think if I were in their shoes I would just get ridiculously drunk and party non stop.

I almost wonder if when they “had their summit” it was real informal get together where they sort of talked about stuff but then basically just paritied non stop.

I’m not exactly sure how or why LeBron thought he could pull that one off. Here, let me sell you on a shit hole city with no coach or GM and shitty teammates that may or may not sleep with your mom. Screw NY, a top 5 city on the planet, screw Miami and it’s white sandy beaches and hot women, screw Chicago and their solid young core and amazing tradition, screw New Jersey and the deepest pockets of all time. Come to Cleveland, it’s nice in the winter.

But if I were Bosh I would honestly be pretty happy in Chicago with Noah, Rose, and Deng. I could totally see picking that over the other options. I mean, Bosh would kind of be a second fiddle to Rose only because Rose is the home town kid (er, of course if Rose doesn’t improve much nevermind).

I remember when I had to scroll down half the page to get past your sig pookey. I think you had the lyrics for an entire Hall and Oates song in there.

I think LeBron has been trying to figure out an angle where he could leave the Cavs and still have Akron. I don’t think anyone in Akron would really forgive him. He’d get heckled at his favorite mall (which doesn’t happen now) and he’d always be blasted for not making it work in Cleveland.

The fact was that he maneuvered Cleveland into making moves in the first place. Now he’s trying to say the franchise isn’t up to snuff when they were doing what he wanted. Dan Gilbert wants nothing more than LeBron happy.

Cleveland isn’t the issue here.

Dude fulfilled his contract. He has the option to shop himself. He’s the best basketball player on the planet.

90% of the people on this board wouldn’t stay in Cleveland (not just the town, but the team situation), but they’ll bitch about LeBron leaving because he’s “arrogant”. Boo-freaking-hoo.

Go get your money LeBron. Go play where you want to play. If that’s Cleveland, great. If not, you’ve earned the right to go where you want.

That’s what being a free agent is all about.

Just because Jimmy down at the Cleveland mall is going to boo you the next time you’re in town, who cares? People boo Kobe, people booed Jordan,and people are going to boo you. It comes with the territory.