LOL. Raptors' GM (is he Japanese, BTW?) was all like "we need to re-think our strategy" and then goes on and resigns a Serge Dengbaka.
It was announced, when they traded for him that they have been wanting him for a long time now and will do whatever it takes to keep him.
Bad decision, but they're the Clippers East. What other choice do they have? Let him go and let the team decline into even worse mediocrity?
i imagine houston would LOVE to get their hands on him. do they want ryan anderson to be a 20per bench player, though? or does dantoni just go full dantoni and start both? re: ibaka, this probably means patrick patterson is available--toronto can only spend so much on a non-contender, right? i wonder if patterson would bite on a big money deal for two years.
The Spurs are in a really weird spot. They've got no real money to spend. Right now they're at 81,345,029 (actually a little more than that with Cap Holds) and only 9 players. Pau Gasol has already made it known he's opting in and they're going to have to make a decision on Jonathan Simmons. Patty Mills and Manu Ginobili are also FAs and will command a lot of money. After Cap Holds (and assuming the Spurs waive their rights to BOTH Mills and Ginobili) the Spurs are at 83,595,001 which leaves them 18,404,999 million to spend. That's a decent chunk of money (18% of the cap) but it's less than a max deal for even a 0-6 year veteran. They're going to have to let a lot of people walk this summer and trade away a couple players if they want to free up available space. So how do the Lakers capitalize? Easy. 1) Take on Pau Gasol with a 1st round pick. He expires next summer. 2) Take on Tony Parker with a 1st round pick. He expires next summer too. 3) Bid on either Mills, Ginobili, or Simmons and force their hand. Then either take one of their players and a pick or take one of their players. Either way, the Spurs are stuck somewhere in between building around Kawhi and jettisoning the previous regime. They need to move on from Ginobili especially, but also Parker and Gasol. In order to really compete though, they need to add a guy like Chris Paul. Catch-22 right now. Oh and I don't expect Chris Paul to go there. He specifically wrote a rule for himself so he could get over 200 million this summer from the Clippers. It'd be very strange for him to walk away now. I might respect him a little more if he did though.
Not a great look for Dunn... what happened to that kid? He was touted as the steal of the draft for Minnesota. The PG of the future.
i'd love to bring pau home. hell, i'd take him without the pick. it's not like our defense can really get worse. i don't see SA dumping parker or ginobili. if those guys want to play there, they'll find a way. somebody's going to big big on simmons, though, and i think the spurs will let him walk. wish we had deng's money to give to him...
He changed an old rule. Previously a player couldn't sign a 5 year deal that would put them over 36 years old. Chris Paul changed it to 38 years old. Now he can sign a 5 year max deal with the Clippers worth over 200 million dollars because his max starts at 35% of the cap which is roughly 35 million dollars.
