Russell 5.3 Clarkson 5.2/Williams 7.0 Durant 25.3/Young 5.4/Brown .9 Randle 3.3/Nance 1.2/Black1.1 /Upshaw .9 That would leave ~34M to try to court two more guys. Potential max: DeRozan 25.3 Batum 25.3 Noah 25.3 Horford 25.3 Whiteside 21.0 Would any two of them be interested? Maybe a 19M offer to DD and a 15M offer to Horford could get it done? Or in some dream scenario, we trade Nick and Bass S&T to add another 5.4M to one of those offers. Maybe Horford at 20.4M to start, offer a 19m contract to DD or Batum. Would require both of them leaving a few million on the table. Russell/Clarkson DeRozan/Williams Durant/Brown Randle/Nance Horford/Black/Upshaw
The only chance of getting Horford or Durant is to get Horford AND Durant. They'd be my first two calls. "Hey, KD. If we sign Al, would you be on board with us?" - Probably "Hey, Al. KD says if you're on, he's probably on. Whadaya say?" - Hmm intriguing. "KD, Al say's he's intrigued." - Cool. But don't you guys have a lot more money to spend? "We sure do, like another $20mil. I'll bet there are some really nice players that would be interested if they knew you and Al were coming. Tell me who you'd like." - *rubs hands together* You know how vets went to miami and cleveland and West went to SA for cheap to win? I'll make that happen in LA "Hey, Al. WE think you're gonna want to sign now."
I'd rather not have to spend that money on DD to get KD and Horford here, because I think it could be better spent spreading it out over a couple players. But you're right: we have to have some sort of commitment from someone who lure people. DD to Horford to KD. Those dominoes could fall.
"Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov in separate interview with YES Network was asked what will entice free agents: "We have a lot of young talented guys Rondae Hollis-Jefferson, we are expecting Chris McCullough is coming soon, so we have Markel Brown and a lot of young talent. We have experienced players like Brook Lopez, like Thaddeus Young they are just in (their) prime. So maybe we need one, two players to make a championship contender. And I'll do my best and all the organization will do our best to reach the goal this summer." I thought that commie pinko was getting out of the league?
Winnable game tonight especially if Davis is out. No Kobe, but Russell and Bass are probable to return. Let's get this W and get back on track a little.
read something on yahoo that the lakers may be preparing to offer derozan a max contract in the offseason not sure how i feel about that. why not just wait on westbrook next offseason if they're looking to throw out that kind of money?
We have 60 million dollars and we're giving it to somebody. There's no point waiting around anymore. Kobe is gone this summer and we'll need talent. We can throw a max deal to Derozan and continue looking for other people to take a max deal at the same time. I'm sure we're gearing up to offer a lot of max deals.
It would be like giving Ron Harper the max when Jordan retired for the first time. Harper, an all star, wilted and became a role player. I imagine something like that happening to Derozan.
I get what you're saying. But I think Harper's situation was a little different. For one, when Ron signed with the Bulls he was approaching 31, and just a few years removed from major reconstructive knee surgery. Derozan is 26 and has been relatively healthy. Also, Ron was going to a veteran squad with playoff experience that had an offensive system which limited the opportunities for ball dominant guards, so he was forced to adjust his game (the triangle did the same thing to Gary Payton in '04). Demar would be coming to a young squad looking at him to be a leader, most of which that don't even know the concept of an offensive system (see Scott, Byron).
DD's 22+ PPG would be the most by an opposing team's FA signed by LA since Shaq, it looks: Shaq 26.6 in 95/96 Malone 20.6 in 02/03 Gary Payton 20.4 in 02/03 Dwight Howard 19.4 in 11/12
