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Bosh Is Gone, But Will They Getting Anything Back?
Posted on | July 7, 2010 | No Comments
Okay, it is now official. Bosh is going to Miami, probably the last place fans wanted him to go because of the lack of assets they could get back. Reality has a way of coming crashing through the window wrapped up in a Hummer being driven by a liquored up 85 year old grandmother with Alzheimer’s. After warning people for months at how little the Raptors will likely get back in a sign and trade for Bosh, even I started to drink the Kool-Aid a little, with visions of Derrick Favors dancing in my head. Unfortunately, that’s not to be.
So there are reports that Colangelo might refuse to do a sign and trade with Bosh. I can understand the reasoning behind it. Colangelo hasn’t been happy with how Bosh has handled his free agency and doesn’t want to do him any favours (no pun intended). I wrote a post talking about whether or not Colangelo should simply give Bosh a list of teams he would do a sign and trade with, and tell him to choose one, or he’d get no deal. Now, if Colangelo did that, and Bosh picked Miami anyway, then he should stick to his guns and refuse to deal. Colangelo looks bad enough. If he goes back on his threat, he’ll simply look gutless.
Now, if Colangelo didn’t make any such threat, then obviously doing a sign and trade with Bosh is the best option for the Raptors. The question is, what should the Raptors ask for back?
The three things that I think everyone can agree upon is Mario Chalmers, the Raptors draft pick back and a big trade exception. At this point, I’d be happy with just that. Since Bosh has already announced his intentions (he can’t sign anything until the 8th), Toronto is not exactly in any position to demand anything.
And then there’s Michael Beasley.
I’ve been against the notion of accepting Beasley back in a sign-and-trade mainly because he’s an awful fit for the Raptors. His lack of defense is the absolute last thing the Raptors need, especially if Bargnani stays on the team (please, no!). After a discussion I had on Raptors Republic, though I had, if not a change of heart, at least a moment of pause.
With the Raptors in a bad position in terms of negotiating, the idea of taking Beasley back might very well give the Raptors a little leverage in the negotiations. Beasley has offensive skills, to be sure, and in the right situation could average 20+ ppg. That situation is not Miami, however, and a guy who does little more than score is the last thing Miami needs at this point. They need role players who can defend their position and do the little things. That doesn’t describe Beasley.
Taking Beasley back would allow him to showcase his skills while being the first option, and give the Raptors an asset with the potential to increase in value. When rebuilding, it’s always best to get assets with increasing value. And because he’s not much of a defensive player, or a guy who’s going to do the little things, it’s not likely he’ll help the Raptors win any more games, anyway. If he does well, the Raptors have a piece they could use in a trade. If he doesn’t do well, the Raptors could simply not pick up his team option after the season.
So the question is what is Miami willing to give up in exchange for the Raptors taking on Beasley? Would they agree to accept Turkoglu in exchange? They could certainly absorb his contract and having a veteran like Turkoglu might help them, but I wouldn’t count on it. He’s not really a role player and needs the ball in his hands to be effective, something not likely to happen on a team with Wade. And would Bosh even agree to that? Still, I’d certainly take Beasley back for one season if it meant unloading Turkoglu.
And while I’m obviously in favour of keeping Calderon, I might be tempted to take Beasley and Chalmers back if Miami agrees to take him and his contract. Calderon works well with Bosh and would be the type of pass first PG the Heat would be looking for. If I were the Heat, I’d certainly take back Calderon if it meant getting rid of Beasley. For the Raptors it’s a salary dump, plain and simple. Calderon is a good PG, but he’s in his prime right now and while I think he would be an asset to the development of the younger players, it might be the only way the Raptors can get anything of value back for Bosh.
If Miami agreed to give the Raptors Beasley, Chalmers, the Raptors pick and Miami’s unprotected pick next season, as well as the $20 million trade exception, I would do it. Another advantage is that it would prevent the Heat from signing another big free agent and weaken them a little, making their draft pick next year a little better.
I think agreeing to take Beasley back is possibly the only leverage the Raptors have at the moment. Bosh has agreed to sign with them, so if you’re Miami, why on earth would you give up something you don’t have to? The Raptors could end up with only a $16 million trade exception out of the deal, and while that’s not horrible, I think all Raptor fans would like to see a little more coming back.
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A Rundown, What Not To Do…And My Best Case Scenario
Posted on | July 2, 2010 | 12 Comments
As I figured, none of the big three free agents made any decisions on the first day. There goes the theory that everything was planned weeks ago. Of course, there was some action the first day. The best news for the Raptors is that Amir Johnson re-signed. More on that later.
Joe Johnson was one of the players I thought had the least chance of going back to his home team. Now he’s re-signed with the Hawks, continuing them on their course to high level mediocrity. If anything was apparent during the playoffs, it’s that the Hawks are a team built to compete, not win. The smart thing for them to do would be to make some deals and change the structure of their team. The smart thing is not the likely thing, however. My money is on them thinking a new coach is going to be ails this team.
Memphis, who is apparently hemorrhaging money and didn’t even make the playoffs this past season, gave away the first ridiculous contract of the offseason, signing Rudy Gay to the maximum. Anyone who isn’t sure if Bosh is worth the maximum should agree that Memphis drastically overpaid a guy who has never even made the All-Star team before. Shouldn’t that pretty much be a prerequisite to making the maximum? Sure, I like Gay, but since he was a restricted free agent, couldn’t Memphis simply have waited and seen what he was being offered instead of throwing him everything on the first day of free agency? That probably would have been the smart move. Of course, when has anyone used “smart” and “Chris Wallace” in the same sentence?
Minnesota was also another surprise newsmaker, bidding against no one to offer Darko Milicic a 4 year $20 million contract. Now Darko did a fine job in Minnesota, and they should probably jump on any free agent that actually WANTS to go there, but I would have thought it would have been prudent to wait until after they deal Jefferson to sign Darko. Now it’s pretty much a foregone conclusion the T-Wolves have to make a deal. Not a good position to be in.
Milwaukee re-signed John Salmons, who I figured was on his way out after the acquisitions of Corey Maggette and Chris Douglas-Roberts, and added another jersey to the already full closet of Drew Gooden. Gooden is on his eighth team in 8 years and hasn’t played defense or passed the ball at any of his stops. Is he really worth the full MLE? No wonder Gooden jumped on it. Now I have liked what John Hammonds has been doing in Milwaukee, but neither Maggette nor Gooden have played defense since college, and the Bucks got to where they are on their defense. Adding talent is always nice, but I don’t know if I like where this team is headed.
This brings us back to Amir Johnson. I felt re-signing Amir was very important for the future of the franchise. Before the offseason started, I felt that a 3 year, $15 million contract offer to Amir might be enough to bring him back. Unfortunately, $5 million per season is what the inferior Darko Milicic signed for. Then Milwaukee signed Gooden for nearly $6.5 per season. Now, Gooden certainly is talented, but I think it’s ironic that he signed with the Bucks on the same day Amir re-signed with the Raptors. To me, Amir is exactly the type of player the Bucks need and the type of player that would thrive in their system. Instead, they traded him away and signed Drew Gooden. Personally, I’d much rather have Amir.
So, because of Gooden getting $32 million over 5 years, it was evident that Amir would have to get more than that. Apparently he had interest from Phoenix, Golden State and one other team, so Colangelo had to bid against others. I don’t know if Colangelo had to outbid, or simply match the other teams’ bids, but a 5 year, $34 million contract, while seemingly high for a player who only scores 12.7 ppg in 36 mpg, is probably not bad value. I read one comment that bothered me a little, and that’s that Amir is overpaid because his skills are so easily replaceable. Pat Riley has said that hustle is a skill, and in the NBA, it’s not a common skill. And that’s not even close to all Amir brings. He’s a 23 year old, highly athletic big man who rebounds, defends, hustles and is extremely efficient on the offensive end, despite not being much of a scorer. Basically everything Bargnani is not. Personally, I’d rather pay Amir $34 over 5 years than Bargnani $50 million over 5. While Bargnani is going to get you points, Amir is going to do the little things that actually help a team win.
In other Raptor news, Bosh met with Toronto, but there is apparently little hope among Raptor brass he will re-sign. I’d love to have been in on that meeting. You know what keeps going through my head? The show Entourage. In the middle of season 3 when Vincent Chase has fired his agent, Ari Gold, because of a couple of big screwups. Much like Bosh and the other free agents, Vince goes from agency to agency as they pitch him why he should sign with them. All the pitches end up being the same, including Ari’s, which Vince walks out of. It turns out all Vince wanted Ari to do was apologize. If only that was the case with Bosh. I don’t think a simple apology will be good enough in Colangelo’s.
So with one of the pieces for the summer in place, there are some questions about what it is that Colangelo is trying to do. One of the more disturbing bits of news I heard was that the Raptors had interest in Amare Stoudemire. Excuse me while I gag. The argument seems to be that Amare would be able to replace Bosh, although I’m at a loss of why you’d want to do that. With Bosh, the team missed the playoffs, were a disaster on the defensive end and proved that you need more than just scoring to win.
And now you want to replace Bosh with Amare, apparently believing that will improve the team.
This is the guy who the Laker big men basically humiliated, highlighting just how bad Amare’s defense is. And I won’t even mention how every single Phoenix player has mysteriously regressed upon leaving Steve Nash’s domain.
Chris Bosh leaving is a disappointment, but as the late Phil Hartman once said on the very funny show, NewsRadio, “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, and then toss it in the face of the person who gave you the lemons until they give you the oranges you asked for in the first place?”
Colangelo needs to realize that retooling is not going to be the way to go. Sure, it will help reassure some of the ticketholders that only see one season ahead, and aren’t worried about the difference between competing and contending. Bringing in Amare, or some other move like it, will certainly make the Raptors more competitive, but it’s not going to make them contenders. They need to rebuild, not retool. One of the reasons I liked the drafting of Ed Davis was because he can be the symbol of the type of team the Raptors need to turn themselves into. He’s a smart, defensive player who does all the little things that you need to do to win. He’s San Antonio, not Phoenix. I don’t know about you, but I want San Antonio. San Antonio won three Championships and was one of the most dominant teams in the last ten years. Phoenix entertained and did well in the regular season, but never made it to the Finals.
Colangelo needs to rid the team of the lazy, underachieving players and focus on getting young, talented and hard working players that don’t mind doing the dirty work.
Speaking of which, I’ve decided to share what I hope are the types of deals I hope go down this summer. They’re certainly best case, but if all the stars align, these are the types of deals I’d like to see happen…
1. Bosh is sign-and-traded to the Nets for Derrick Favors and a $12 million trade exception.
2. Bargnani is traded to Minnesota for Ricky Rubio and Corey Brewer and a trade exception.
3. The Knicks, after striking out on the free agent front, agrees to trade for Turkoglu in exchange for Eddy Curry and his expiring contract. Eddy Curry is then bought out.
4. Trade Corey Brewer and part of the trade exception to Houston for the expiring contracts of Shane Battier and Jared Jeffries.
The Raptors go into the season with…
Jose Calderon (Jarret Jack, Marcus Banks)
DeMar DeRozan (Sonny Weems, Marco Belinelli)
Shane Battier (Jared Jeffries)
Derrick Favors (Ed Davis, Reggie Evans)
Amir Johnson (Solomon Alabi)
The team is most likely not a playoff team, but have the right type of players on the team, a few good, smart veterans, a very young core, the likelihood of a high lottery pick next season and a franchise point guard, in Rubio, on his way. If the team looks even remotely like that next year, I’ll be happy with how the offseason transpired.
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Should Colangelo Play Hardball?
Posted on | July 1, 2010 | 7 Comments
Bloggers note: I know I promised a Draft Report Card, and I had started writing it, but got too busy. I still may finish it, but I don’t get paid to do this, so who knows.
So hunting season has started and the bullets are flying left, right and centre. For Raptor fans, the good part in this is that we don’t have to read all the premature speculation about where Bosh could be going. On the downside, we now have to read the less speculative reports about where Bosh could be going.
By the time you read this, it’s possible that Bosh, or any of the other big name free agents, could have agreed to sign with a team, but I doubt it. Proving that all the rumours flying around about where players have decided to go were false, I’m going to guess it will at least be a day or so before players start making verbal agreements. They’re going to want to know what’s out there for them and they couldn’t do that until today.
So with Bosh seemingly more open to playing second fiddle to guys like Wade or LeBron than he initially stated, it seems that the likelihood of Bosh leaving is pretty much a reality. Too bad. While he’s certainly not the type of big man I would choose to build around if given the choice, he is the best player, by far, that the Raptors have and the team is worse off without him.
The question now is what to do if Bosh chooses to sign elsewhere, as is predicted. Initially, I felt not doing a sign and trade was pointless and only hurting the team. After reading this article on Raptors Digest, I realized that Colangelo might need to take a different approach. Now, I have no idea what deals are available to the Raptors in a sign and trade for Bosh. Bosh going to Miami seems to be the rumour with the most legs, and there is talk of everything from Michael Beasley, Mario Chalmers and Joel Anthony, to a simple $16 million trade exception and the Raptors draft pick back.
The most frightening rumour out there was that LeBron, Wade and Bosh all agreed to sign with the same team, probably Miami. If you’re a Miami fan, you couldn’t ask for better news. If you’re a fan of the other 29 teams, this would just plain suck. The East would basically be a wasteland and no Western Conference team would have a hope of beating them in the Finals. Personally, I don’t see this happening, and there are recent reports that Wade has given up trying to recruit LeBron.
Still, it got me thinking that perhaps Colangelo might not want to simply sign and trade Bosh to any team he wants. Maybe Colangelo might want to sit back and think about what really is best for the Raptors.
If Colangelo decides to play hardball with Bosh, Bosh could simply sign with one of the teams that have the cap space, but he would be losing out on nearly $30 million and an extra year on his contract. That might be enough to entice Bosh to want to help out the Raptors a little more.
First of all, if I’m Colangelo, I’d forbid Bosh from teaming up with both LeBron and Wade. They could only do that in Miami, so Colangelo would simply have to refuse to take back Beasley and Chalmers. Without Colangelo taking back those players, Miami doesn’t have enough to sign all three. Problem solved.
Of course, simply preventing a dynasty in his own conference might not be enough for Colangelo. He might actually want something of value back for Bosh. Something more than a simple trade exception. Could Colangelo give Bosh a list of teams HE would approve of, and what he would expect back were Bosh to agree to a sign-and-trade to them?
If enough teams are desperate for Bosh, he might be willing to put pressure on those teams to agree to Colangelo’s demands. Obviously the teams without cap space would be able to send the most talent back, but simple talent, with equal sized contracts, might not be exactly what Colangelo wants back. Now obviously a trade of Bosh and Jack for Bynum and Odom would be incredibly enticing, especially if the Raptors could turn around and trade Odom for a young player. Even more enticing might be a trade to the Nets, where they send back draft pick Derrick Favors in return. Sure, the Raptors just drafted Ed Davis, who plays the same position, but getting Favors would give the Raptors an 18 year old athletic big man would give them a great piece to keep or trade, but they’d also be getting a sizeable trade exception to do with what they want.
Basically, Colangelo, who has been powerless throughout the Bosh saga, might be able to actually wield some power, and possibly gain some more respect, if he decides to play hardball with Bosh. It certainly could backfire and Bosh could leave for nothing, giving the Raptors less cap space than what the MLE is worth this summer, but Colangelo might actually be able to turn water into wine and come out somewhat of a victor in this whole sordid mess.
It’s a dangerous gamble, and one that will end up affecting the team for years. It’s the dangerous gamble, however, that a great GM would make. Back when Jerry West was in charge of the Lakers, he traded away a top ten center, in Vlade Divac, in exchange for the 13th pick in the draft and the cap space to be able to ATTEMPT to sign Shaquille O’Neal away from the Orlando. Thankfuly, for them, that 13th pick was Kobe Bryant and Shaq decided to walk away from a nice young team in Orlando that had just won 60 games and made it to the Eastern Conference Finals. Can you imagine if Kobe had been a little more like Kwame, and if Shaq decided he like Orlando better? Talk about your bad moves. West, however, had confidence in his abilities and judgement and decided to trust his instincts and threw everything into the pot. Colangelo has that chance, although unfortunately without the same upside as Jerry West’s bet.
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