Tar Heel free agents. Who will Parlow sign?

Looking through the years of UNC, what free agents are out there from UNC?
It seems like there aren't as many as there used to be.

F- Casey Nogueira
F - Courtney Jones
F/MF - Jessica McDonald
F/MF - Lindsay Tarpley (mid-season signing perhaps, for playoff run?)
MF - Kacey White
MF - Lori Chalupny (would she go out west?)
D - Kristi Eveland (can she still run like she used to?)

Klingenberg, Averbuch, and Engen are off limits. Playing overseas.
Who am I missing?

Kat Whitehill, unless she's thinking Boston again.

Cindy is going sign players that help her team win. I doubt she is worried about making Tar Heel fans happy. Allie Long and Nikki Washington are good free agents to pick up.

Interesting you started this thread. I've been wondering if Tobin's ending up with the Thorns could have involved some conversations between Cindy and her about where she and the Thorns would list each other in their preference lists.

I could see Parlow be much more important to Heath than which city

Well that brings up an interesting question: Would Parlow rather have Heath as a fellow Tarheel over Rapinoe, a Portlanf fav?

I doubt it. Even if she somehow thinks it's a push on the offensive end, Rapinoe is a much better defender in transition.

We have a winner...Allie Long was the first Tar Heel called home (assuming Heath doesnt count)

Anybody WNT to explain the Amber Brooks choice in the draft? Last week she signed a contract with Bayern. How does this help the Thorns?

I'm wondering if the Thorns have a bunch more free agents lined up and are not counting on much from this year's college draft -- if anything. I would have thought they'd have grabbed Kendall, but maybe they already have some free agents in line for the left side?

Rumor has it she will have the option to return to NWSL in the spring, May I think.

It's possible (not probable) Brooks could still be in this league by early-summer this year.
They have the rights to her (I believe) for 2014 now, even if she isn't back in this league in 2013.

Interesting. Where did you read we have rights through next year?

Two things on that.. If the Thorns don't have rights to next year, it's a wasted pick. About all it does is provide A parachute for Brooks if she washes out in Bayern. It's betting on someone to fail.

Second, if she is successful in Europe, will she want to come back? Does anybody think the Thorns will pay a third round draft pick what Bayern will pay?

I see what you're saying. However, if Brooks decides to consider playing in NWSL, Portland will pay her first round draft pick money, and not 3rd round draft pick money.

Really, is it normal to pay third round picks more than the two players drafted above them? Aren't pay structures in drafts usually set by the league?

Backdoor her some under the table income from a booster.

You can only do that in college

Actually, this league is so cheap there prolly isnt much difference between 1st and 3rd pick money. If Portland can get her to come back they can pay her for half a season as she's still got half a season of Bayern money. The question is how do u get her back when u cant promise her much for 2014?

While we're on this topic someone explain to me how there is a salary cap if there is no contract yet. Isnt the amount of the salary cap negotiated in the CBA?

Well, the league should have the salary cap at $250,000 instead of $200,000.
That extra $4,000 per player, could have gone a long way.
Maybe the salary cap will be $250,000 in 2014, if attendance is good enough in the first year.

I severely doubt that the league is setting the pay levels for drafted players. There is no CBA in place. There is already a salary cap. The salaries will work themselves out under the limited cap. The teams need some salary flexibility to be able to pay players that are important to filling needs the money they need to get them. Without flexibility in salaries the Morgan/Sinclair allocation is an even bigger travesity. This isn't a closed market, top scorers can always go to Europe if the League has told them that they can only pay 16k to a certain level of player.

Exactly. That works out to 18k per player under the announced rosters and Salary CAPs it would be crazy for a team to try to get through the season with fewer than 18 players. I heard that all year.

Last week everyone was bitching about how WNY got hosed by the allocation gap. Turns out they did better than the other teams in getting the players they want. They can offer an extra 6K to somebody. The Thorns now don't have a draft player, all of which said they would play in the league and pay what draft players would earn. They have no choice, really, since they can't market themselves here and the windows are closing overseas.

Tony Diccico said Cone would learn a lot. The learning has started sooner than we all imagined.

I'm starting to think the Thorns might not be the favorite to win it after all.
I'm not sure Parlow will win it all in her first year there.
Something tells me they will get beat in the playoffs.
But Portland will win a title eventually in this league, and probably soon.

If her free agent choices are on par with her draft choices the hopes for playoffs are optimistic.

She said she wanted to play possession football.

She got a short central defender on a team that already had two from National teams. (Abby thanks her) The speculation is she will convert her to an outside back, which means she picked an unknown quatity and passed up two proven players at that position in Quon and Johnson. This player has a history of knee issues and didn't even play half the season this year with an MCL. Did I mention Jeld Wen is a Turf field?

For her second choice she picks a forward, which puts the choice in the hole in the head category. Anybody tell her we have a couple? We have no mids signed yet but Heath, which she had no role in, even if one says she is signing as a free agent.

For her third choice she picks...well..nobody really ...she is signed elsewhere. but she is a pretty good UNC name. At least the other players in the midfield will get to show what they can do, should we ever get any.

The last choice at least makes a little sense. If Leblanc gets hit by the Portland Trolley, she might see some minutes. She is good at high balls ( tall player). This year against Portland she couldn't hold on to a Kendall Johnson strike or a Johnson cross into the 6 yard box. Both were converted to goals. She also got Nutmegged for a third goal.

Yep, the more I think about it, the more I realize just how dumb that first round draft choice was.
Kat Williamson now has a chance to go down as the biggest bust of this draft, since she was officially a first round pick. She doesn't really fit this Portland team at all. Seattle could use her though, as they need defenders.

If Brooks doesn't play in this league in 2013, then Portland had the worst draft (by far) of any of the eight franchises today.

Regarding Collective Bargaining Agreements, they only are an issue if there's a union. So far as I know, there isn't a union for NWSL. If I'm right, then each contract between a team and a player is simply between the team and the player.

How this fits with the USSF, I don't know. There is a WNT union, I believe. How that will interrelate with the NWSL from a labor perspective, I don't know. Posters may speculate, but I'm not making any assumptions about how it all will work (and I'm a lawyer, but not a labor lawyer). Right now, my guess is that there is no collective bargaining agreement that affects either (1) the hiring of players from the college draft and (2) the hiring of free agents.