They do have Beasley, Cook and options on Chalmers and James Jones. The tricky part would be to surround those guys with enough talent to 'own the East' as you say. That's not an easy task. As good as those two guys are, you need 4-5 more guys who can play and you can't give them alot of money. Considering the Orlando roster, the Hawks if they can re-sign JJ, and if Chicago get Bosh or Stoudemire, I still don't know if LeBron will win anything.
Rose, Salmons, Deng, Bosh, Noah? I don't see how Miami would 'own' that unless they add alot more talent then LeBron. Remember, to sign LBJ they have to wave everyone and then replace them with players accepting to play for basically nothing.
They don't need to show interest. Everyone wants to sign him. LeBrons contract is up summer 2011, but he has a early terminaton option for summer 2010. And all things indicate he will opt out next summer. Any team that want to sign him will need roughly $20m of cap space. Which means total salary at that time can not be more then $30-32m of comitted salary since the cap is projected at $50-52m. Teams with major cap space are: Miami, $24m comitted New Jersey, $25m comitted New York, $27m comitted Chicago, $37m comitted Oklahoma, $38m comitted Clippers, $39m comitted Sacramento, $41m comitted Basically that narrows it down to Heat, Nets and Knicks, who could realistically sign LeBron as a free-agent regardless of where the cap ends up. But only Miami and New Jersey would actually have a core of players that could tempt James away from Cleveland. New York in my opinion has no chance of signing him.
what a facking bitch! here I am watching Heat trailing the lakers! then finally Heat get a very small lead and at the final second Kobe scores and destroys us!
Oden likely out for the season with broken patella - bummer for him. How bad does that first pick look now over Durant?
Nearly killed my fantasy team. Good thing Love is back and Carl Landry is playing out of his mind. Yeah the Blazers are cursed.
Quarter of a cetury later, the same story replays for the Blazers. On lighter news, Magic won and are atop the Eastern Conference.
Tell me 10 players that are barley 6'0 ft tall that scored and played the game like AI. And lead a team to the finals with no supporting cast like AI. From 1996 to 2006 there may have been 5 players to put up numbers like his. Check his numbers out and tell me who was better then him in those 10 years. He's the best "little guy" to ever play. He took the ball to the rim like no other small guy has ever done and scored liked no other small guy has ever done. To be 6'0 ft tall and average the numbers he did on both sides of the ball was amazing.
Yeah - I'm with you juvefe2 - people who don't appreciate AI for the incredibly gifted scorer that he was, weren't really paying attention to how amazing he was.
Not once in those 10 seasons did he shoot 45%. Name me one All Star who went 10 straight seasons and not shoot 45% once. I don't think that's ever happened. No supporting cast? He had that years DPY and 6th Man of The Year on his team. So what if he was small? Guy shot 42 percent. That's not very great. AI never guarded anyone. I like Iverson and I always did. He was fun to watch. But he was overrated. Too small to be a two guard. Too triggerhappy to be a point guard. Too lazy and selfish to be a franchise player.
I agree - although he was already on one major injury I think so they knew that it might not be great. It's now 3 major knee injuries in 4 years? It's a shame because it would have been fun to see what a healthy Oden could have become.
A lightweight Mutombo. That was his ceiling. Durant can be as good as any winger in the game today, except for LeBron and Kobe. With some luck he can end up above Pierce when it's all said and done.
I think he has better hands, feet and touch than Mutombo - and is/was a lot more mobile and athletic. But he also wasn't as imposing defensively. Not sure who I would compare him to.
I think it's safe to say that the Blazers curse when it comes to drafting centers high in the draft is for real... Even Bowie and Walton averaged more games through their first three seasons! Walton still managed 151 Bowie got to 119 Seems like Oden will be stuck at 81 games through three NBA seasons...