2011 freeagency, and Dalembert:

[bajaden]

Not sure what the percentages are, but if you took a poll, my guess is that just as many people think Dalembert will be traded before the trade deadline as those who think the Kings will try and resign him. Truth is, if the Kings wait till the end of the year, he becomes a freeagent and is on the open market. Yes, they would still hold his Bird rights, as they would with Landry. But with those Bird rights comes a cap hold. Unless you relinquish your rights to the player. The cap hold on Dalembert is a healthy $19,045,250.00. Add in the cap hold from Landry which is $6,000,000.00 and you have a total of $25 mil counting against the cap. Add that to the remaining 29 mil in salaries and your right back to 53 mil. Not a lot of wiggle room there is there?

Obviously the cap hold of 19 mil is far more than the Kings or any other team would be willing to pay Dalembert. Whereas the 6 mil for Landry is more reasonable. My point is that its probably in the Kings best interest to just relinquish the rights of both players and let the chips fall where they may. Once done, the Kings will have more money under the cap than any other team in the NBA. And just maybe, they'll be more interested in someone else.

Here's a list of some of the unrestricted freeagents:

Kendrick Perkins
Zach Randolph
Glen Davis
Josh Powell
Yao Ming
Tony Parker
Shane Battier
Tayshaun Prince
Nenad Krstic
Andrei Kirilenko
Josh Howard
Jason Richardson
Joel Przybilla
Jason Kapono
Troy Murphy
Mike Dunleavy
Grant Hill
J.R. Smith
Kenyon Martin
Peja Stojakovic

Now I grant you that all these guys may not remain freeagents. But just on the surface, who would you rather have, Dalembert or Perkins at center? I have no preference just yet, but Perkins is the younger of the two. Yeah I know, Boston won't let Perkins slip away. But Boston is going to have commited salaries of 71.8 mil without counting Perkins. Just how deep into the luxury tax are they willing to go? Especially when we don't even know what the new rules are.

If they do install a hard cap, and my logical side says that simply won't happen, but if they do, then teams like Boston will have more to worry about than resigning Perkins. But lets say they come up with something more reasonable for both sides like, no hard cap, but they do away with the mid-level exemption while retaining some form of Bird rule. This would still enable teams to go over the cap to retain one of their own players, but wouldn't allow them to use a mid-level to do the same thing. Only teams that had managed their salaries would be in position to sign freeagents. Ahemm! Like the Kings.

Other than the Kings only a few other teams have much capspace. These are the teams without the cap holds being added. For those that don't know what a cap hold is. Its an amount of money that counts against the teams cap for players that they retain the rights to in some form. Such as having the Bird rights, or the mini Bird rights. Or because the player is a restricted freeagent and requires a qualifing offer. Its intent is to keep a team from stashing a player by holding on to his rights, while going out and using the cap space provided by that player to sign another player. Thus the cap hold. Anyway here are the total salaries of these teams at the end of next year.

Kings: $28.1 mil
Nets: $39.8 mil
Pacers: $36.3 mil
Grizzleys: $36.3 mil
Thunder: $37.9 mil

These five teams will have the most money to spend. However in the Thunder's case Krstic is an unrestricted freeagent and Green is a restricted freeagent. The Griz are in a similar situation with Acie Law, Hamed Haddadi, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph all becoming either restricted or unrestricted free agents. Here's a short list of the restricted freeagents.

Al Horford
Al Thornton
Yi Jianlian
Julian Wright
Greg Oden
Patrick Mills
Jeff Green
Wilson Chandler
Mario Chambers
Marc Gasol
Mike Conley
Aaron Brooks
Aaron Afflalo

So this is just food for thought. Resigning either Landry or Dalembert may not be a slam dunk. With the depth on the front line, the Kings may be in the unique position of letting two talented players walk away, without a huge drop in talent overall, and be position to make one or even two more reasonable additions that may be more beneficial to the team. Either way, the Kings won't have any cap space to work with until they make a decision on the two of them. Either resign one or both for reasonable money, or relinquish their rights and move in another direction

 

[kingsboi]

We absolutely need to get a shot blocking/rebounding center in free agency, whether that's resigning Dalembert or getting Perkins/Oden/Pryzbilla. Perkins & Oden I don't see as a realistic chance really but Joell could be an option possibly. Marc Gasol would be really nice as well, who knows how he is going to feel after this season in Memphis.

 

[TTown Kings]

Looks like we will very well positioned to fill some holes. What's nice is we'll have a much better idea of what holes those will be by season's end. Could fill that 2 spot next to Reke with Battier, Afflalo, Chalmers, or Smith. I also like the idea of either resigning Sam or signing another defensive big to take his place. Then depending what happens with the Greene/Casspi experiment this year someone like Kirilenko or Prince could be an option if it doesn't pan out. Things are definitely looking up. Nice to have the flexibility...

 

[gunks]

A lot of good bigs on those lists. I'd love to get Perkins, that guy is an amazing interior defender. Blk #s dont really jump out on the stat sheet, but he makes it real tough for opposing bigs.

Of course now that we have a million bajillion bigs on our roster I'm thinking we'd be going small on free agency.

Heres a silly thought: Tony Parker as Reke's running mate. He'd be expensive and I doubt he'd ditch the Spurs for Kings, but that would be an interesting backcourt. Both guys kinda comboish, one freakishly fast and the other freakishly big and strong.

 

[Prince_XY]

I don't have any problem losing Landry, since we already have Cousins as our primary post player. But if you'll say Dalembert is also a problem, then I'll say here we go again in wanting to go back to a team without a legit shot blocking player, only because we want to save money, or tweaked the roster for the sake of tweaking it, or whatever reason. What is worse is that we want to save money for players duplicating what we already have, and worst to acquire role players at a position in exchange of losing an important player in another position. It seems like we fans are really masochistic and want to watch an all-offense team in excruciating pain again. Countless threads calling for Petrie to bring in a legit shot blocking BIG will permeate in this board again if we let go of Dalembert.

First, there is no guarantee that the ground bound Cousins and the very raw Whiteside could be the anchor of our defense as soon as two years from now. So you let go of Dalembert who is a proven shot blocker/defensive anchor and we're back to looking for a player with his talent as soon as when he is gone. IMO, just as Evans means great option in offense, Dalembert means great option in defense for our team. You don't want to add more offense at the expense of your defense.

Second, let us say we let go of Dalembert and replace him with the younger and often injured Perkins ( or Yao Ming ). And if I am right, Perkins ( and Yao Ming ) will be commanding a higher salary.

What did we solve here?

Nada.

First, you'll be in worse situation financially because you end-up paying more.

Second, you still have to play Perkins ( or Yao Ming) as your starting center ( because you have to somehow get that >$10M in salary that you are paying him ) and your poster boy Cousins still have to get some minutes at the PF position to get more minutes for his development. And as a negative bonus, we will have two ground-bound fat BIGs running around whenever you play them at the same time and fans gets some sore eyes because of this.

It is not as if we have a Kevin Garnett to play with Perkins in Sacramento!

And their history of injuries?

I have to agree we have one of the lowest salary right now if not indeed we actually have the lowest salary right now. You don't have to worry about re-signing Dalembert. If you are really anxious about that cap hold affecting us, then just re-sign Dalembert and you have virtually taken away the cause of your irrational fear of that cap hold on Dalembert.

Re-signing Dalembert will not change our financial flexibility that much, especially if we re-sign him cheaper than what he is getting this season ( from $12M to $8-10M ) If you re-sign Dalembert at say $8-10M for the next 3 years, that would mean a total of $36-38M only which would still put us among the lowest salaried team in your example ( Nets= $39.8M, Pacers= $36.3M, Grizzleys= $36.3M, Thunder= $37.9 mil ) So in reality, there is nothing to worry about.

Probably, the only way I can see this thread as a good idea is if we can "for sure" get Marc Gasol or if we can "for sure" get Oden at a much-much more cheaper price than Dalembert.

 

[Kingster]

Not sure what the percentages are, but if you took a poll, my guess is that just as many people think Dalembert will be traded before the trade deadline as those who think the Kings will try and resign him. Truth is, if the Kings wait till the end of the year, he becomes a freeagent and is on the open market. Yes, they would still hold his Bird rights, as they would with Landry. But with those Bird rights comes a cap hold. Unless you relinquish your rights to the player. The cap hold on Dalembert is a healthy $19,045,250.00. Add in the cap hold from Landry which is $6,000,000.00 and you have a total of $25 mil counting against the cap. Add that to the remaining 29 mil in salaries and your right back to 53 mil. Not a lot of wiggle room there is there?

Obviously the cap hold of 19 mil is far more than the Kings or any other team would be willing to pay Dalembert. Whereas the 6 mil for Landry is more reasonable. My point is that its probably in the Kings best interest to just relinquish the rights of both players and let the chips fall where they may. Once done, the Kings will have more money under the cap than any other team in the NBA. And just maybe, they'll be more interested in someone else.

Here's a list of some of the unrestricted freeagents:

Kendrick Perkins
Zach Randolph
Glen Davis
Josh Powell
Yao Ming
Tony Parker
Shane Battier
Tayshaun Prince
Nenad Krstic
Andrei Kirilenko
Josh Howard
Jason Richardson
Joel Przybilla
Jason Kapono
Troy Murphy
Mike Dunleavy
Grant Hill
J.R. Smith
Kenyon Martin
Peja Stojakovic

Now I grant you that all these guys may not remain freeagents. But just on the surface, who would you rather have, Dalembert or Perkins at center? I have no preference just yet, but Perkins is the younger of the two. Yeah I know, Boston won't let Perkins slip away. But Boston is going to have commited salaries of 71.8 mil without counting Perkins. Just how deep into the luxury tax are they willing to go? Especially when we don't even know what the new rules are.

If they do install a hard cap, and my logical side says that simply won't happen, but if they do, then teams like Boston will have more to worry about than resigning Perkins. But lets say they come up with something more reasonable for both sides like, no hard cap, but they do away with the mid-level exemption while retaining some form of Bird rule. This would still enable teams to go over the cap to retain one of their own players, but wouldn't allow them to use a mid-level to do the same thing. Only teams that had managed their salaries would be in position to sign freeagents. Ahemm! Like the Kings.

Other than the Kings only a few other teams have much capspace. These are the teams without the cap holds being added. For those that don't know what a cap hold is. Its an amount of money that counts against the teams cap for players that they retain the rights to in some form. Such as having the Bird rights, or the mini Bird rights. Or because the player is a restricted freeagent and requires a qualifing offer. Its intent is to keep a team from stashing a player by holding on to his rights, while going out and using the cap space provided by that player to sign another player. Thus the cap hold. Anyway here are the total salaries of these teams at the end of next year.

Kings: $28.1 mil
Nets: $39.8 mil
Pacers: $36.3 mil
Grizzleys: $36.3 mil
Thunder: $37.9 mil

These five teams will have the most money to spend. However in the Thunder's case Krstic is an unrestricted freeagent and Green is a restricted freeagent. The Griz are in a similar situation with Acie Law, Hamed Haddadi, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph all becoming either restricted or unrestricted free agents. Here's a short list of the restricted freeagents.

Al Horford
Al Thornton
Yi Jianlian
Julian Wright
Greg Oden
Patrick Mills
Jeff Green
Wilson Chandler
Mario Chambers
Marc Gasol
Mike Conley
Aaron Brooks
Aaron Afflalo

So this is just food for thought. Resigning either Landry or Dalembert may not be a slam dunk. With the depth on the front line, the Kings may be in the unique position of letting two talented players walk away, without a huge drop in talent overall, and be position to make one or even two more reasonable additions that may be more beneficial to the team. Either way, the Kings won't have any cap space to work with until they make a decision on the two of them. Either resign one or both for reasonable money, or relinquish their rights and move in another direction

The way Landry is playing, the decision to let him go won't be difficult. He looks like he's still thinking of bikinis at the beach. Those restricted FAs look much more interesting than the unrestricted ones. I didn't know about Green. I can see saliva coming out of Petrie's mouth when he's thinking about Green. He would give much needed quickness to our lineup and a very good outside shooter. That guy has a ton of upside. The two Als look interesting, and the Kings have always liked Aaron Brooks. Perkins seems redundant. Too much like Cousins.

 

[bajaden]

I don't have any problem losing Landry, since we already have Cousins as our primary post player. But if you'll say Dalembert is also a problem, then I'll say here we go again in wanting to go back to a team without a legit shot blocking player, only because we want to save money, or tweaked the roster for the sake of tweaking it, or whatever reason. What is worse is that we want to save money for players duplicating what we already have, and worst to acquire role players at a position in exchange of losing an important player in another position. It seems like we fans are really masochistic and want to watch an all-offense team in excruciating pain again. Countless threads calling for Petrie to bring in a legit shot blocking BIG will permeate in this board again if we let go of Dalembert.

First, there is no guarantee that the ground bound Cousins and the very raw Whiteside could be the anchor of our defense as soon as two years from now. So you let go of Dalembert who is a proven shot blocker/defensive anchor and we're back to looking for a player with his talent as soon as when he is gone. IMO, just as Evans means great option in offense, Dalembert means great option in defense for our team. You don't want to add more offense at the expense of your defense.

Second, let us say we let go of Dalembert and replace him with the younger and often injured Perkins ( or Yao Ming ). And if I am right, Perkins ( and Yao Ming ) will be commanding a higher salary.

What did we solve here?

Nada.

First, you'll be in worse situation financially because you end-up paying more.

Second, you still have to play Perkins ( or Yao Ming) as your starting center ( because you have to somehow get that >$10M in salary that you are paying him ) and your poster boy Cousins still have to get some minutes at the PF position to get more minutes for his development. And as a negative bonus, we will have two ground-bound fat BIGs running around whenever you play them at the same time and fans gets some sore eyes because of this.

It is not as if we have a Kevin Garnett to play with Perkins in Sacramento!

And their history of injuries?

I have to agree we have one of the lowest salary right now if not indeed we actually have the lowest salary right now. You don't have to worry about re-signing Dalembert. If you are really anxious about that cap hold affecting us, then just re-sign Dalembert and you have virtually taken away the cause of your irrational fear of that cap hold on Dalembert.

Re-signing Dalembert will not change our financial flexibility that much, especially if we re-sign him cheaper than what he is getting this season ( from $12M to $8-10M ) If you re-sign Dalembert at say $8-10M for the next 3 years, that would mean a total of $36-38M only which would still put us among the lowest salaried team in your example ( Nets= $39.8M, Pacers= $36.3M, Grizzleys= $36.3M, Thunder= $37.9 mil ) So in reality, there is nothing to worry about.

Probably, the only way I can see this thread as a good idea is if we can "for sure" get Marc Gasol or if we can "for sure" get Oden at a much-much more cheaper price than Dalembert.

Where in my post did I say I wanted to get rid of Dalembert??????? Please learn what comprehension means.. All I was doing was laying out the circumstances. I left it up to those who read what I wrote to make up their own mind. I didn't accuse you of having a love affair with Dalembert, so please don't accuse me of having irrational fear, smiley face or not. But just so you know, its my contention that we wait and see just how Dalembert fits with the team before making any decision one way or another. If he is what we think he will be, then we should make every attempt to resign him as long as its for a reasonable price. And if were going to resign him then we need to do it quickly in order to remove the 19 mil cap hold.

Right now you, nor I have any idea just how good Dalembert is going to be for this team. He may not be a good fit at all. Or he may be just what were lookiing for. But I'll tell you this. If I have to choose between Perkins and Dalembert, thats a hard choice. Simply because Perkins is younger and is also a very good defender. But lets be clear. I don't dislike Dalembert. I was one of those that wanted the Kings to trade for Dalembert prior to last season.

 

[bajaden]

The way Landry is playing, the decision to let him go won't be difficult. He looks like he's still thinking of bikinis at the beach. Those restricted FAs look much more interesting than the unrestricted ones. I didn't know about Green. I can see saliva coming out of Petrie's mouth when he's thinking about Green. He would give much needed quickness to our lineup and a very good outside shooter. That guy has a ton of upside. The two Als look interesting, and the Kings have always liked Aaron Brooks. Perkins seems redundant. Too much like Cousins.

I would switch Landry for Green in a heartbeat. I'm sure the Thunder wouldn't. I loved Green coming out of college. He can do everything Landry can do, but he's a better outside shooter and a better athlete. What I like about him is that he can slide between PF and SF almost effortlessly, and it doesn't affect his offense or his rebounding. I can't imagine the Thunder letting him slip away. But we could certainly bid him up and make them pay top dollar.

 

[Kingster]

I would switch Landry for Green in a heartbeat. I'm sure the Thunder wouldn't. I loved Green coming out of college. He can do everything Landry can do, but he's a better outside shooter and a better athlete. What I like about him is that he can slide between PF and SF almost effortlessly, and it doesn't affect his offense or his rebounding. I can't imagine the Thunder letting him slip away. But we could certainly bid him up and make them pay top dollar.

OKC is going to have to max out to retain Westbrook. Can they keep them all?

 

[LPKingsFan]

The key with the rebounder/shotblocker is that he needs to be able to play alongside Cousins. I'd like to see whether Dalembert can do so before writing off his potential future here. But I'll concede that it's not a foregone conclusion. Still, I'd say that's a prerequisite before we go spending $$ on another free agent big man. Could Gasol play alongside Cousins? Perkins? I have my doubts.

 

[bajaden]

OKC is going to have to max out to retain Westbrook. Can they keep them all?

Good question. They are considerably under the cap, so they do have some wiggle room. It should be interesting to watch, and while watching bear in mind that the Kings day of reckoning will come as well. As long as teams are able to go over the cap to resign thier own players, and they have owners that don't mind spending the money, think Lakers, then its not a problem.

 

[Megalodon]

Green would be amazing - but it isn't happening. Gasol is a more realistic option, though he probably would go to a proven playoff team to get out of a losing atmosphere ... but you never know.

 

[Superman]

Not sure what the percentages are, but if you took a poll, my guess is that just as many people think Dalembert will be traded before the trade deadline as those who think the Kings will try and resign him. Truth is, if the Kings wait till the end of the year, he becomes a freeagent and is on the open market. Yes, they would still hold his Bird rights, as they would with Landry. But with those Bird rights comes a cap hold. Unless you relinquish your rights to the player. The cap hold on Dalembert is a healthy $19,045,250.00. Add in the cap hold from Landry which is $6,000,000.00 and you have a total of $25 mil counting against the cap. Add that to the remaining 29 mil in salaries and your right back to 53 mil. Not a lot of wiggle room there is there?

I believe they're both going to be unrestricted, right? In that case, the only reason not to release our cap holds would be to retain Bird rights, but these aren't max players (or even sign and trade players), so that's not really a huge consideration. Knowing that the hold on Dalembert is $19 million makes that sort of an easy decision, assuming he's not traded before then. But that's fine, because he's not getting a max deal or even a six year deal, not from us or anyone else.

Landry's cap hold is far more reasonable, and if we're $24 million under the cap even counting his hold (based on this year's $58 million cap, minus our payroll + his cap hold), then that's not the end of the world. Would still be enough for a max contract plus some, not that we'd be signing any max level players. And since I can't really see Landry resigning with us, we'd soon have his hold released anyway.

I'm not all that excited about the players listed anyway, either because I don't want them, or because I don't see them coming to Sacramento. But we don't really gain anything to speak of by holding their rights. That's only beneficial for a max level player or a restricted free agent.

 

[bajaden]

Here's a related article on freeagency:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/20599/ten-days-to-go-for-class-of-’07-extensions

 

[Kingster]

Good question. They are considerably under the cap, so they do have some wiggle room. It should be interesting to watch, and while watching bear in mind that the Kings day of reckoning will come as well. As long as teams are able to go over the cap to resign thier own players, and they have owners that don't mind spending the money, think Lakers, then its not a problem.

OKC is ahead of the Kings in rebuilding. And like the Kings, they have done it primarily through the youth movement. It seems to me we should all be looking very closely at the salary moves that OKC will be making in the near future because the Kings could be making similar moves shortly thereafter.

 

[Superman]

No labor deal is starting to have an impact. I just wonder why the owners were throwing so much money around on mediocre players this past summer. Our "WTF were they thinking???" thread was out of control.

 

[bajaden]

No labor deal is starting to have an impact. I just wonder why the owners were throwing so much money around on mediocre players this past summer. Our "WTF were they thinking???" thread was out of control.

I have to agree. Since the owners are the one's that want to force the players into cheaper salaries, or fewer years, or both, why then would they go nuts and do the very thing they're trying to correct. Doesn't make much sense, unless they know something we don't.

 

[cfechter]

I would switch Landry for Green in a heartbeat. I'm sure the Thunder wouldn't. I loved Green coming out of college. He can do everything Landry can do, but he's a better outside shooter and a better athlete. What I like about him is that he can slide between PF and SF almost effortlessly, and it doesn't affect his offense or his rebounding. I can't imagine the Thunder letting him slip away. But we could certainly bid him up and make them pay top dollar.

I disagree with you here. I think Landry is superior to Green.

Green's stats last year -

15.1 PPG, 6.0 rpg, shot 45% from the field and 33% from 3, about 1 block and steal per game in 37 minutes per game. His scoring would probably increase if he weren't playing with Westbrook and Durant.

Landry's stats - 16.8 points per game, 5.9 rpg, shot 53% from the field (no range), little under one block and steal per game in 30 minutes per game.

I think Landry is a higher efficiency scorer and a slightly better rebounder. Their athletic stats (steals and blocks) are essentially equal.

Green MAY be a better fit because of the "range". I'm not sure I'm ready to label anyone who shoots 33% from 3 a good three point shooter, but usually shooting improves with age.

 

[Superman]

I have to agree. Since the owners are the one's that want to force the players into cheaper salaries, or fewer years, or both, why then would they go nuts and do the very thing they're trying to correct. Doesn't make much sense, unless they know something we don't.

Yeah, well whatever that "something" is that they know, apparently the player's union doesn't know either, and will either have to come out during negotiations or there won't be a new labor deal. Either they shot themselves in the foot, or they think they have a trump card. Either way, something is going to have to happen between now and then.

 

[bajaden]

I disagree with you here. I think Landry is superior to Green.

Green's stats last year -

15.1 PPG, 6.0 rpg, shot 45% from the field and 33% from 3, about 1 block and steal per game in 37 minutes per game. His scoring would probably increase if he weren't playing with Westbrook and Durant.

Landry's stats - 16.8 points per game, 5.9 rpg, shot 53% from the field (no range), little under one block and steal per game in 30 minutes per game.

I think Landry is a higher efficiency scorer and a slightly better rebounder. Their athletic stats (steals and blocks) are essentially equal.

Green MAY be a better fit because of the "range". I'm not sure I'm ready to label anyone who shoots 33% from 3 a good three point shooter, but usually shooting improves with age.

I like Green because I think he has more upside. He's a better quicker athlete who at least can shoot from 3pt range. While 33% isn't great, its not horrible, and with time will improve. I think Green is a better defender, who can also defend some SF's. Which is a position I think he can play as well as PF. Its not that I dislike Landry. Let me put it this way. Landry is more of a one dimensional player. He's good at what he does, but I don't see much room for growth. Green is a lot more versatile, and I think he has a chance to be a lot better than he is right now. Doesn't mean I'm right. Only the Shadow knows. Heh heh heh!

 

[Prince_XY]

I disagree with you here. I think Landry is superior to Green.

Green's stats last year -

15.1 PPG, 6.0 rpg, shot 45% from the field and 33% from 3, about 1 block and steal per game in 37 minutes per game. His scoring would probably increase if he weren't playing with Westbrook and Durant.

Landry's stats - 16.8 points per game, 5.9 rpg, shot 53% from the field (no range), little under one block and steal per game in 30 minutes per game.

I think Landry is a higher efficiency scorer and a slightly better rebounder. Their athletic stats (steals and blocks) are essentially equal.

Green MAY be a better fit because of the "range". I'm not sure I'm ready to label anyone who shoots 33% from 3 a good three point shooter, but usually shooting improves with age.

Very good point. Very interesting and revealing stats by the way. And I wish this fact sticks in everyone's confused mind before they label Green as being a lot better than Landry. Also, Green shooting a lot of 3s does not mean he is very good at shooting the 3s.

33%?

You got to be kidding me.

I don't know why people would think of getting rid of an undersized PF ( Landry ) just to get another undersized PF ( Green ) when we have a lot of good and developing full-sized PFs as future capable starters. Besides, Green for sure will be more expensive. Also, did we not see how Green had some problem in defending at the post against the frontline of the mighty Lakers? Is this how we want to build a championship team?

Yes, Green can switch from PF to SF, but so is the bigger Donte Greene!

IMO, if we acquire Green we will get stuck on having to play an expensive and undersized starter at PF. And comes playoff time, we will realized he is not enough and most of our young full-sized bigs would have signed somewhere else where they could get more money and playing time.

And if you play him at the SF, then you can end-up having both Casspi and Greene very unhappy with their already short minutes of playing time decreasing some more. We will lose them before we even realized their potential.

Again, it is too early to talk about getting rid of Landry and especially Dalembert. Let us find out first what they can do this season. Don't believe those doom-sayers when they say we have to get rid of both Landry and Dalembert for fear of that cap hold or hard cap, or whatever "crap" it is. Cap hold on both will not count on our team once they get signed by us or by another team. So in reality, there is nothing to fear unless you think both of these very good talents will end up unemployed next season.

And if we re-sign one of two ( e.g. Dalembert for lesser pay at $8M-$10M for the next 3 years ), then there wouldn't be any problem either. That would put our team salary at lower figures of $36-$38M ( which still includes future expiring contracts of Udrih and Garcia which we could trade or let expire if we need more cap space in the future). And if Bajaden's figures on the starting post of this thread is true about team salaries after this season, $36-$38M total salary for the Kings means we will still have one of the lowest team salary in the NBA. We would still be one of the best teams in the league (financial-wise) that can re-sign its own players or acquire free agents - that is even if a hard cap is placed.

So, what's the big problem to fear and the reason to rush?

 

[LPKingsFan]

I have to agree. Since the owners are the one's that want to force the players into cheaper salaries, or fewer years, or both, why then would they go nuts and do the very thing they're trying to correct. Doesn't make much sense, unless they know something we don't.

I think they simply couldn't help themselves. And, from this fan's perspective at least, that really removes any leverage or credibility when they now complain about skyrocketing salaries. I think they're banking on fans taking their side against the "millionaire players crying about being underpaid," but to me their position is simply disingenuous. Want to keep salaries in check? Then don't hand out crazy deals to Drew Gooden and Travis Outlaw. Sheesh.

 

[Entity]

did I miss something or are we jumping to next years off-season 3 days before this season even starts??? did I fall asleep and wake up in June. If so how did we do??

 

[Kingster]

No labor deal is starting to have an impact. I just wonder why the owners were throwing so much money around on mediocre players this past summer. Our "WTF were they thinking???" thread was out of control.

Well, if I had to guess, they were bidding on players so they could keep fans buying tickets and sponsors sponsoring. If fans and sponsors go away, they might go away for a looooooong time. It's a lot easier keeping fans than getting new ones. Under the current rules of the game the owners are competing to retain fan interest. When the rules change to lower player salaries, they will "adapt" to that system as well, and they will be paying less to retain the same players. Playing players as much today as three years ago doesn't pass the common-sense test.

 

[kennadog]

did I miss something or are we jumping to next years off-season 3 days before this season even starts??? did I fall asleep and wake up in June. If so how did we do??

Kings fans either living in the past or the future. Never in the present.

 

[dbfish]

Not sure what the percentages are, but if you took a poll, my guess is that just as many people think Dalembert will be traded before the trade deadline as those who think the Kings will try and resign him. Truth is, if the Kings wait till the end of the year, he becomes a freeagent and is on the open market. Yes, they would still hold his Bird rights, as they would with Landry. But with those Bird rights comes a cap hold. Unless you relinquish your rights to the player. The cap hold on Dalembert is a healthy $19,045,250.00. Add in the cap hold from Landry which is $6,000,000.00 and you have a total of $25 mil counting against the cap. Add that to the remaining 29 mil in salaries and your right back to 53 mil. Not a lot of wiggle room there is there?

Obviously the cap hold of 19 mil is far more than the Kings or any other team would be willing to pay Dalembert. Whereas the 6 mil for Landry is more reasonable. My point is that its probably in the Kings best interest to just relinquish the rights of both players and let the chips fall where they may. Once done, the Kings will have more money under the cap than any other team in the NBA. And just maybe, they'll be more interested in someone else.

Here's a list of some of the unrestricted freeagents:

Kendrick Perkins
Zach Randolph
Glen Davis
Josh Powell
Yao Ming
Tony Parker
Shane Battier
Tayshaun Prince
Nenad Krstic
Andrei Kirilenko
Josh Howard
Jason Richardson
Joel Przybilla
Jason Kapono
Troy Murphy
Mike Dunleavy
Grant Hill
J.R. Smith
Kenyon Martin
Peja Stojakovic

Now I grant you that all these guys may not remain freeagents. But just on the surface, who would you rather have, Dalembert or Perkins at center? I have no preference just yet, but Perkins is the younger of the two. Yeah I know, Boston won't let Perkins slip away. But Boston is going to have commited salaries of 71.8 mil without counting Perkins. Just how deep into the luxury tax are they willing to go? Especially when we don't even know what the new rules are.

If they do install a hard cap, and my logical side says that simply won't happen, but if they do, then teams like Boston will have more to worry about than resigning Perkins. But lets say they come up with something more reasonable for both sides like, no hard cap, but they do away with the mid-level exemption while retaining some form of Bird rule. This would still enable teams to go over the cap to retain one of their own players, but wouldn't allow them to use a mid-level to do the same thing. Only teams that had managed their salaries would be in position to sign freeagents. Ahemm! Like the Kings.

Other than the Kings only a few other teams have much capspace. These are the teams without the cap holds being added. For those that don't know what a cap hold is. Its an amount of money that counts against the teams cap for players that they retain the rights to in some form. Such as having the Bird rights, or the mini Bird rights. Or because the player is a restricted freeagent and requires a qualifing offer. Its intent is to keep a team from stashing a player by holding on to his rights, while going out and using the cap space provided by that player to sign another player. Thus the cap hold. Anyway here are the total salaries of these teams at the end of next year.

Kings: $28.1 mil
Nets: $39.8 mil
Pacers: $36.3 mil
Grizzleys: $36.3 mil
Thunder: $37.9 mil

These five teams will have the most money to spend. However in the Thunder's case Krstic is an unrestricted freeagent and Green is a restricted freeagent. The Griz are in a similar situation with Acie Law, Hamed Haddadi, Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, and Zach Randolph all becoming either restricted or unrestricted free agents. Here's a short list of the restricted freeagents.

Al Horford
Al Thornton
Yi Jianlian
Julian Wright
Greg Oden
Patrick Mills
Jeff Green
Wilson Chandler
Mario Chambers
Marc Gasol
Mike Conley
Aaron Brooks
Aaron Afflalo

So this is just food for thought. Resigning either Landry or Dalembert may not be a slam dunk. With the depth on the front line, the Kings may be in the unique position of letting two talented players walk away, without a huge drop in talent overall, and be position to make one or even two more reasonable additions that may be more beneficial to the team. Either way, the Kings won't have any cap space to work with until they make a decision on the two of them. Either resign one or both for reasonable money, or relinquish their rights and move in another direction

Once again I find myself awed by one of your posts. I always look forward to the next one.
I would much rather have Green than Landry (or Greene for that matter).

Stay thirsty my friend.

 

[Smills91]

AARON BROOKS! This guy needs to be our target next off-season. And with the Rockets likely looking to re-sign Yao and already going to be up against the cap(with current rules - new rules would likely make things tighter on teams I would imagine). AARON BROOKS is the backcourt mate we need for Reke. I love his range, PG skills and most of all, his quickness. The guy would be a fabulous pairing to Tyreke.

 

[Superman]

Well, if I had to guess, they were bidding on players so they could keep fans buying tickets and sponsors sponsoring. If fans and sponsors go away, they might go away for a looooooong time. It's a lot easier keeping fans than getting new ones. Under the current rules of the game the owners are competing to retain fan interest. When the rules change to lower player salaries, they will "adapt" to that system as well, and they will be paying less to retain the same players. Playing players as much today as three years ago doesn't pass the common-sense test.

I can't dig it. Check this out: Travis Outlaw, Amir Johnson, Drew Gooden, Channing Frye, Darko Milicic and Hakim Warrick = $169 million in total contracts this summer. Six average players, none of which are playing for particularly good teams, none of which will sell tickets or gain sponsorships or endorsements. Yet NBA owners guaranteed them $169 million. Then you look at guys like Rudy Gay who got $80 million, and you realize just how ridiculous some of the spending actually was this summer.

If the NBA owners are going to try to argue that they are losing money, that contracts are unsustainable, that the current CBA can't be maintained and they want to take money out of the players' pockets, they are going to have a hard time making that case in the light of their recent spending spree. I wouldn't be buying it, because either they do have the money, or they are mismanaging what they have. Either way, the problem is with the owners, not the CBA.

Just to clarify, I think changes do need to be made to the CBA, mostly to promote parity. But looking at the spending, it's hard to ignore the fact that owners don't seem to be hurting. Not when you're giving Channing Frye $30 million.

 

[Kingster]

I can't dig it. Check this out: Travis Outlaw, Amir Johnson, Drew Gooden, Channing Frye, Darko Milicic and Hakim Warrick = $169 million in total contracts this summer. Six average players, none of which are playing for particularly good teams, none of which will sell tickets or gain sponsorships or endorsements. Yet NBA owners guaranteed them $169 million. Then you look at guys like Rudy Gay who got $80 million, and you realize just how ridiculous some of the spending actually was this summer.

If the NBA owners are going to try to argue that they are losing money, that contracts are unsustainable, that the current CBA can't be maintained and they want to take money out of the players' pockets, they are going to have a hard time making that case in the light of their recent spending spree. I wouldn't be buying it, because either they do have the money, or they are mismanaging what they have. Either way, the problem is with the owners, not the CBA.

Just to clarify, I think changes do need to be made to the CBA, mostly to promote parity. But looking at the spending, it's hard to ignore the fact that owners don't seem to be hurting. Not when you're giving Channing Frye $30 million.

Well, you also have to ask the question: So what if the owner signs nobody? Then what happens to the perception of the team, it's prospects, etc.? It's not like there is an unlimited number of FAs out there. There's a small number of FAs. Perfect situation for a bidding war. And they don't call it a bidding "war" for nothing. There is economic theory that shows that these kind of bidding situations drives up bids farther than what reason would call for. For example, real estate auctions. That's exactly why they have these auctions - so people will get so emotionally involved in "winning" that they lose discipline and bid much higher than they should. Can you say, "Miki Moore"? I'm not saying that owners/managers haven't been undisciplined. Probably they have. But that's not necessarily an argument for not having them pay less in aggregate they currently are paying. To my mind, the only argument would be that their cash flow has remained the same as in previous years; hence, no reason to lower player's salaries. If cash flow has decreased significantly, then players and owners need to take a cut.

 

[Superman]

Well, you also have to ask the question: So what if the owner signs nobody? Then what happens to the perception of the team, it's prospects, etc.? It's not like there is an unlimited number of FAs out there. There's a small number of FAs. Perfect situation for a bidding war. And they don't call it a bidding "war" for nothing. There is economic theory that shows that these kind of bidding situations drives up bids farther than what reason would call for. For example, real estate auctions. That's exactly why they have these auctions - so people will get so emotionally involved in "winning" that they lose discipline and bid much higher than they should. Can you say, "Miki Moore"? I'm not saying that owners/managers haven't been undisciplined. Probably they have. But that's not necessarily an argument for not having them pay less in aggregate they currently are paying. To my mind, the only argument would be that their cash flow has remained the same as in previous years; hence, no reason to lower player's salaries. If cash flow has decreased significantly, then players and owners need to take a cut.

To answer the first question: So what if you sign no one? We didn't sign anyone, and anticipation hasn't been this high in probably six years. We weren't even considered players in free agency. Furthermore, your question is sort of missing the point. There's nothing wrong with signing free agents. I'm talking about free agents that were (seemingly) overpaid. The Lakers signed Steve Blake and Matt Barnes, and those are both really good signings. And the price tags make sense.

As for bidding wars, emotion really only comes into play when it's a product, or in this case, a player, that you really, really want, really, really bad. I don't understand how the guys I mentioned earlier fit that profile. It's not like owners were sitting around desperate to sign Amir Johnson, so why $34 million?

And again, if owners want to present their case as "cash flow has decreased," then the question will be "why did you spend so much money last summer?" And if they say "payrolls are just getting too high," then the retort would be "you need to spend more wisely." That's all I'm saying. Neither case can really be made effectively, not after this summer.