I was a proponent of a Martin+Miller for Amare trade about three years back. He's been playing incredible basketball for the past couple months or so, but has apparently had some run-ins with management in Phoenix. Plus you have his injury history, and the fact that he's only playing incredible basketball in his contract year (not that he's never shown that he could be a dominant player before; he totally outplayed Tim Duncan a few years ago in the playoffs, and has been one of the best bigs in the league since forever ago).
There's obviously issues/concerns about Stoudemire. I don't think he can be the #1 guy on a contender, but I do think that, assuming Reke's midrange jumper grows in, those two could play incredibly well off of each other. Add in another top five pick, and we could be a playoff team next season.
Then there's the question of whether we could even sign him. We have the cap space for a max contract, but a) do you want to use it on Amare; b) would he come to Sacramento for less than he could get from Phoenix, or in a sign and trade; and c) if you had to sign and trade to get him, would you want to give up one or two of your young players + a pick + the long term max contract?
I don't know. Been wondering about this and wanted to bounce it off of fellow Kings fans. This is also assuming he opts out of his contract, which is still unclear at this point whether he would or not. And we also might have a lockout coming with a significantly altered CBA on the other side of it.
Best case Amare-scenario for the Kings would be an outright signing, probably five years, $105 million or so. Then we could start Amare and Thompson, put Landry back in the 6th man role that he's best in, let's Hawes figure out if he wants to be in the NBA or not, we'd have Green/Casspi/Rodriguez at the three, Beno/Reke/draft pick at the 1/2. That's a much better team, but is it worth the max contract for Amare?
There's obviously issues/concerns about Stoudemire. I don't think he can be the #1 guy on a contender, but I do think that, assuming Reke's midrange jumper grows in, those two could play incredibly well off of each other. Add in another top five pick, and we could be a playoff team next season.
Then there's the question of whether we could even sign him. We have the cap space for a max contract, but a) do you want to use it on Amare; b) would he come to Sacramento for less than he could get from Phoenix, or in a sign and trade; and c) if you had to sign and trade to get him, would you want to give up one or two of your young players + a pick + the long term max contract?
I don't know. Been wondering about this and wanted to bounce it off of fellow Kings fans. This is also assuming he opts out of his contract, which is still unclear at this point whether he would or not. And we also might have a lockout coming with a significantly altered CBA on the other side of it.
Best case Amare-scenario for the Kings would be an outright signing, probably five years, $105 million or so. Then we could start Amare and Thompson, put Landry back in the 6th man role that he's best in, let's Hawes figure out if he wants to be in the NBA or not, we'd have Green/Casspi/Rodriguez at the three, Beno/Reke/draft pick at the 1/2. That's a much better team, but is it worth the max contract for Amare?
