Millsap Offer Details

Ronnie Milsap?

I know he’s a good basketball player, but really, Lamar Odom just wouldn’t sit right with me if he were in a Portland uniform.

I mean, this is teh guy who came off of the bench and got suspended when Ariza took out Rudy.

So, Lack of Control: Check.

He’s been criticized repeatedly by Phil Jackson for not working hard in practice. That’s what we need. Someone who coasts on talent.

And, I don’t know if you remember 2 years ago, when he tried to walk into the Blazer huddle and Jarrett Jack and Lamarcus Aldridge almost killed him for it. After all, you really can’t tell the difference between Yellow/Purple, and Red/Black. So, he’s either blind, or trying to cause trouble. I don’t think either of those would fit in Portland.

Couple his flaws with the fact that he wants a huge contract, and wants to start again, if he were on a team other than L.A. I don’t think I want a guy who’ll be handling the ball, going 1-on-5, and throwing up bad shots. Maybe if he was a nice guy. But, he’s not. So, I’ll pass.

Millsap is a power forward, and ONLY a power forward. He’s too short (generously listed at 6’8") to be a center, and too big/slow to guard faster SF types.

And the 3-point shooting thing? Just plain false.

As for the Jazz “not valuing Paul as much as other teams,” when you practically guarantee that you’re going to match whatever offer he receives, how is that not valuing him?

This agent is crazy.

If Utah can’t swing a deal for Boozer, they’ll have to let us take Millsap.

Does potentially overspending on a player of Millsap’s level not mean there’s significant risk to this little maneuver?

what’s a fanshot?

thank you. updated post.

agreed.

slide over from the passenger’s seat to take over the wheel. That’s just my own personal opinion, though.

February is a long way off, after all

In all likelihood and they are still in cap trouble.

If they let Millsap go and THEN let Boozer et. al expire, they could be down near the cap number (although maybe not if its $51M) after next year.

in other words, pretty annoyed.

Utah takes it in the shorts. Either they match and keep Milsap & Brewer and take the cap hit, or they lose one of their key power forwards. Let’s not forget they were a playoff team last year.

No, he cannot be traded immediately.

He can be traded after December 15th.

Pretty sure the provision is against trading players you just signed as a FA, but I could be mistaken

if Utah matches and we get screwed out of another FA

They’re already well over, so essentially they pay double due to the luxury tax rules.

players, coaches and scouts watch tape. They study the tendencies, strengths and weaknesses of opposing players. Based on this research, teams develop plans to counter opposing teams/players.

No defender is going to play Millsap closely at the arc because they are worried about his 3, just like no defender is going to worry about Blake’s drive. Opposing teams will live with Millsap taking open 3s all day as long as he doesn’t try to work near the hoop.

…………………………………. $103M is toxic.

Ten million in cold hard cash in one week hurts no matter who you are. They will do it, but it’s still gonna sting.

And while KP stated he couldn’t talk about Hinrich since he isn’t a Blazer, the way he said it, inflections in his voice and the way he phrased the statement, made me feel like he wasn’t truly after Hinrich.

Which, if true, will make a lot of Sedgers very sad…

also includes neither player and more leverage in mid-season trades.

There are a plethora of possibilities with $9M in cap space. I wonder what kind of deals they might be able to swing and for whom? Oy vaye, the drama never ends around here…

If you were Utah, and you were intent on matching, you wouldn’t intimate such until the last possible moment to keep your rivals guessing.

It’s exactly what Hedouche and his agent did to us, with lucrative results.

As I have said elsewhere, and as the Jazz front office has said, any trade has to make financial sense above all. And if it doesn’t, I don’t think the Jazz will make the trade at all. Check this from the Deseret News:

[Jazz team president Randy] Rigby, too, left the door ajar — even if ever so slightly — to the possibility that both Boozer and Millsap would be back for the start of next season.

“It’s too early for us to really say that,” the Jazz president said. "(But) I could see a possibility that they would be coming back.

“I mean, we’re going to have to really analyze and see whether it’s going to be for the betterment of this organization, short-term, long-term, from an on-court position, as well as front a financial position. And we’re gonna have to make some tough decisions.”

To translate that: the Jazz know they’re pretty much boned no matter what. Yes, they’re going to match on Millsap. Yes, they want to move Boozer, preferably for salary relief. But if that relief isn’t significant enough, or the player received in return isn’t good enough, I believe the Jazz, knowing they’re boned financially anyway, will simply keep Boozer and Millsap and play them together for this last year, just as they have done for the last three.

And as you say: OUCH. But there aren’t a lot of options here for the Jazz. Even if by some miracle, they manage to move Boozer for zero salary in return, matching Millsap and filling out the roster to 13 players will still put them over the tax. So at some point, the Jazz will have to decide whether the tax discount of any incoming trade outweighs what they can actually put on the floor in Boozer.

In fact, if Boozer can’t be moved for salary relief this week, we might see the rare double-huge-expiring-contract-swap at the trade deadline. We’ll see.

That’s what KP said the Blazer’s needed, last night (and that’s what his #1 goal has been since the Houston series)

So everybody back away from the “let’s eject Przybilla” button

………………………………………. He’s gotta be the smartest guy in the universe, doesn’t he???

Yeah, and our third team would be awesome, along with our collection of overseas players that we still retain rights to.

Unfortunately we had to renounce Detlef Schrempf which really hurts us on the “semi-disgruntled retired guys who came here too late to do much, but we still have their rights so it makes us feel good about ourselves” team.

How would you like to force a division rival and playoff competitor to trade him?

when Brandon pitches his case for a max contract

nuff said

It’s here:

http://www.prosportsdaily.com/nba/nba.html

It is like a game of poker. The Jazz bluffed and KP called their bluff. The Blazers didn’t do anything unfair. Had the Jazz really wanted to keep Millsap, they could have entended him before he was allowed to resign. But they didn’t. They wanted to pay Millsap something much lower than the market would for his services and effectively threatened the league with the declaration they would match anything. Now a poker player might be pissed somebody called his bluff, but he can’t be too mad; he had bad cards to begin with.

Nate and Millsap have already talked about that. I expect some “creative” rotations and “big” lineups will take care of the so-called “minute’s crunch” and find enough PT for KP’s 4 quality bigs

They’ll make it work. Millsap will get his 25-30 mpg and Joel will be a Blazer as long as he wants to

I almost fell over when I heard Utah’s GM say that we are being bullies. Signing a restricted free agent to a reasonable albeit front loaded deal is considering bullying? OK then, what do you call the term for trying to lowball a double double machine that you have been massively underpaying the past several years?

And I don’t buy the notion that teams don’t want to deal with the Blazers for fear of being “Pritchslapped”. I could see it if we were trying to intentionally misrepresent our assets in a trade, but that is simply not the case. Jarrett Jack was a terrific pickup for the Pacers last year and they got him in exchange for moving down from the 11th pick to the 13th pick in the draft? And what about the Sergio deal? Everyone knows that is a great deal for the Kings, the guy was a former #1 pick and will undoubtedly flourish with a running team, and we only moved up a piddly 7 picks in the 2nd round.

Yeah you can say we hosed the Knicks with the Zach deal but Zach was exactly the same player as he was here, Frye didn’t exactly flourish upon coming here, and we had to eat Steve Francis’ massive contract. How are those Pritchslaps????

what goes around comes around. Nonetheless this is still good business imo. This league isn’t about making friends. Even if Utah is pissed about us bullying them, they wouldn’t trade with a division rival anyway.

I’m rooting for RLEC 2010. Make it happen KP.

What are we going to do without Detlef’s euro-mullet?

ruffin too

Presumably the renouncements also include Voshon Lenard and Luke Schenscher

http://www.blazersedge.com/2009/6/15/910793/portland-has-the-rights-to-and-cap

All other unsigned draft picks apart from Claver, Freeland, Koponen on our books are second round picks who have no cap holds.

Why would the Blazers have a cap hold on a player who hasn’t been in the NBA in close to a decade?

Why are the Blazers still keeping the rights to LaRue Martin?

we lose Dudley!!

And if a team wants to prevent others from re-signing him a year or two later. They can be useful for trades, since something must go back (cash, pick, or such rights). It’s rare, but it happens.

Yeah,

Bring Detlef back. Sign Krypto-Nate and you’d have Brandon, Nate, Detlef and Martell (committed to the Dawgs before entering the draft).

The Portland Trail Blazers powered by Washington Huskies

It’s been described as hefty, substantial, explosive and even toxic.

Whether the offer sheet restricted free agent Paul Millsap signed with the Portland Trail Blazers on Friday night — for four years and roughly $32 million, including a whopping $10.3 million or so payable within a week — is noxious enough to keep the Jazz from matching it, however, remains to be seen.

“The indication I got is that they’re not going to do it,” said Millsap’s representative and uncle, DeAngelo Simmons.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/705316313/Utah-Jazz-Millsaps-contract-causing-concern.html?pg=1

I don’t know where Odom’s bad rep is coming from. He and Fisher are the hearts of L.A. For all of the talk about Kobe, that dude’s got a vacuum where his heart should be. Odom took less playing time without complaining. How many other players would do that in a contract year?

Say what you want about Odom’s playing style (inconsistent, at times absent-minded), he is a decent individual and would be a great asset to any team’s clubhouse.

I see Ben addressed this somewhere down the thread.

a very versatile and skilled player. Good to know that he was also a nice guy.

Didn’t say anything about being a standout basketball player though :)

Apparently, Hedo isn’t allowed to play west of the MIssissippi or live in a town that doesn’t have a sizable Turkish community.

I agree that matchups are important, but basketball is still a team game, and you can’t define a player’s position based on if he can outscore his “opposite” Otherwise, players like Shane Battier and Joel Przybilla would never have made it into the NBA

NBA coaches are always looking for the best matchup on the floor to exploit, and there are different ways of doing this. The most obvious is putting a tall player down on the box against a short player. But it could also mean having your quick PG matched-up against a slower defender so he can easily penetrate. Coaches define the “traditional positions” by the numbers 1,2,3,4,5 and fans use terms like SF, PF and everybody seems to know what everyone else is talking about. (This players is a 2, that player is a 3, That guy is a tweener, the other guy can “only” play the PF,etc) T

hat’s all well and good until innovative coaches like Don Nelson and Mike D’Antoni come along and play 3 guard lineups with no true center or post player…what then? Is the 3 a 2 and the 2 a 1? What do you call the 5? Then the opposing coach has to scramble to “match up” using a smaller lineup and all the “traditional positions” are blurred in a jumble of jump shots and drive and kicks.

The point of all of this rambling is this: we received a valuable piece of information last week by way of Mark Bartelstein, David Lee’s agent. He said that Portland doesn’t always look at the conventional positions when acquiring talent. He said that KP will target the BPA and Nate will “make it work” (He also used the familiar phrase: “you can never have enough big men”)

I can’t tell you exactly what Nate and KP have talked about re: Millsap, but I don’t think the conversation ended with “Paul can only play the PF and that’s final!” like so many Bedgers have responded to me, this week. Everyone has to choose for themselves to only see things from the “conventional” viewpoint, or they can look beyond the traditional positions and see how a big lineup could “force” the opponent into a decisoin to either adjust or be trampled.

I’m not going to argue that LMA or Millsap would be “just fine” guarding every NBA small forward that comes their way, but I do expect them to hold their own in a team defensive rotation, to give each other help and to communicate so the basket area is well-defended. If the other coach runs a lineup out there that exploits Nate’s “big” lineup by using superior quickness then Nate will have to send Batum, etc back in there. (Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you.) But I’ll be much happier when the playoffs roll around if Nate has those “4 quality bigs” at his disposal as opposed to the front court options (Outlaw/Frye) that he had last April

I think the message was “always put family first”

after his 9/11 inside job. It took him several weeks to give that approval rating away.

Like father, like son. – Elgin