What type of contract are you willing to offer Gerald Wallace going forwards?

With the 4th year being partially guaranteed and can become fully guaranteed with incentives.

Hustle guys can burn out; and when he loses that step, he’ll be done. Still, he’s young enough, I think he could give you at least 3 more years of Crash play…

The big question is, will Nic’s play improve enough to one day surpass Crash’s?
And, how much less can you lock up Nico for that same time period?

Basically Crash is peaking right now, playing as well as he can. Nico, we hope, isn’t. So, does Nic’s trajectory rise, and intersect (and surpass) Crash’s in 2, 3 years? If we can get him for half of Crash’s price that’d be a good deal…

If he never becomes as good as Crash, and you have to pay him 70-80% of Crash’s numbers… maybe you let Nic walk…

I don’t think, unless they get a screaming deal for Nic, that you’ll see them retain both..

but we’ll probably have to offer 5. 4 yers $44M or 5 years $55M

Wallace has a athletic play type but in a year or two its going to be gone so don’t overpay him but keep him around. i would give Batum 4 years $28

Ideally, we’d sign him for 3 years, $27-30 million, and sign Batum for 5 years, 30 million

10% increase every yr. with a team option for the last year. This would be my ideal deal…

If not

3yr 30 mil
Front loaded
SO that at least you’ll be paying him at his prime instead when he declines.

will be in effect and insurance will pick up a portion of his salary. However, we have a chess match to play now. Crawford, Wallace, Oden and Felton can all walk at the end of the season, and to keep them, we will have to not just make offers, but match competing offers. At the same time, the new CBA will increasingly penalize teams over the CAP, and even more so for those paying the luxury tax. Many fans want to keep both Batum and Wallace, understandably, but we also need a pivot, and Camby will be at the end of his contract, and we’ll have to decide if we resign him for several years as a backup. Then, we will also have to decide what to do with Oden. However, as much as some think that there will be more money around next summer to pay players like Crawford, I’m not so sure given the new CBA. As far as Wallace goes, I’d like to keep him. However, we may not have the luxury of keeping both Wallace and Batum, while deciding what to do with Felton, who we certainly need given we have no other PG, and what to do with Camby and Oden.

The one thing, however, to remember about Felton, Wallace and Crawford is that all three were either thoroughly shopped around the league, or shopped themselves, as in the case of Crawford. Wallace, for all of his skills, was traded for little more than a salary dump given no other team was willing to make a better offer last year. And that may mean that we don’t really have to pay any more than we are already paying, as every other team is debating the same issues we have, in addition is the fact that his style does not fit into many other teams, which is why no-one else made a meaningful offer last year. Felton also may find the same thing. Jordan did not get an abundance of offers for him, and Crawford found out that he couldn’t get the $8 million a year he wanted. So, it will become a chess match.

We may well sign both Batum and Wallace, assuming they want to sign and play here, but I wouldn’t be surprised that who actually stays is predicated on what we do at the pivot with Oden and Camby.

This is the mistake that bad teams make, the over pay for mid level players, when they don’t have any true superstars on their team.

Look to win a title a team needs at least 1 superstar, bare minimum, but 2 has been the standard in history. (examples: Kobe/Gasol, Kobe/Shaq, Shaq/Wade, MJ/Pippen. Or one superstar teams like Dallas with Dirk, SA with Duncan) Of course there are exceptions like Detroit or the Celtic’s who had 3 aging super stars.

The Blazers have 1 possible superstar in LMA, no one else is close, or even has the potential to be close. (Some will say Batum or Oden, but come on, both have issues that won’t go away and will keep them from producing at a Kobe, Lebron, Dirk level.) So while they are a good team, and a fun team to watch this year, they should not pay these players to try and “keep it together”. Next year they will have the ability to clear a ton of cap space, and they should try to bring in someone to play with LMA, or to get high draft picks and use the draft to get those superstars, even if that meant trading LMA. No one on this team is untouchable.

Resigning Crash would be just like when the team had to resign Z-bo and Miles, it was a mistake and could be for seen as a mistake. Team fall for it all the time and pay big money to players who will not take them to the promise land, just look at Memphis and Rudy Gay.

I can only hope that the Blazers have learned their lesson from past mistakes and don’t resign any of the current players to large deals. Small workable deals much Crawford’s are the way to go, to buy time until you can trade, draft or sign a superstar that will propel this team to championship contention.