The First Signings of Free Agency

It’s been a little over a day since free agency officially began. As you all know, negotiations have begun but no deals will be official according to the NBA’s head office until July 9^th when they lift the moratorium on player movement. A lot of exciting news is going around the league right now but I’m going to start right here at home with the Toronto Raptors, who had some news of their own today.

Raptors Roster Reaches A Dozen

There are a few things to cover regarding Raptor personnel but I’ll just start out by explaining where I get the dozen from. The initial eight guys are Chris Bosh, Jermaine O’Neal, Jason Kapono, Jamario Moon, Andrea Bargnani, Kris Humphries, Joey Graham and Anthony Parker. It’s also assumed that 2008 second round draft pick Nathan Jawai will be joining the team this coming season. Now, let’s talk about the ‘new’ guys:

Jose Calderon:

This is no surprise. Everyone saw the move coming from miles away. It was obvious during the regular season, the playoffs and then definitely after the season ended. T.J. Ford is now gone and Jose’s own web site reported that he has reached an agreement with the Raptors. There appear to be some questions about the terms of the contract – namely the length of term – but I’m sure it was a multi-year deal and the information will become available in the coming days. I’ve gone on record saying my guess would be a 5-year contract worth $42 million but we’ll see how it all ends up.

Roko Ukic:

According to beat writers like Doug Smith and Michael Grange, the 2005 second round draft pick finally wants to come to the NBA and show his stuff. It’s been rumoured for months now that Bryan Colangelo was working on a buyout of his European contract and it seems to be done at this point. Ukic will play the back-up role to Jose at the point guard spot. I think they would be wise to find one more guard because an injury to either guy could be deadly but I don’t know if that’s in the cards right now.

Hassan Adams:

This was the surprising pick-up. I don’t know why B.C. thinks Adams can help this team when he couldn’t even get onto an NBA team and stick with them this past season. He was a very late second round draft pick in 2006 and had a less-than-stellar run with the New Jersey Nets before he was let go. He’s very athletic but I don’t recall him being able to do anything particularly well on the court. He’s just been signed to a minimum scale contract, so it doesn’t affect the mid-level exception but I’m really scratching my head about this one.

Assuming Nathan Jawai signs for the league minimum, the roster would have 12 players. I believe the league minimum is 13 and the only player the team will be using to sign with a portion of the MLE is Ukic. I don’t know what the luxury tax number has been set at so it’s hard to tell how much wiggle room the Raps have to spend with the rest of that MLE but I’m guessing it’s almost nothing so we may see another minimum salary player on the team to finish off the roster. We definitely have a nice rotation and decent depth if everyone is on their game. How often do those last two guys on the bench actually get into games anyway? They just get to show off their suits every night from the bench because they’re on the inactive list. Staying healthy will be imperative to the Raps – more so than other teams. Check Part 2 of my 2008 Free Agent Report to see some other names the Raps might have a chance of getting to round out the team. You can find it here: http://raptorcore.wordpress.com/2008/07/01/2008-free-agent-2-destinations/

Day 1: The Baron Heads To L.A.

Baron Davis:

B-Diddy has agreed to a 5-year, $65 million contract with the Los Angeles Clippers according to various sources. It’s almost guaranteed that Elton Brand will be returning to L.A. now since he’s been talking about forming a ‘super-team’ (my words, not his) with some other superstars in the league after seeing Boston up close in Game 2 of the NBA Finals against the Lakers. I’m not surprised Baron is leaving – the shock was that he opted out in the first place. He’s definitely making a good career move because the Warriors aren’t composed of the pieces to compete for a Championship, while the Clippers have some good ones like Brand, Al Thornton and Chris Kaman. This is an excellent signing and he gave them a bit of a discount since he was going to make $17 million with the Warriors next year if he stayed with them. The important key to this is the Clippers renounced their rights to Corey Maggette in order to have the room to sign Davis, meaning they cannot sign him for less than he was making before. Of course, they are now over the salary cap (once they re-sign Brand) and all they’ll have left to spend is the mid-level exception, which is below the amount Maggette was making before he opted out. Looks like the starting five will be composed of these four guys and incumbent shooting guard, Cuttino Mobley. The Clips also have newly-drafted Eric Gordon to add to the mix, as well as Tim Thomas, Brevin Knight and others. The Clippers are a team to watch moving up the standings while the Warriors will be moving down for sure, even if and when they bring back Monta Ellis and Andris Biedrins.

Antawn Jamison:

This is kind of old news because I touched on it in the last entry but Jamison signed a 4-year, $50 million extension with the Wizards. Their management made it clear they wanted Antawn back and he reciprocated the interest. He’s a good fit for the team and I’m not sure what else would’ve been out there for him on this current market, considering what other teams had to spend. I suppose the clubs with major room like Memphis and Philadelphia could’ve used what he brings to the table but neither of them will be competing for rings any time soon. It’s not like Washington will be, either, but at least they’ll be winning more games. Jamison just turned 32 so it’s definitely time to make a move on a Championship because the window of opportunity will be closed by the time this new contract expires. He’ll be 36 years old and a 14-year veteran of the league.

Gilbert Arenas:

Agent Zero hasn’t signed a deal at the time of this writing but he has gotten two maximum offers. I’m guessing the Warriors knew Baron Davis was headed to L.A. because they gave Arenas a 5-year offer worth $95 million, which works out to an average of $19 million per year. That’s insane money but then Washington’s owner signed off on an offer that would see the Wizards pay Gilbert $125 million over 6 years, which works out to almost $21 million per year. Now, if I’m a major player coming off a pretty serious knee problem, I think I’d be a lot more interested in that extra year of security, as well as the additional $30 million that the Wizards can offer me. They can give him the bigger raises and the extra year and from his standpoint, it doesn’t make sense to join the weaker team in the tougher conference when Washington could do some things in the East with a healthy roster. I’m sure Arenas will be happy that he got what he asked for and he’ll be right back in Washington with Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison for the start of the 2008-2009 season, which is what he claimed he wanted.

Chris Paul:

CP3 isn’t a free agent but he is closing in on signing an extension. According to Yahoo! Sports, Paul was offered a 5-year deal worth $87 million. However, he’s leaning toward a shorter term contract worth $67 million over 4 years. I’m not quite sure why he’d give up the extra year and $20 million but he probably likes the flexibility of being able to reassess his situation when the deal is about to expire. He can weigh his options and go another direction if he chooses to at that time. It makes sense for him and the Hornets may not like it since he is their franchise player but it’s not something they need to worry about for the foreseeable future. They can start to give it some thought when the 2011-2012 season is over.

None of the other major guys like Josh Smith, Andre Iguodala, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng or Monta Ellis have been mentioned just yet but news on those guys should become available within the next 24 hours or so for sure. Also, Corey Maggette is rumoured to be headed to the San Antonio Spurs for the full mid-level exception, which would really help their wing scoring and athleticism. Their team looked a lot like an old age home for the last week of their season and other times during the year.

That’s it for this entry. I’ve kept it very short because there’s not a lot else going on right now. No reason to stretch it. Keep up with the headlines and maybe I’ll have another one of these tomorrow if it’s a busy day. Until next time..

-Mark R.

[The Raptor Core]

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