Excellent blog post the other day from
Motown Sports where the guys talked about what Joe D was going to have to do from this point forward to save this team.
Among the things discussed.. what to do with the Pistons expiring contracts.. if Lebron and Kobe might be on the radar and other ETO's to consider.
Here is a snip.. hit the blog for the whole thing...
When Joe D shipped Chauncey Billups to Denver for Allen Iverson, the fact that the
Pistons would have A.I.’s services on the court for the rest of the season was just an added bonus. Whether A.I. actually meshed with the Pistons was irrelevant. The main reason—and likely only reason—Joe D made the trade was because of the insane amount of cap space it freed up for the Pistons. With the expiring contracts of Iverson and Rasheed Wallace alone, the Pistons will shed roughly $35.5 million at the end of this season. That combined with the $15.4 million that will come off the books next season with Rip and Kwame Brown’s contracts could give the Pistons $40-50 million to burn during the
“Summer of Lebron.”
Joe D has put the Pistons in
great shape cap-wise. However, it’s not going to be easy to turn that money into elite production. While the 2010 NBA free agent class has to be considered one of the greatest free agent classes in sports history, the 2009 class is putrid. It’s so bad that
Jon Koncak could probably come out of retirement in July and sign a max contract. I’m not even going to try to put the available unrestricted free agents in order of importance but the list goes a little something like this: Ben Gordon, Jason Kidd, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Ron Artest, Lamar Odom, Shawn Marion, Andre Miller, and Anthony Parker. None are worthy of a max contract. Clearly, these guys are quality players but the fact that they are the best available is what makes 2009 “The Year Before The Year of LeBron.” The ‘09 class will almost certainly be joined by Carlos Boozer who has made it clear that he’s considering a nasty ending to a second NBA marriage. Al Harrington also has a Player Option. Jamal Crawford, Hedo Turkoglu, Mehmet Okur, and Kobe Bryant all have ETOs (Early Termination Option). All but Kobe are set to make under $10 million next year and—by exercising their ETOs—they can avoid the headache that would come with being a second-tier free agent in the "Summer of LeBron."
