CityOfAngels

What has everyone heard about all the NBA free agents this year? Here's what I've heard so far:

The following are less than rumors as agreements have been reached:

Players said to be re-signing w/ their teams:
Zydrunas Ilgauskas (Cleveland)
Michael Redd (Milwaukee)
Udonis Haslem (Miami)
Ray Allen (Seattle)
Dan Gadzuric (Milwaukee)
Robert Horry (San Antonio)

Players said to be signing with a new team:
Larry Hughes (Washington to Cleveland)
Bobby Simmons (L.A. Clippers to Milwaukee)

Players traded:
Quentin Richardson (Phoenix) for Kurt Thomas (New York); I wish Q was still with the Clippers!

Players waived:
Rodney White (Golden State)
Mamadou N'Diaye (L.A. Clippers)
Obinna Ekezie (Atlanta)
James Thomas (Atlanta)

Now for the rumors (no agreements have been reached yet):

Players to be signing with a new team:
Joe Johnson (Phoenix to Atlanta)
Cuttino Mobley (Sacramento to L.A. Clippers)
Shareef Abdur-Rahim (Portland to either L.A. Clippers or New Jersey) C'mon Clippers you can do it!
Stromile Swift (Memphis to New Jersey or Houston)
Donyell Marshall (Toronto to Washington)

Players to be traded:
Caron Butler (L.A. Lakers) for Kwame Brown (Washington); Caron can finally get back on a decent team.

The following unrestricted free agents I haven't heard anything about:
Gary Payton (Boston)
Antoine Walker (Boston)
Travis Best (New Jersey)
Matt Barnes (Philadelphia)
Samuel Dalembert (Philadelphia)
Willie Green (Philadelphia)
Kyle Korver (Philadelphia)
Matt Bonner (Toronto)
Tyson Chandler (Chicago)
Edyy Curry (Chicago)
Chris Duhon (Chicago)
Jannero Pargo (Chicago)
Jeff McInnis (Cleveland)
Dajuan Wagner (Cleveland); Will he ever play again?
Toni Kukoc (Milwaukee); Time to retire?
Tyronn Lue (Atlanta)
Keith Bogans (Charlotte)
Jason Kapono (Charlotte)
Brevin Knight (Charlotte)
Kareem Rush (Charlotte)
Steve Smith (Miami); Time to retire?
Wang Zhizhi (Miami); Come back to the Clippers!
Damon Jones (Miami)
Christian Laettner (Miami); Time to retire?
Steve Blake (Washington)
Juan Dixon (Washington)
DerMarr Johnson (Denver)
Bryon Russel (Denver); Time to retire?
Mark Madsen (Minnesota); The greatest hustler of all time! :-p
Latrell Sprewell (Minnesota); I wonder if any team can pay him enough money to feed his family, as he complained Minnesota wasn't doing. :/
Damon Stoudamire (Portland)
Ronald 'Flip' Murray (Seattle)
Vladimir Radmanovic (Seattle)
Raja Bell (Utah)
Keith McLeod (Utah)
Rick Brunson (L.A. Clippers); Showed us that he can actually ball this past season.
Kerry Kittles (L.A. Clippers); Did NOTHING for us this past season.
Mikki Moore (L.A. Clippers); Hope he stays!
Marko Jaric (L.A. Clippers); Jaric is my boy! He better stay!
Luke Walton (L.A. Lakers)
Eddie House (Sacramento)
Darrell Armstrong (Dallas)
Dikembe Mutombo (Houston)
Chris Anderson (New Orleans)
Dan Dickau (New Orleans)
Bostjan Nachbar (New Orleans); Why did Houston ever get rid of him? He straight ripped Karl Malone's jersey and was able to get away with it!
Devin Brown (San Antonio)
Glenn Robinson (San Antonio); Really needs to bring his game back to what it was 3 years ago.

maximusveritas

Looks like the Mobley signing is a done deal as well as the Butler-Brown trade.
I don't expect the Suns to give up Joe Johnson. The guy gets better every year and has superstar potential in my opinion. He's worth whatever the Hawks offer. It may be trouble in the future though when Amare starts getting paid the max along with Marion and Nash.

Cross-Over

The Hawks have already indicated that they will sign him to the max offer of 5 years/$70 million. The Suns had offered 6 years/$60 million, but Johnson obviously refused. They could have inked him for that before the season started, but they were too frugal at the time. Hindsight is 20/20. From what I read, GM's around the league have questioned whether the Suns will indeed match that offer as they have said they would all along. If they do, they will have Marion (earns $17 million in his final year) and Johnson maxed out, Nash making a lot ($13 million in his final year), and Amare maxed out soon. Not to mention, they agreed in principle to sign Bell for 5 years /$25 million. Kurt Thomas is going to be making 6, 7, and 8 million the next three years as well.

Thomas adds interior toughness and a good mid-range shot for a big man. Bell has improved since he has came into the league, and plays good defense. The acquisitions of those two indicate that they plan to contend, so resigning Johnson only makes sense.

aswo

Brown was a steal in my opinion, while he definetly srtuggled in washington, he made small but consistant improvement, talented big men dont just grow on trees.

__________________
People who love people

djtestudo

As someone who pays far too much attention to the Wizards then they probbaly should I have to disagree.

There is a steal involved here, but it's going the other way. The Wizards haven't had a good big man in years, so if Brown couldn't perform well here, I doubt he will anywhere.

Be interesting to see if Brown either breaks out after coming out of the DC pressure cooker, or crumbles even further going into the far-worse LA pressure cooker.

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

CityOfAngels

Brown was far from a steal when you had players like Eddy Curry, Tyson Chandler, Richard Jefferson, Tony Parker, Joe Johnson, and others to draft instead of him. Although I still don't think Jordan should've called him a flaming faggot in front of the entire team. I'm sure that didn't do much for morale.

aswo

not a steal in the draft a steal in that particular trade, ohh and jordan in all of his genious traded richard hamilton who he thought couldnt play for stackhouse and dumped bobby simmons to clear cap space fo christian laettner

__________________
People who love people

pan6467

Can someone tell me about Cleveland's signees, Larry Hughes and Donyel Marshall? Will they help? Are they better than what we had in their positions, will they play well with King James and Z?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Jimellow

Donyell Marshall is a good 6th man, that has had a pretty quiet, but solid (later especially) career.

LeBron is the face of the Cavs, so any move they make is likely going to be with him as the central factor in determining its worth.

Also, the Sixers signed Kyle Korver and Willie Green to extensions, so they will be remaining with the Sixers. It's nice to see Willie Green coming back, and given the opportunity to make up for his dreadful freethrow in the closing seconds of the playoff game against Detroit. Also, it's good to see Korver sticking around, despite O'Brien leaving.. An indication that Mo Cheecks will be embracing the three ball, and thus, Korver's ability.

Mo Cheeks is the most exciting Sixers acquisition in quite some time. He is a local guy, and for once a coach welcomed by (almost) everyone!

__________________
Desperation is no excuse for lowering one's standards.

skinnymofo

it would appear the sonics are slowly falling apart.
nate gone.
Antonio Daniels gone (big part of the reason seattle did well last season in my opinion)
Jerome James gone

djtestudo

Hughes is a good defender. He's not that good of a shooter, but would be a good compliment to LeBron (he's already used to playing with a ballhog in Arenas ) Seriously though, he's a nice pickup for Cleveland. Probably not worth the contract, but who is?

__________________
"Final thought: I just rented Michael Moore's Bowling for Columbine. Frankly, it was the worst sports movie I've ever seen."
--Peter Schmuck, The (Baltimore) Sun

pacaveli

stromile swift did get traded to the rockets, and Bonzi Wells is now a King. good bye memphis lol

__________________
Check my blog out. Basically me talking about video games

http://gginsights.blogspot.com/

maximusveritas

ESPN is now reporting that the Suns are set to trade Joe Johnson to the Hawks for "Boris Diaw and two lottery-protected future first-round picks"

As a longtime Suns fan, I'm disgusted. I'm not even sure if I can support this team anymore.
It's all the fault of their owner Sarver, who had a chance to get Johnson locked up last year for much less money. Instead, he was too cheap and now he's unwilling to pay the price for it.

This team has gone from a title contender to just a playoff team.
Nash and Amare will own the pick and roll, but they still need a secondary option. That used to be JJ or even a three from Q.
Marion is great, but he can't create his own shot. I don't think Raja Bell and Kurt Thomas are going to get it done either.

Derwood

I read that Eddy Curry (Chicago) has talked about signing with the Hawks, but I think that's mostly agent-talk to get him more money with the Bulls.

__________________
"You can't shoot a country until it becomes a democracy." - Willravel

Nimbletoe

Phoenix dropped the ball bigtime. If Atlanta can sign Curry and their young guys play well, they might even come close to making the playoffs!?

__________________
Go Pistons!

Cross-Over

From what I read, matching Johnson's offer would have put the Suns over the cap for the 2006-2007 year resulting in a 10 million dollar luxury tax penalty. Sarver supposedly was not willing to lose any money period, even if that resulted in a title for the Suns.

I am not a Suns fan, but I definitely sympathize. Because it is a business, I won't heavily criticize an owner for, in simple terms, choosing financial success over team success. However, I wish those types of owners would pursue other business endeavors that don't involve the feelings of loyal, die-hard, fans.



Atlanta reportedly won't offer Curry a contract because of the questions regarding his health and the refusal of the company that insures NBA contracts to ensure Curry's contract (Curry refused to take a DNA test for the insurance company that may have indicated a genetic condition).

The Hawks may be willing to trade for Curry and Duhon (Bulls haven't got a deal hammered out yet) because the Bulls are keen on Al Harrington.

maximusveritas

Some strange developments...
It now looks like the Abdur-Rahim deal is off because he failed a physical.
Meanwhile, the Joe Johnson trade is in limbo because the Hawks' managing owner has refused to OK the deal. The other owners are trying to get him ousted, but the court refused to let them today. The Suns' owner is now saying he will sign Johnson if the deal falls through. This could get interesting, though I'm not getting my hopes up.