The Deal: Barring a sign and trade, the deal will be a max contract worth roughly $75 million over five years.
For the Magic: To put it bluntly, this is huge for the Magic. Last season Hedo Turkoglu was their starting SF, and to replace him in the starting lineup with an All-Star player makes the Magic an extremely dangerous team in the East. Lewis' perimeter touch and offensive arsenal will take a lot of pressure off of Dwight Howard down on the block, spreading the floor and giving Howard more room to operate. You thought Howard was nasty last season? Just wait and see what kind of havoc he is able to wreak now that teams won't be able to constantly double team him every time he touches the ball. The other shoe that is going to drop in this deal though is that the Magic will have to renounce the rights to Darko Milicic in order for the signing to work under the cap. Losing Darko leaves the Magic precariously thin in the frontcourt behind Howard, but that is obviously a risk they are willing to take in order to get Lewis on board. The Magic might be able to keep Milicic if they are able to convince Seattle to work a sign and trade for Lewis, creating enough space under the cap to retain the rights to Darko.
For the Sonics: I just can't believe that the Sonics thought there was any way that they were going to lose Lewis when they traded Ray Allen. Maybe I am wrong, but the Allen trade seemed to me like the Sonics were sending a message to Lewis that they wanted him to be the star to mentor Kevin Durant. Not to be too terribly harsh but the Sonics better pray to the Lord that Kevin Durant truly is the next great swing player sooner rather than later, otherwise they could be looking at a rough next two or three years. Looking at the Sonics roster, here is what they have; three centers that can be described as projects at best (Robert Swift, Saer Sene, and Johan Petro), three unproven point guards (Luke Ridnour, Earl Watson, and Delonte West), a couple of swing projects (Damien Wilkins and Mikael Gelabale), two decent forwards (Nick Collison and Chris Wilcox), Wally Szczerbiak, and two stud rookies who both happen to play the same position (Durant and Jeff Green). So to recap, no real point guard, no real center, and their four best players play either SF or PF. Eww.
5 comments:
This is just dumb, why do NBA GMs not realize that signing a guy to a max contract who isn't a top 10 player in the NBA only clogs your cap and leans to a few fruitless playoff appearances. I like Lewis a lot but he hardly deserves 75 mill. Dumb move by the Magic, we have money lets burn it.
As a magic fan, I don't like it at all. Not only can they not resign Milicic, but probably Grant Hill as well. For those of you who haven't seen Hill play post-injuries, he has a beautiful game. Doesn't force anything, just very high-percentage mid-range shots (he shot over 50% this season). So now they either play lewis at the four, and get killed by his horrible defense, or play him at the three and have to play Tony Battie at the five, and not score any points. I don't like it.
Yeah, the more I think about this one the less I like it. The deal just puts them in a bad spot cap wise, and now they find themselves in a similar situation to Boston, where it is pretty much two studs and scraps.
Scraps? They can always give Redick more minutes...ha ha ha! The Magic just panicked. They were sitting on all this cap space and were simply giddy in anticipation of having this luxury. Unfortunately, once it all came to fruition there weren't enough lucrative free agents around, but the money was just burning in their pockets and they opted to not to be patient and buy the best available free agent on the market.
Seems like a mistake to me. I'd still try and force a sign-n-trade if I'm Seattle, but for Orlando...they are making a mistake.
Nice Work Hank...you are on fire right now.
Yeah but the Sonics are cleaning up tons of cap space. Possibly expecting a move to Las Vegas followed by signing a true superstar to come and play with Durant and Green once viable free agents become available.
Besides, the Ray Allen trade got them Jeff Green. Delonte West (whose better at the point than either Ridnour or Watson anyway) is just gravy and Wally's World contract runs out soon to help create more cap space.
This is a blatant overpay for the Magic, even if Rashard does fit nicely in their lineup. He's not a max guy and he's getting max money. Just a mistake.
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