Posted by Pharzeone:
Posted by franco12:
Posted by Cosmic:
Posted by franco12:
Lee is a sixth man who's gotten starter minutes. Don't pay him like a starter. $6-8mm tops. Keeps cap flexibility, tradeable if we need to, good value for his production.
Well that's just it. We have a phenomenal bench if we want it here. Lee, Chandler, Nate, Duhon, Harrington. Kick ass 6-10 man list.
Yet.......they've been either starting or putting in major minutes. The result? 32 wins.
The problem? None of these guys are coming cheap for the supposed 2010+ team of greatness.
The answer? S&T's or let them walk.
At least for a change this franchise has flexibility and REAL assets to use.
I usually agree with TMS - but I can accept us losing Lee for nothing. The fear of losing a player for nothing is what causes teams to sign their players to stupid contracts. Lets be smart and disciplined. This isn't about 2010 - this is about building a team the right way- the right players at the right prices.
No one thinks Lee shouldn't be retained- its price that we disagree with.
franco, I think TMS' point was that it was silly of Walsh to hang onto a player who figure he couldn't sign to a reasonable contract. That's like leaving money on the table. He could have traded him during the season or signed him to a reasonable contract at the beginning of the season. That's why some publications slammed him for not trading Lee and being in this current situation. Who knows maybe Walsh's plan is to give him anything he wants like king suggested but Walsh took himself out of the equation by not being proactive and looking at the big picture.
i don't expect any team to offer him a ridiculously overpriced contract this offseason... not many teams have that type of cap space to offer to begin with, & those that do are not gonna shell out all that money on a player like Lee... i pretty much expect his value will be set at market value & i hope that Walsh would go all out to try & work some kinda S&T, even if we have to throw in other pieces in order to do it like Harrington, Duhon, or 1 of our other expiring deals, or Nate for that matter... we gotta make sure we get back some kinda value for him, whether that be in the form of some much needed cap space while dumping 1 of our bad contracts, or a player that can factor into our longterm future that doesn't kill our 2010 plan, like a young player or established star that Walsh covets & will be willing to nix the 2010 plan to acquire in a larger trade.
if Lee wants to stay in NY that bad he always has the option to accept a below market deal, in which case i'm not opposed to keeping him cuz he'll still be a very tradeable commodity down the road anyway, but i don't expect his agent to be giving us any big discounts after the numbers he put up this year... this will likely be his best chance at landing big bucks in free agency he'll ever have in his career.
After 7 years & 40K+ posts, banned by martin for calling Nalod a 'moron'. Awesome.
5/6/2009 11:14 AM