(Knicks stuff is at the bottom)

By Chad Ford
ESPN Insider

At 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, the music stops. Someone is going to be left without a chair. This free agency period has been one of the most memorable in the last decade. Despite a flurry of agreements, the top three players on the market -- Kobe Bryant, Kenyon Martin and Rasheed Wallace -- still are homeless. All three are expected to commit by midnight, which should create a chain reaction throughout the league.
If that isn't enough excitement to keep you up late refreshing your browser, try walking in the slippers of Jim Paxson and Kevin O'Connor tonight. Carlos Boozer, the most infamous free agent in this year's class (which is ironic considering the No. 1 free agent is facing sexual assault charges) has, depending on who you believe, given his "word" to two teams -- the Cavaliers and Jazz. He'll sign
somewhere tonight, and Insider has the scoop on where that is ... unless, that is, we're being bam-Boozered, too. Here are five stories we're following as the midnight hour approaches.

The Bachelor
A group of 30 suitors has been narrowed to two. The Lakers and Clippers each had a dream date with Bryant last night at the Four Seasons Hotel in Los Angeles -- one hour to make a final pitch to the most coveted free agent of the year. Who will Kobe choose? Stay tuned for the most shocking rose ceremony ever, as Kobe allows one GM, on bended knee, to profess his undying love while kicking the other to the curb. Both teams left Monday's meetings with Bryant with the impression he would pick them, according to sources. However, it appears Bryant hasn't named his true love just yet -- we've got to get the cameras rolling first. For the sake of peace in L.A., it had better be the Lakers. After dumping Phil Jackson and agreeing to trade Shaq, GM Mitch Kupchak has razed the Lakers in an effort to bring Kobe back. And while owner Jerry Buss claims he would've done all that anyway, everyone on the Lakers knows they're toast if Kobe bolts to the Clippers.

"The decision with Phil and the decision with Shaq was made totally independent of Kobe," Buss told the L.A. Times on Monday. Buss said he called Bryant late in the season to say so, telling him, "I just
want you to know what I'm about to do has zero to do with you or your free agency." He added, "You know, Kobe has never at any time ever told me that Phil or Shaq had any influence on his decision as to where he would like to play. ... I follow the soap opera as much as all you guys. Basically, Kobe has never said anything like that to me." Buss, who is in Italy, made plans to call Kobe late Monday night, hoping that the last voice he hears would be the one that swayed him the most. His message to Bryant: "Stay with the people who love you." Or who pay you. Or who destroy their team for you. Or, you can go to the Clippers and pray that owner Donald Sterling, with his superstar in place, doesn't start trading all of his other top players for Google stock.

The Playa
The Nuggets and Nets continued their game of chicken Monday evening. The Nuggets are threatening to sign Martin to an offer sheet if the Nets don't agree to a sign-and-trade deal. The Nets are claiming they'll wait the full 15 days, then match the offer to Martin if the Nuggets sign him to the deal.

"Kenyon would be a very good fit for us, but he's got a couple of decisions to make," said Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe. "He likes our situation here. He likes our style. A sign-and-trade scenario remains a possibility, one we're obviously discussing. Presenting Kenyon an offer sheet is our last option." Warned Nets GM Rod Thorn, "We would have 15 days to decide whether to match, and we'll take it all."
Both sides are doing a fair amount of bluffing. The last thing the Nuggets want is to be locked into a 15-day offer sheet with K-Mart only to lose him. By the time July 29 rolls around, all of the top free agents will be gone, and Denver will be left with no significant upgrades, despite entering the offseason with the second-most cap room of any team.

The last thing the Nets want to do is pay Martin the max. They like him, but they don't want to drink that Kool-Aid given Jason Kidd's lucrative deal last season and Richard Jefferson's upcoming extension. Will the Nets really match? One league source told Insider Monday the Nets had resumed talks with the Blazers on a trade of Kerry Kittles and Aaron Williams for Shareef Abdur-Rahim. That deal would seem to indicate the Nets are preparing to lose Martin and
replace him with Abdur-Rahim, who is in the last year of his deal. The Nets believe they can re-sign him for less money next summer than they would be paying Martin on a max contract. That's great news if you're the Nuggets. Denver is offering New Jersey a combination of draft picks (they have six first rounders over the next two years) and Nikoloz Tskitishvili to put this thing to rest. If the Nets don't blink though, the Nuggets probably will be left twisting. To get Martin to pass up the max offer from the Hawks, Denver essentially had to tell him that they'd give him a similar offer sheet if a sign-and-trade deal can't be made. But Nuggets officials fear the only reason the Nets would be unwilling to cut a deal is that they intend to match any offer.

The Beautiful Mind
Rasheed Wallace is either a genius or the craziest dude in the league. Though last season brought him his first NBA championship, his first coach that adores him, his first city that embraced him and his first team to be known more for its hard work than hard living, Wallace decided he wasn't sure if Detroit was really the place for him. After a steady diet of playoff disappointments, booing fans and tabloid headlines, his newfound good fortune apparently made him uncomfortable. So, unlike most free agents looking for a deal, Wallace blended into the background and did ... nothing. Crazy you say? The move turned out to be brilliant. The conventional wisdom as the season ended was that Wallace could command a five-year deal worth $40-45 million from the Pistons. That was much more than
other teams who wanted him could offer. The Knicks and Sixers, for example, were over the cap and could offer only their mid-level exception. But then the market exploded, and towel boys started announcing multi-million dollar deals. Now? Well, if Adonal Foyle is worth $42 million, Mehmet Okur $50 million and Carlos Boozer $68 million -- what does the guy that helped lead the Pistons to a championship get? Pistons GM Joe Dumars has watched Wallace's value skyrocket while the mercurial forward has done ... nothing.Brilliant? Crazy? Doesn't matter. Wallace will get paid. Pistons sources say the team got Wallace's attention long enough to make him a big offer Monday night. The meeting went well, and the team wants and expects to re-sign him. Then again ... maybe Wallace will sit out the season. That would really do wonders for his market value. Wouldn't it?

The Traitor
Bryant faces sexual assault charges in Colorado, but it's Boozer who is taking the heat this summer. Cavs sources claim Boozer assured them he'd re-sign with the team if they let him out of the last year of his contract. Boozer would get a raise from around $700,000 to the mid-level exception, while the Cavs would have a young power
forward locked up for six years at below market value. Days later, Boozer instead agreed to a six-year, $68-million offer sheet with
the Jazz -- an offer the Cavs have little shot at matching. In the past few days, one side of the story has dominated the news. The Cavs
claim Boozer betrayed them. He misled them into letting him out of his deal. However, there are always two sides to the story. Monday, the other side of this affair started coming to light. It started when Insider reported that Rob Pelinka had resigned as Boozer's
agent. The move was open to interpretation -- Pelinka must also believe Boozer had done something unethical and had decided he didn't want to be part of it, right? One national report went so far as to claim SFX "fired" Boozer as a client. Nonsense. How do you "fire" a client for agreeing to a deal you just negotiated? Pelinka negotiated the deal with the Jazz and even got them to boost some of the numbers.

Here's what went down, according to several sources with knowledge of the situation: The Cavs offered Boozer a one-year, $5 million deal Monday in an effort to woo him back. The team hoped to convince Boozer to wait one more year before truly cashing in -- he would become a restricted free agent next summer and be eligible for a seven-year deal with the Cavs worth as much or more than the Jazz
were offering. The Cavs pitched the offer as a way for Boozer to honor his commitment without agreeing to a below-market contract.
Over the course of the next few hours, SFX boss Arn Tellem held a conference call with a number of SFX agents, including Pelinka. Several SFX agents complained that Boozer's deal with the Jazz was hurting their ability to negotiate deals for their own clients. A substantial amount of pressure was put on Pelinka to either get Boozer to accept the Cavs' new offer or resign as his agent.

Pelinka resisted, claiming he had warned the Cavs they weren'tallowed to agree to a deal on June 30, per the collective bargaining agreement. While there was some thought the Boozer camp had led the Cavs to believe he would re-sign, there were no promises. Pelinka then brokered the deal with the Jazz. However, the appearance of impropriety had reached the point that SFX still wanted out. Tellem had built a stellar reputation for SFX, and he didn't want it
tarnished. "It was the right move," one NBA GM said. "But it should've happend five days earlier. There's only so much damage control you can do at this point."

SFX had planned to keep the news of Pelinka's resignation quiet until Boozer signed with the Jazz, so as not to embarrass him, but when word leaked, the floodgates opened. Insider talked to O'Connor shortly after the news broke. O'Connor already was aware that Pelinka had resigned, but he was confident Boozer would honor his commitment to the Jazz. Boozer was left on an island, with people in Cleveland and now even his own representive fostering the notion he had reneged on his word. Late Monday evening, Boozer agreed to an interview with the Cleveland Plain Dealer. In it, he claimed he never promised the Cavs everything, noted that his agent told them that they couldn't agree to a deal before July 1 and reiterated his intention to
sign with the Jazz Wednesday.

"The only organization I gave my word to was Utah," Boozer told the paper. "I called [Utah GM] Kevin O'Connor and I told him that I accepted their offer and that's the only word I gave during this process. I plan to sign the offer sheet tomorrow."

Boozer claims he originally had planned to re-sign with the Cavs, but as negotiations progressed, he became disillusioned after head coach Paul Silas made some negative comments about his game. "During those conversations, I asked those guys about my role on the team, and I
expressed to them the direction I wanted to go individually and with the team," Boozer said. "I wanted the chance to become an All-Star, and some [in the meeting] didn't think I could accomplish that here. One primary person didn't believe I could."

"I didn't make a prior agreement. And if I did, I would've stayed here," Boozer said. "For them [Cavaliers] taking shots at mycharacter is incredibly wrong, and I don't understand that. I thought I had a great relationship with them. Maybe they're trying to save face or trying to make up stuff and kill my character. And if that's the road they want to take, that's OK." Given all that's happened, Boozer is miffed the Cavs made him another offer. "Why would they try to sign me?" Boozer said. "They've tried to demoralize me as a human being. They tried to depict me as a kind of guy that bamboozled people.
They've lied and painted a picture that we had an illegal deal. They tried to say we had an oral agreement before July 1, and that didn't happen."

The Hustler
Agent Aaron Goodwin can't understand why the Knicks and Bulls can't come to some sort of agreement regarding his client, restricted free agent Jamal Crawford. To date, the Bulls haven't offered Crawford a contract. He became expendable after Chicago used the No. 3 pick in the draft to select combo guard Ben Gordon.
The Knicks, though, have offered a deal. In fact they're willing to pay Crawford more than the mid-level -- a contract that could go for seven years and up to a whopping $70 million dollars.
"We're trying to get something done," Goodwin said. "It's up to the two teams to work out the particulars. I'm just trying to take care of Jamal." Taking care of Jamal is the problem. Crawford's deal has become so big the Bulls would have to send out and take back as many as nine players just to make the deal work. That's fine with Bulls GM John Paxson, if he gets something back in return, but the deal Knicks President Isiah Thomas is offering just doesn't make sense for the Bulls.

A Bulls source told Insider Monday that talks between the Bulls and Knicks had taken a step "backward." According to sources, the Knicks want the Bulls to sign Crawford to a multi-year contract, then trade him to the Knicks along with Jerome Williams and Eddie Robinson in return for Shandon Anderson, Othella Harrington, Frank Williams, Cezary Trybanski and Moochie Norris. The Bulls want Dikembe Mutombo included as part of the deal instead, refusing to take back the bad contracts of both Anderson and Norris. Mutombo's contract
expires at the end of the season, and with the expiring contracts of Harrington, Williams and Trybanski could offer the Bulls significant cap room next summer. However, the deal isn't nearly as enticing with Norris' long term contract in the mix. The reason the two teams are struggling to make a deal, according to Bulls sources, is the size of Crawford's contract. It's so big he'll become a base-year player, meaning the Bulls have to enlarge the deal to make it work
under the rules of the cap.

If Crawford were willing to accept less than seven for $70 million, a different version of the deal could happen where the Knicks have to take back just Jerome Williams, and the Bulls don't have to assume the contract of Anderson or Norris. However, as of Monday afternoon, the Knicks were balking and told the Bulls they would seek to go a different direction in free agency.

That's bad news for Goodwin. With the exception of the Knicks, the market for Crawford hasn't been hot. Bulls sources claimed they knew of no other teams willing to pay Crawford more than the mid-level. If Goodwin can't broker a Crawford deal to the Knicks, his client likely would have to accept a much smaller deal. Right now, Paxson holds all of the cards. The only way Crawford can get that deal is with a sign-and-trade. Goodwin might be ready to blink. But is Isiah?

For the Knicks, that trade is a little more perplexing. The team already has Stephon Marbury, Allan Houston and Penny Hardaway in the backcourt. Adding Crawford means the team's backcourt alone would be raking in more than $50 million next year. Overall, the four players would be due roughly a quarter of a billion dollars over the life of their contracts. The Knicks already own the highest payroll in the league, and by pulling the trigger on this trade their payroll would exceed $100 million. Williams (four years, $27.4 million) and Robinson (two years, $14 million) also are locked into bad contracts, giving the Knicks a roster full of such players signed to bad, long-term deals. Given recent revelations that the Knicks are involved in talks with the Cavs (for Zydrunas Ilguaskas) and the Raptors,Warriors and Mavs, there's a good possibility the team may just move on. They need the expiring contracts of Mutombo and Harrington to facilitate anything they do. Without them, there isn't a team in the NBA who really wants to deal with them.

Meanwhile the Bulls may be ready to move on as well. A Bulls source told Insider Monday afternoon that Aregentian wingman Andres Nocioni will arrive in Chicago today to discuss signing a contract with the Bulls. The 24-year-old Nocioni played for Tau Ceramica last season, averaging 13.7 points and 5.7 rebounds during Euroleague play. Expect the Bulls to offer them part of their mid-level exception. Nocioni would likely compete with rookie Luol Deng for the starting small forward spot. Nocioni is widely considered the best international player not playing in the NBA. Nocioni is a solid perimeter shooter with NBA 3-point range, but he shines posting guys up and playing the mid-range game. Teams have wanted him for some time, but a big buyout with Tau has prohibited him from making the leap.

Chad Ford covers the NBA for ESPN Insider.

CT...how did you copy and paste that? I tried to post that earlier...

The Knicks are getting Crawford. Quit worrying!

Posted by Rich:

I think this article may be dated at this point, but it does tend to prove that expiring contracts are near gold. That's why Penny's and TT's expiring contracts will be so valuable during the next off season.

Yeah, thats why I want the Ilgauskas deal to happen. A nice center that definitely helps us and he can also serve has an expiring contract. Nice.

I think Crawford's gonna eventually take a little less money. This deal might not happen as early as we thought it was going to, but it's going to happen IMO. I think Zeke is in the driver's seat right now.

see to me this is why i have no clue where we are at? same old knicks willing to bid against themselves. if no one is willing to pay--if chicago is so willing to get rid of--is this malik rose all over again? a deal that isiah is in the middle of near the end game but still makes no sense. crawford is talented but still to many question marks to get paid that loot. our most expensive players play the same position. if we could somehow get him for a MLE price or close to it fine. if the deal contains a couple of players fine. but this whole schmeal has me perplexed really from both sides. unless he comes at a reasonable price[perhaps even as a pawn to get a good big man either by trade or draft next year] move on. we DONT need crawford at 10mm per year. if the bulls hate him and no one else wants to pay and this is the best we can do--offer him the mLE at some point, only atlanta can sign him.

Maybe something that makes more sense is a VC sign N trade for Crawford and Chandler

Posted by Bonn1997:

I'm not sure I share your assumption that no other team would give Jamal a large contract. I think if the Knick trade falls apart, many teams will offer him a big contract

But who? Atlanta and Denver have money, although in the Nuggets case, they will probably use it to sign K-Mart. Other teams seem to be reluctant to paying JC more than the MLE. Someone could offer him a long lucrative deal but not likely this year. And if JC has to comeback to Chicago for one more year, who knows how much playing time he would get, not to mention that he won't be happy with the Bulls. Same thing with E-Rob and JYD.

I agree with BRIGGS that we muct not overpay to get him. He is still young and still has potential to become something special but we don't really know if he will. A 7 year 70 mill is too much. I'd prefer the rumored 6 year 55 mill deal, it it ever happens. But don't overpay him just to get him, please.

I agree with Knicksfan....many teams may want to offer him money, but they may not be able to....Denver wants Kenyon and the Clippers only have eyes for Kobe at this point...

Can't bash Chad on that piece, it was fair.