Phoenix Suns
7/13 Signed Channing Frye
7/20 Signed Steve Nash to a two-year contract extension
9/15 Waived Sasha Pavlovic
As we mentioned in the Dallas comments last week, point guards tend not to age well. On the bright side, most of the ones who have aged well have done so in recent years, a good indicator for Nash. Indeed, despite all the talk of Nash’s durability years ago, he hasn’t missed more than 12 games in a season since 1999-00. The stat line has gone down a little from the peak years in the mid-2000s but Nash is reasonably good bet to be useful through age-37. The contract is little rich but we can understand the excess cost in salary is worth it because a struggling Suns team should get back a fair amount of goodwill with fans.
Frye’s signing is not terrible either. He’s clearly not a starter on a good team but the front court needs some scoring outside of Amare and the price is pretty cheap.
Philadelphia 76ers
8/10 Re-signed Royal Ivey
9/15 Signed Rodney Carney
It’s hard to get too excited about bringing bench players. Ivey is a great hustler but is a ridiculously poor scorer (.332% from the field) and not really a good passer either (1.8 apg). It’s quite hard to see how he can play on a Philly team that has other backcourt non-scorers like Willie Green and Jason Kapono. I assume he’ll be relegated to defensive specialist mode. As for Carney, he is helpful as an able-bodied backup guard/forward but don’t expect much more.
Portland Trailblazers
7/10 Extended Nate McMillan’s contract through 2011 Season
7/10 Signed Paul Millsap to an offer sheet
7/24 Signed Andre Miller
8/7 Signed Brandon Roy to a contract extension
9/17 Signed Juwan Howard
If you must know, the cap room was burning a whole in the Blazers’ pocket. Why else sign Andre Miller when he doesn’t quite fit the team needs? Of course, Portland’s needs are kind of hard to diagnose. They had no major weaknesses last year but do have a need for something. Rather than just wait around, they signed Miller, who helps marginally but does not make them a title contender. In fact, John Hollinger recently reported that the preference of Nate McMillan is to start Steve Blake over Miller. But Miller at two years and $14 million (plus a team option for $7 million) is a really good value and a much better deal than their attempt to massively overpay Hedo Turkoglu.
From Miller’s perspective, this is a rough time to be hitting the free agent market. It’s his last chance at a big contract but he happened to run into the weakest economy in recent memory and was forced to take what he could get. Not only was money tight but the good teams really weren’t looking for point guards any way. Which playoff team really needs a starting point badly? Maybe Houston but they don’t look like a playoff team anyway. Miami also could use him but they weren’t willing to blow their carefully horded cap room for him. I actually would’ve like to see Miller go to play with the shooters in Golden State but that wasn’t happening for a variety of reasons.
Sacramento Kings
7/21 Signed Sean May
9/17 Signed Desmond Mason
We all know that the Kings have officially returned to the pre-Webber stupor but signing guys like May and Mason only confirm this fact. May has shown flashes but has been too hurt to play often. Mason is still a good athlete but his offensive game, which was never great, has atrophied to a level that he’s not playable as more then bench fodder. Mason hit for career lows in points per minute and shots created per minute. He topped that off with one of his worst shooting seasons. On the bright side, Mason can help a team on the other side of the court as the Kings had the absolute worst defense in the NBA last season.
San Antonio Spurs
7/10 Signed Antonio McDyess
7/25 Signed Theo Ratliff
The Spurs brought in McDyess with the hope that he’s a useful bench player for a team whose bench had gotten pretty unappetizing. McDyess has been an excellent bench player the last few years but the Spurs are pretty heavily invested for ages 35 through 37 (three years and $18 million). The question is whether McDyess will age well enough to be worth the risk. It appears that the Spurs are so focused on competing short-term that they are willing to give McDyess a little extra money to do so (i.e. the dubious age-37 contract year). In terms of present performance, McDyess was pretty effective (in 30.1 mpg, 9.6 ppg, .510 FG%, 9.8 rpg,16.6 PER). In fact, McDyess played his most minutes per game since he was in Denver in 1999-00 (before the major injuries). He can still rebound like a fiend but there are some signs of regression here. Notably, McDyess got to the line 1.7 times per 36 minutes, the lowest amount in his career by a significant margin and an indicator of a loss of ability to get to the basket. Regardless, the Spurs do need another rebounder, so McDyess will help even if his decline is steeper in 2009-10 than expected. Still, getting full value from this contract all three years will be tough.
Toronto Raptors
7/11 Signed Jarrett Jack to an offer sheet
7/30 Traded Devean George and cash to Golden State for Marco Belinelli; signed Rasho Nesterovic
8/18 Traded Carlos Delfino and Roko Ukic to Milwaukee for Amir Johnson and Sonny Weems
Jack? Really? I guess the plan is to play Jack as a quasi-shooting guard in tandem with Jose Calderon. Jack, of course, doesn’t score enough to be a two-guard, though he can defend pretty well. The deal isn’t ridiculously expensive (four years and $20 million) but a Calderon/Jack/Turkoglu starting lineup hardly inspires fear in opponents. Considering the cost, I’d almost rather have signed Andre Miller for a cheap two-year deal to pair with Calderon than Jack. This signing isn’t a travesty but it doesn’t push the team towards the playoffs.
Utah Jazz
7/10 Signed Mehmet Okur to a multi-year contract extension
7/14 Re-signed Ronnie Price
7/17 Matched offer sheet to Paul Millsap
By bringing back Okur and Millsap the other shoe to drop is Carlos Boozer. Boozer is in the final year of the deal, makes a ton of money ($12.6 million), and doesn’t seem to want to be in Utah. Publicly, Utah appears to be willing to let Boozer play out the option year to see if they can return to contention. If true, it is an admirable strategy to eat that much cash for a small market team. Just so you know, Utah has about $50 million invested in their top four front court players and that’s a lot of cash to play for limited available minutes. Given how low the luxury tax threshold is, a trade (i.e. a giveaway of Boozer) almost has to happen unless the Jazz look like a serious title contender out of the gate.
Washington Wizards
8/11 Signed Fabricio Oberto
Fabio! It’s nice to see that Oberto’s career didn’t end when the Spurs tossed him aside. Washington will use Oberto as a backup center for $2.1 million. He is well behind Brendan Haywood on the depth chart but is good to come in and bang.