Tuesday Insider

[Guest]

Free-agency winners

and losers

by Chad Ford

Send an Email to Chad Ford

Also Below: Are the Knicks full of hope or dope? | Lewis fights off injury paranoia | Hornets can't beat injury bug | Turf Wars update | Peep Show

The great free-agent drought of 2002 is basically over and most of the owners around the NBA can keep smiling.

While a few free agents still remain out there, when Olden Polynice gets a job, you can pretty much quit paying attention. The final major free-agent loose end was tied Monday when the Bucks decided to match the Mavs' four-year, $12 million offer for Michael Redd. By doing so, Bucks owner Herb Kohl was one of only a handful of owners who decided to spend money despite the looming luxury tax.

With a few exceptions, owners really socked it to the players this summer. Only a handful of players got really big deals. Most players had to swallow their pride and figure out a way to live on four million a year. Cue the violins.

Success in the free-agent market is all relative and here's Insider's take on this summers big winners and losers in the free-agent market.

BREAKING THE BANK

Mike Bibby, Kings

Contract: 7 years, $80.5 million

Skinny: Bibby made out great for a guy who averaged 13.7 ppg and 5 apg. Were it not for a stellar playoff series in which he averaged 20.3 ppg, he would have been forced to settle for much, much less. Given the Kings' luxury-tax woes, the contract is even more amazing.

Raef LaFrentz, Mavs

Contract: 7 years, $69.9 million

Skinny: Just a few weeks before the contract was signed, LaFrentz was reportedly ready to agree to a contract worth about $10 million less. Who knows what made owner Mark Cuban so generous, but consider this . . . right now Shawn Bradley is out playing LaFrentz in training camp. Talk about your buyer's remorse.

Malik Rose, Spurs

Contract: 7 years, $42 million

Skinny: There's only one plausible theory here. Rose's ridiculous deal was a down payment for Tim Duncan next season. There's no other explanation for throwing that kind of money at an undersized power forward who averages 9.4 ppg and 6.0 rpg.

Devean George, Lakers

Contract: 4 years, $18.6 million

Skinny: Last fall it looked like George's future in the league was in serious question. The Lakers decided not to exercise his option and George had difficulty breaking into coach Phil Jackson's rotation. But a nice playoff series convinced enough other teams, including the T-Wolves and Jazz, to make a big offer that the Lakers were forced to give up their full mid-level exception for him.

Michael Redd, Bucks

Contract: 4 years, $12 million

Skinny: Considering he was on the verge of signing a four-year, $6 million contract with the Bucks three weeks ago, the Mavs' four-year, $12 million offer sheet was manna from heaven. Redd has the skills, but considering who he backs up, he'll make most of his money waiving towels.

Jerome James, Sonics

Contract: 3 years, $15 million

Skinny: You've heard the story a thousand times. Huge kid can kind of play basketball. Huge kid is too fat. Contract year comes and huge kid loses weight and plays his heart out. Home team pays way too much for huge kid. Huge kid buys way too many Twinkies. Huge kid shows up to camp too fat. Three more years until another contract year.

Greg Buckner, Sixers

Contract: 6 years, $18 million

Skinny: In my mind, one of the great contracts of the summer. Most guys with Buckner's resume had to settle for one-year, minimum deals. How agent Steve Kauffman convinced the Sixers to give half their mid-level exception to Buckner remains one of the great mysteries of the offseason.

THE BRUISED

Rashard Lewis, Sonics

Contract: 7 years, $60 million

Skinny: It's tough to cry for a guy whose starting salary this season is $6.2 million. But Lewis expected much more. He could've had this contract two years ago with the Raptors, but the Sonics convinced him that he was selling himself short. Lewis can earn up to $20 million more in incentives, but he'll have to make the All-Star team every year to get it, a tough task in the forward-loaded Western Conference.

Bonzi Wells, Blazers

Contract: 4 years, $29 million

Skinny: Bonzi wanted more, but the $6 million a year starting salary isn't too shabby. However, there is a team option in year four, meaning that Wells really only got $21 million in guaranteed cash.

Jeff McInnis, Blazers

Contract: 3 years, $9 million

Skinny: He thought he could at least grab a contract similar to Chauncey Billups' six-year, $35 million deal in Detroit. Instead, the best he could do was a three-year deal with the Blazers (only the first two years are guaranteed). The money isn't horrible, but given the huge point guard jam in Portland, McInnis will have a hard time generating the type of numbers he'll need to hit big two years from now.

Rodney Rogers, Nets

Contract: 3 years, $9.2 million

Skinny: Rogers wanted to play for the Celtics and the Celtics wanted Rogers to play in Boston. But former Celtics owner Paul Gaston screwed the whole thing up and Rogers is still waiting for that elusive big contract. Remember, he had to settle for much less three years ago when he agreed to take the Suns' mid-level exception. Rogers remains one of the best bargains in the NBA.

THE BATTERED

Michael Olowokandi, Clippers

Contract: 1 year, $6 million

Skinny: It's a risk, and Olowokandi and agent Bill Duffy know it. There was no way the Clippers were going to pay Olowokandi max-type money so Duffy decided to roll the dice this year and pray that a team like the Spurs or Nuggets will spend the cash on him next summer. If he continues to improve at the same rate he did last season, the gamble should pay off. A big injury or a so-so year and Olowokandi could play right into owner Donald Sterling's hands.

Donyell Marshall, Bulls

Contract: 3 years, $13.8 million

Skinny: Remember when Marshall's agent called the Jazz's four-year, $27 million contract offer an insult?

Keon Clark, Kings

Contract: 2 years, $9.5 million

Skinny: He's the poster child for the luxury tax. About 15 teams were interested in Clark, but only one of them was willing to risk and give him a contract. An untimely possession arrest while his agent was trying to convince teams that Clark didn't deserve his bad rap didn't help his cause.

Bryon Russell, Wizards

Contract: 2 years, $2.8 million

Skinny: The guy thought he'd grab more than the mid-level exception at the start of the summer. By the end of it, he was happy to take a deal for the veteran's minimum that has just one year guaranteed.

Rasho Nesterovic, T-Wolves

Contract: 1 year, $2.4 million

Skinny: Another Duffy client who took a big gamble. Duffy made the call based partly on Scott Layden's infatuation with Nesterovic. Now that the Knicks have imploded, will Layden still be able to throw Nesterovic that kind of money?

Bucks pay up to keep Redd

Tom Enlund / Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Redd stays with Bucks

Eddie Sefko / Dallas Morning News

They couldn't afford not to do this

Michael Hunt / Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Are the Knicks full of hope or dope?

It's probably the equivalent of beating a dead, decaying horse, but two days after learning that Antonio McDyess will likely miss the season, our morbid fascination with the Knicks lingers. It's just too tough to avert our eyes from that car wreck in New York.

Coach Don Chaney tried to put a positive spin on the whole debacle Monday, but it didn't sound very convincing. "If I were a new coach," Chaney said, "I'd be terrified."

No, Chaney's job is probably as safe as it's ever been. Sure, it was Chaney who inexplicably decided that McDyess, coming off season-ending knee surgery, needed to play 40 minutes a game in the preseason. That's flat out crazy, as Nets coach Byron Scott pointed out.

"No way in the world I'm going to play my guys like that. It's too much of a risk," Scott told the N.Y. Post. "I know what Jason [Kidd] and Kerry [Kittles] and [Kenyon Martin] can do. I want [Dikembe Mutombo] to get more since I need him in there to gel with the guys, but nobody's going to play 37 minutes. I'd never do that. . .We can be up 20 or down 20 it doesn't matter. I knew [McDyess] played 38 minutes or something, and the game before that he'd played in the 40s. I had a conversation with Rod; I'm not going to play guys that many minutes in the preseason because it doesn't matter about winning and losing."

What's the point in firing Chaney when no one in his right mind would dare take the position now. It's team president Scott Layden who should be terrified.

You can't blame Layden for McDyess' injury. Trading McDyess for Marcus Camby and the rights to Nene Hilario was a calculated risk, but not an unreasonable one. Camby will always be more fragile than McDyess and draft picks are by definition, a gamble. McDyess was a proven commodity and one of the few elite players available. Had he stayed healthy (from all indications this injury is unrelated to his knee injury last season) the Knicks would've been more competitive than anyone gave them credit for.

But the Knicks were a house of cards waiting to fall. Everything had to fall their way this season. That's too much to ask for, especially from the Knicks. While Knicks players protested the idea that the team was cooked without McDyess — "One player doesn't make a team. A team is a collection of players, and we're all NBA. players," Kurt Thomas said — history begs to differ. The Knicks won just 30 games last season and have no other significant upgrades to point to.

The Knicks' desperate grabs for hope are looking more pathetic by the minutes. Monday, Chaney was experimenting with a starting lineup of Charlie Ward, Howard Eisley, Allan Houston and Shandon Anderson. Ugh. The good or bad news, depending on how you look at these things, is that Latrell Sprewell is beginning rehab. And Houston, always a positive guy, still claims that the Knicks are playoff bound. Sure.

Now comes the bad news. All of us are going to have to suffer through a New York media frenzy for the next nine months as every beat writer in New York takes the first train out of New York to Akron, Ohio where a kid named LeBron James prepares himself to be the next NBA savior.

Chaney Is Looking for a Silver Lining

Ira Berkow / New York Times

Scott Says Don Take Big Gamble

Brian Lewis / New York Post

Doctor rolls Dyess

Frank Isola / New York Daily News

Knicks Hope Unorthodox Lineup Can Salvage Season

Chris Broussard / New York Times

Lewis fights off injury paranoia

The rash of serious injuries traumatizing the NBA over the last few weeks is alarming. From Antonio McDyess to Mike Bibby, top players are dropping like flies.

So when you're a player like Rashard Lewis, coming off a serious shoulder injury at the end of last season, it's not surprising that at times you may be overly cautious on the court.

"I didn't want to be tentative," Lewis told the Seattle Post Intelligencer. "but it happened at certain points in the game when I got tangled up with certain players under the basket. But I just tried to be smart about it."

The Sonics breathed a sigh of relief Monday after Lewis bounced back from an early preseason shoulder injury to score 20 points and grab 11 rebounds in a 88-78 preseason victory over the Grizzlies.

"When you're a little hesitant about an injury or re-injuring yourself, it's nice to play a full game and come out healthy and to have a solid game," coach Nate McMillan said.

Right now it's all good news for Lewis, who continues to blow off suggestions that he needs surgery to fully heal his shoulder. While the risk that Lewis re-injures his shoulder is ongoing, Lewis is just happy to be on the court, earning his 60 million bucks.

"I was very worried," Lewis said. "You sign a contract like that and people expect things from you. The last thing I wanted to do was start the season injured."

Lewis shrugs off doubts on shoulder

Danny O'Neil / Seattle Post-Intelligencer

Hornets can't beat injury bug

The Clippers, Sixers and Knicks aren't the only teams suffering from an unusual rash of preseason injuries.

The Hornets are the latest team to basically make training camp moot. Point guard Baron Davis is suffering from back spasms. Courtney Alexander has an inflamed left hip and is expected to miss several exhibition games. Elden Campbell has not practiced this season because of a sore left knee. P.J. Brown hasn't practiced or played since last week because of a strained tendon in his left ankle.

Coach Paul Silas is trying to keep calm. "I'm not concerned because there is still time, but if we have these same problems two weeks from now, it would then be time to worry," Silas told the Times Picayune. "We're missing these players right now, but you can't get crazy at this time of the year."

Point guard Davis joins long list of injured Hornets

John Reid / New Orleans Times-Picayune

Turf Wars update

Wizards: Charles Oakley may be the Wizards' newest power forward, but if Kwame Brown keeps playing the way he is, Brown may be the team's new starting power forward. Brown recorded his second impressive performance Monday with 22 points and 14 boards. "It's good for me because on a personal standpoint, I was inconsistent before," Brown told the Washington Times. "I don't want to play like a light switch, turn it on one minute, impress everybody, then turn the lights off and nobody notices."

Warriors: Rookies Mike Dunleavy and Jiri Welsch appear to be battling it out for the designation of first swingman off the bench. The early indications are that Welsch is winning that war. Why? "Jiri's got pro experience," coach Eric Musselman told the San Francisco Chronicle. Dunleavy has shot 9-for-30 in his first three exhibition games, but Musselman says eventually, Dunleavy will be able to dominate. "We're going to put the ball in his hands," Musselman told the Contra Costa Times. "He's going to get a lot of opportunities. The intelligent fans will see right away what he does, the little things. He's the best guy on the team at taking charges, his length will really help and he's a great rebounder for a small forward. Down the road, we envision he can play two [shooting guard], three [small forward] or four [power forward] and create a lot of mismatches."

Grizzlies: Drew Gooden's and Gordan Giricek's stellar preseason play is forcing Sidney Lowe to rethink his starting lineup. "Gordan Giricek and Drew Gooden are guys who are playing very well," Lowe told the Commercial Appeal. "They might need to be in that starting lineup. Or we might need to have one of them coming off the bench so we can have some scoring punch coming off the bench. We'll look at different lineups in terms of starting [for the rest of the preseason]. But we'll play the same group of guys. We have to look and see right now because we have so many new players." A starting nod for Gooden and Giricek would likely mean that Shane Battier and Lorenzen Wright would be asked to come off the bench and Pau Gasol would start at center this season.

Heat: Travis Best is finally healthy enough to play and it looks like he has the edge in the race for starting point guard. "I think veterans have a tendency to be able to bring it up to snuff a little bit sooner," coach Pat Riley told the Miami Herald. "I felt good [saturday]," Best said. "When you're playing here, you're going to be in shape regardless. I think they've done a good job of staying on top of us and keeping us in shape even though we're not on the floor."

Nuggets: Mark Blount appears to have the edge over rookie Nene Hilario for the starting center job. "He plays the type of defense I want to play," GM Kiki Vandeweghe told the Rocky Mountain News. "I knew he would be a very good low-post defender. He's got a big body and he can clog the middle and he's aggressive. Offensively, I know that he will work hard and make improvement in those areas."

Young Wizards defeat Sixers

Duff Durkin / Washington Times

Warriors rookie Dunleavy is a work in progress

Jorge L. Ortiz / San Francisco Chronicle

Lowe ponders Griz lineup

Ronald Tillery / Memphis Commercial Appeal

Heat's Best gets to the point

Israel Gutierrez / Miami Herald

Nuggets go back to 'Basic' as Blount gets time at center

Chris Tomasson / Rocky Mountain News

Peep Show

Rockets: Good news on the Yao Ming front. Yao's mother, Fengdi Fang, is in Houston awaiting the arrival of her son. While the Rockets still haven't received the final clearance for Yao from the Chinese Basketball Association, it is expected to come within the next few days now that the Asian Games have ended. Will Yao have enough time to fit into the team? "The guy is a versatile player," coach Rudy Tomjanovich told the Houston Chronicle. "He'll fit into the stuff we're doing right now. It's not going to be where everything will change when he gets here. He's going to have to fit into what we're doing."

Mavs: Now that Michael Redd is out of the picture, will the Mavs match the Clippers offer sheet for Wang Zhizhi? "We haven't come to any finality on the Wang decision," coach Don Nelson told the Fort Worth Star Telegram. "I don't think we're locked into that [Thursday] deadline. We'll make a decision when it's right for the franchise." Nelson said playing time and fit are still issues. "I just don't know how many minutes there are going to be for Wang, given our current hand. We're still talking about it and weighing the options. Politics aside, it's a pretty straight forward situation: Would his position on the team warrant that kind of salary?"

Warriors: Antawn Jamison is trying to change his image. "I don't have the ego people think I have," Jamison told the Contra Costa Times. "It's about the Warriors. If Coach Musselman comes to me and says, 'There's no way in hell we can win with you scoring 22 points a game. You have to bring it down to 15 a game,' I will do that. If that's the situation, if that's the role, I'll do it. I'm not that selfish." While Musselman hasn't asked Jamison to score less, he does want him playing better defense. "We need him to be consistent at the offensive and defensive end," Musselman said. "We need him to improve at the defensive end."

Blazers: Ruben Patterson twisted his right ankle sharply Monday night. "I'm hoping it is not as bad as it looked initially," coach Maurice Cheeks told the Oregonian. "Hopefully, he can get back and be playing sooner than we think."

Raptors: Antonio Davis is ailing as the Raptors get off to another rocky start. "I don't want to start feeling like [here we go again]. I just have to be aware of my ankle and get the treatment as necessary and if there is a day I need to take off, better in the pre-season than in the season," he told the Toronto Star. "It's still early. We've still got a couple of weeks. I'm more concerned with how we are gelling right now. It's not gone the way that we planned. I want to be out there helping and contributing and making sure we get on a positive track before things actually get started."

Clippers: Some good news and some bad news on the Clippers' injury front. Third-year guard Keyon Dooling finally looks healthy and could play in a few preseason games for the Clipps. "I'm aiming for the last two preseason games," Dooling told the L.A. Times. "I'm taking it day by day. I'm not even looking at the calendar. It feels pretty good. I can't complain. It's been pretty tough, but you've got to adjust." . . .Michael Olowokandi has been told to take at least two more weeks off before testing his sore left knee. "I'm very hopeful I'll be there for the first game," he said. "I've lost a half an inch of muscle [in his leg].... I'm confident it's something I can work with.... It's better to treat it before the season starts rather than during the 82-game schedule."

Celtics: According to Celtics coach Jim O'Brien, Kedrick Brown will miss "4-6 weeks" with his severely sprained right ankle, suffered in Thursday's exhibition game against Chicago. That would sideline Brown for the first six or seven games of the season. "He's got to pay attention," O'Brien told the Boston Globe. "He's got to be involved in every meeting. Obviously, it's not a learning situation where he's up and down [the court], but it can be done with film, by paying attention at practice, and working on his ballhandling and his shooting while he's recovering from this."

Cavs: GM Jim Paxson said he would pick up the option year on Chris Mihm's contract by the Oct. 30 deadline. "We like Chris," he told the Morning Journal. "It's the right thing to do. We just haven't done it yet. It's only a matter of time. Some teams did it earlier. Last year, we did it with Andre Miller, our best player, at the beginning of training camp."

Sixers: Olden Polynice has a job and it isn't in law enforcement. The Sixers, who are woefully thin up front, gave Polynice a one-year contract, but with no guaranteed money. "I'm not the savior," Polynice said it what has to be the understament of the year. "The only guarantee is I'm going to give 150 percent." "We're just looking for help," coach Larry Brown said.

Rockets welcome Yao's mother

Jonathan Feigen / Houston Chronicle

Mavs miss out: Redd stays with Bucks

Art Garcia / Fort Worth Star-Telegram

Jamison's trying to change image

Matt Steinmetz / Contra Costa Times

Dunleavy not a starter, yet

Matt Steinmetz / Contra Costa Times

Patterson is injured as Blazers lose by 18

Jason Quick / The Oregonian

Raps need better chemistry: Davis

Dave Perkins / Toronto Star

Dooling Finally Could Return

Elliott Teaford / Los Angeles Times

Olowokandi's Knee Needs More Time

Elliott Teaford / Los Angeles Times

Cavs pick up Mihm's option

Bob Finnan / Lorain Morning Journal

Polynice is signed after a season off

Ashley McGeachy Fox / Philadelphia Inquirer

[jaywalker72]

Since there aren't many big centers in the league, this makes sense, but he will get slaughtered against Shaq, the Spurs, and even the Kandi Man....

Gooden is obviously impressing, but Lorenzen must be also, else they may have been discussing bringing him off the bench...

[Guest]

Other than Big Dog we really have no basket

ball related injuries right now and that isn't

major.I hope it continues this way.

[capstone21]

other than big dog and ummm....a guy named Demarr.

[Guest]

I meant injuries that happen in result of basketball.