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I'm pretty sure the fix is in between us and Jose and has been for two months. There is not a peep out there about Jose doing anything but signing with us, and the figure of $8 or maybe $8.5 million keeps ringing true with a lot of us, including season ticketholders who have had contact with the organization. While European teams are running after marquee players, you don't hear a smidge of interest in Jose. Why? Because everybody and his brother knows we have an oral agreement with Jose that will be announced next week.

As for those who say we should low ball him, I would point to the LA Clippers. Depending on the actual cap number, should Maggette opt out and they don't like what they are offered in a sign and trade and choose to renounce him, they could have as much as $10 million in cap space. And they are truly desperate for a point guard. Dunleavy said two days ago that Jose is one point guard they would target. So don't think for a minute that we are going to be cheap and push Jose into a situation that would actually cost us MORE than he's ready to take. When all is said and done, his contract will actually represent a hometown discount. The market is what the market is. The Clippers are desperate. They could have the cash to overpay. You don't create a situation where you invite Jose to sign their offer sheet.

With max increases of 10.5% a 40 over 5 (avg 8mill/yr) contract would actually look like:

That would give us room to re-sign Delfino and still leave about 2 million under the luxury tax.

Barngnani makes more money next year than AP. wtf?

Does anyone know if MLSE indicated that they are wiling to pay luxury tax in order to compete? Gilbert Arenas is mighty attractive (skill wise) this off season.

EventHorizon wrote:Does anyone know has MLSE indicated that they are wiling to pay luxury tax in order to compete? Gilbert Arenas is mighty attractive (skill wise) this off season.

The implicit assumption that comes out in BC's pressers is no. Now, that may just be a bargaining tactic to use to convince Jose to take the "hometown discount", but I'd go by that.

And for those who think Jose will resign for less than 7 mill in the first year of the contract, read Dagger's above post very carefully. Not going to happen. It will start at 8 mill, minimum. TJ already making more than that.

More than anything, the Raptors need to complete a 2 for 1 to fill out the roster. Given the current situation, that makes only Kapono and Parker viable candidates since everyone else earns either too much or too little. Portland, for example, needs vets; Parker (and future considerations) for Webster and Rodriguez makes sense.

Other teams will realize how close the Raps are to the tax.

If Philly was smart, they'd offer Jose a deal like this....

08-09: $12.0 million
09-10: $11.5 million
10-11: $11.0 million
11-12: $10.5 million
12-13: $10.0 million
Total 5 years $55 million

Not a bad deal at all for possible the 2nd or 3rd best PG in the east.

C:Dale/Evans
PF:Young/Speights
SF:Iggy/Carney
SG:Miller/Green
PG:Caldy/Miller

bstein14 wrote:Other teams will realize how close the Raps are to the tax.

If Philly was smart, they'd offer Jose a deal like this....

08-09: $12.0 million
09-10: $11.5 million
10-11: $11.0 million
11-12: $10.5 million
12-13: $10.0 million
Total 5 years $55 million

Not a bad deal at all for possible the 2nd or 3rd best PG in the east.

C:Dale/Evans
PF:Young/Speights
SF:Iggy/Carney
SG:Miller/Green
PG:Caldy/Miller

Phi needs a scorer more than they need a playmaker. They should make a run at ben gordon.

I never thought of the LA Clippers as being contenders for Jose Calderon...but as Dagger said, if Maggette opts out, then it could definitely be a possibility. And above all else, they seem to be interested in Jose Calderon...that being said, the Clips will probably target Gilbert Arenas, but Caldy could be option B.

western221 wrote:

bstein14 wrote:Other teams will realize how close the Raps are to the tax.

If Philly was smart, they'd offer Jose a deal like this....

08-09: $12.0 million
09-10: $11.5 million
10-11: $11.0 million
11-12: $10.5 million
12-13: $10.0 million
Total 5 years $55 million

Not a bad deal at all for possible the 2nd or 3rd best PG in the east.

C:Dale/Evans
PF:Young/Speights
SF:Iggy/Carney
SG:Miller/Green
PG:Caldy/Miller

Phi needs a scorer more than they need a playmaker. They should make a run at ben gordon.

Caldy can score enough, and he does so much more efficiently than BG... Philly would be stupid to go after Gordon over Calderon.

They are lucky because Miller is more than tall enough to play SG.... Thus they could get their PG of the future and keep their vet PG to back him up this year and also start at SG.

Especially since Philly has such young athletic wings in Iggy, Carney, and Young(SF/PF)... Calderon makes so much sense for Philly.... Who knows whether or not they'll realize it though.

bstein14 wrote:

western221 wrote:

bstein14 wrote:Other teams will realize how close the Raps are to the tax.

If Philly was smart, they'd offer Jose a deal like this....

08-09: $12.0 million
09-10: $11.5 million
10-11: $11.0 million
11-12: $10.5 million
12-13: $10.0 million
Total 5 years $55 million

Not a bad deal at all for possible the 2nd or 3rd best PG in the east.

C:Dale/Evans
PF:Young/Speights
SF:Iggy/Carney
SG:Miller/Green
PG:Caldy/Miller

Phi needs a scorer more than they need a playmaker. They should make a run at ben gordon.

Caldy can score enough, and he does so much more efficiently than BG... Philly would be stupid to go after Gordon over Calderon.

They are lucky because Miller is more than tall enough to play SG.... Thus they could get their PG of the future and keep their vet PG to back him up this year and also start at SG.

Especially since Philly has such young athletic wings in Iggy, Carney, and Young(SF/PF)... Calderon makes so much sense for Philly.... Who knows whether or not they'll realize it though.

That's true, but Philly also has a crying need for frontcourt help, especially the 4, and given the reluctance of teams like Charlotte and Atlanta to max out Josh Smith and Emeka Okafor, they make better targets.

dagger wrote:

bstein14 wrote:
Caldy can score enough, and he does so much more efficiently than BG... Philly would be stupid to go after Gordon over Calderon.

They are lucky because Miller is more than tall enough to play SG.... Thus they could get their PG of the future and keep their vet PG to back him up this year and also start at SG.

Especially since Philly has such young athletic wings in Iggy, Carney, and Young(SF/PF)... Calderon makes so much sense for Philly.... Who knows whether or not they'll realize it though.

That's true, but Philly also has a crying need for frontcourt help, especially the 4, and given the reluctance of teams like Charlotte and Atlanta to max out Josh Smith and Emeka Okafor, they make better targets.

They want Young to be the PF of the future, and Iggy to stay at SF. This was talked about a lot in the Pistons/Sixers series. They likened him to a young Kevin Garnett...

And they had Reggie Evans coming off the bench, who played really really well for them. He's basically the best per minute rebounder in the NBA.

And they drafted a PF in the first round, in Speights...

So I personally think, Calderon would be the best fitting FA that is realistic.

Smith, Okafor, Ellis, Bierdins... will all get matched.

But a front loaded 5 year $55 million contract for Calderon could but the Raptors in a world of luxury tax hurt after the JO trade. And $55 million over 5 years is not overpaying too much for a player who's shown he can be one of the top PG's in the conference, and top 10 in the NBA.

Yup I agree Philly can put us in a world of pain, if they do so.... but like Dangger said, theres marginal-decent NBA euro's getting supreme attention back in Europe to sign, and here we have Jose, prolly the most attractive of all the ones abie to go, and there has been nuthing.... prolly cuz its generally agreeed upon in Jose's camp that he is staying put, and there is a hand-shake agreement in place, before the Jermaine trade was made.

Jose is prolly chilling, enjoy the moment as Spain won teh Euro, and hopefully get his pay day in the coming days

Can we still trade Garbo's salary? i.e. Garbo and Joey for Jaric?

The only way we can really improve this roster is by taking on talent for a longer contract

Jaric would be a nice combo guard to cover the pg/sg

then use the 2.6 on a back up C (elson/diop)

Sorry for being a noob but what's luxury tax and MLE? Also, what happens if we go over the 70 million dollar figure? (Can we even?)

If someone can explain this that would be much appreciated.

from: http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#16

The luxury tax is a mechanism that helps control team spending. While it is commonly referred to as a "luxury tax," the CBA simply calls it a "tax" or a "team payment." It is paid by high spending teams -- teams whose payroll exceeds a predetermined tax level. These teams pay one dollar for each dollar their payroll (with a few exceptions, see below) exceeds the tax level.

MLE stands for Mid-Level exception. You can figure the rest out at that faq I linked.

bstein14 wrote:Other teams will realize how close the Raps are to the tax.

If Philly was smart, they'd offer Jose a deal like this....

08-09: $12.0 million
09-10: $11.5 million
10-11: $11.0 million
11-12: $10.5 million
12-13: $10.0 million
Total 5 years $55 million

Not a bad deal at all for possible the 2nd or 3rd best PG in the east.

C:Dale/Evans
PF:Young/Speights
SF:Iggy/Carney
SG:Miller/Green
PG:Caldy/Miller

Just because a team makes an offer doesn't mean that the player has to accept. If Jose wants to stay in T.O. he won't screw them by signing an offer sheet like that. His agent would probably just relay the TOTAL numbers (length and amount) of the deal to BC, and expect them to come up with an offer that matches those.

What do you guys think the most is we could offer Maggette or Artest in a sign and trade?

I've heard some rumors about Maggette looking to explore his FA options and Orlando/New Orleans both have expressed interest. Perhaps we could work out a sign and trade with the Clips involving maybe Moon, Parker and some picks. That way they would at least get something back instead of just letting Mags walk out the door for nothing.

tecumseh18 wrote:
6. Did we get our promised 20 ppg wingman yet?

We changed direction and got a 20 ppg centre instead.

Well the raptors could actually offer Jose a contract starting at 6.5 mill with 10.5% yearly raise which will make it a 5 year, 40 million dollar contract. That way, the payroll for this year would look something like this:

Bosh - 14.45
JO - 21.00
Jose - 6.5
AP - 4.55
Garbo - 2 (Assuming thats what the buyout was for)
Roko - 2 (Assuming he signs for 2 mill per)
Joey - 2.5
Kapono - 5.8
Bargnani - 5.2
Hump - 3
Jamario - .7

Bringing the total salaries to around 67.7 Million leavining about 3.5 million room before we touch uxury tax threshold of 71 million.

Now if we can get a couple of rookies/minimum contract for around 1.3 million, it will give us another 2 million to sign some sort of backup SG. Very tight I must say. Unless we somehow do a S&T for a player getting Joey G involved..