Cliffy is available BTW...

BBen can't sign until July 12th. I doubt anything changes before then.
I'm not crying over this. The teal days aren't going to sneak up on us. And hang around like a smelly malaise. Not with guys like C'note, Rip, Tay, Sheed, Dyess, Fino, Amir and JMax waiting to reassert themselves. Do you think these guys are clutching their pillows because BBen is gone?
You're losing this poll bad...we'll see.
And what about the guy that takes BBens place are you going to hate on him just because he is not BBen?

I voted no. But I would've voted no if Ben was signed too. Doesn't matter, we can't get to the finals with this team again. ECF easy... Finals no.

Ask me this after we see what Joe does to heal this wound.

Nazr Mohammed.

Should we change the question to : Do we make the playoffs next year?

OK, I'm kidding. But this continues to look worse by the moment.

Bye bye Ben

Contract with raise for Hunter

Sign Mohammed.

nazr better have something that he hasn't shown in his game before. He's going to have to work his ass off.

This thread isn't right as of now. Of course nobody is going to think we'll make it after a blow like this. Wounds usually heal. Either this wound is a wound that takes long to heal, or its a woundthat will never heal. We'll have to wait and see. Right now hell no. We won't make it the way we are right now. Time for Joe D. to pull of a stunt.

Its not a dumb question. Its a very good question but perhaps a bit premature because there could be some trades before its over.

Assuming there is not I see this team with similarities to the 03 team, back when Ben used to play PF. At the start of 02/03 we also had a platoon of 3 guys for Center namely Zelly, Cliff and Okur. Curry was the starting SF and we had the same starting backcourt of Billups and Rip. Our bench was deeper with Corliss fresh from the 6th man award and streak shooter Chuckie Atkins in the backcourt.

This year Sheed is our starting PF and will bring less defense and more offense than Ben did and we will also take a hit defensivly at the Center spot. Rebounding will not be as bad as some thing. Mohamed is a decent rebounder and Dale Davis an excellent one. Davis should be fresh given his age since he pretty much had an entire year off. Our other 3 starters Billups, Rip and Prince are all in their prime and will be playing very inspired ball.

On the bench I still like Dyess over what we had in Corliss. For the other spots we will need some luck. At the present time other than Hunter we have Delfino, Acker, Blalock and possibly Delk. So we are going to need at least 2 of them to step up. In the front court we need either Mr. DNA ( Maxiel ) or Johnson to contribute.

If we get nothing from our young guys and the rest of the team sleepwalks through certain stretches then it could be 44-50 wins and an early 1st round defeat. If the vets play inspired and we get production from the bench, young guys stepping up, then it could be 50-60 wins and possibly getting to the Finals.

We need some luck. In 03 Prince stepping up got us out of the 1st round. We would not have won in 04 either without the contributions of the home grown rooks Prince and Okur. Like all other teams we will need some improvements internally. In order to do that this superiority complex of young guys not worthy of PT has to be dropped.

I agree with Skluck and max here. With the way the ball bounces in the future NBA, I voted no in reaching the finals and probably would have voted no even if we had signed Ben, especially if this poll was at the beginning of the season and we had not upgraded the bench to anything better than what we had last season.

On the other hand , as Max says we cannot throw in the towel and say that this will become a second tier team until we see what options are still out there. We have 3 players in their prime and one who is not done yet. We got a couple of guys on the squad who could become trade bait, and a blockbuster trade is not out of Joe's range.

Amir and Acker proved that they could play in the D league and lets hope they get a lot of runtime in the summer league to prove to Flip that they make the 12 man playing team in the fall and he lets them play 5 mins a game

We stiil need that back up PG for Chauncey so maybe that $1.5 mil or whatever is left over can be spent on Atkins or that ugly girl name Tyron Lue. Jay Williams the former Dukie is still out there and can probably be had for that money too if he can prove himself in the summer leagues.

We like all other teams ignored Sprewell because he wanted $5mill, I wonder what he thinks he worth these days since he will be 36 when the season starts???

Jay Williams' agent is Bill Duffy, who tried to steer Pryz our way. Duffy loves us. If Williams doesn't get a good offer, I wouldn't be suprised if he's in our camp. Can't hurt to try, anyways...