It's a little complicated and I will admit I am not 100% up on all of the nuances of CB's trade kicker/option year.

Once I get it figured out, I'll post that info for sure.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

Miller is a decent player, good assists but a little turnover prone - at least partly due to Denver's offense. CB is all world in lack of turns, but Flip's offense aids him there. Miller is a much better two point shooter (i.e., gets some layups), but doesn't have the range of Billups. Camby, assuming he can stay healthy is a DPOY candidate, possibly even was DPOY on a minutes played this year basis.

The big problem though is unless you can do some early sign and trade thing with CB (don't know if that's even possible), today you would have to give up CB, Dice, and DD to make the trade numbers work. I don't think the team can trade Mohammed this soon, so he's a keeper.

Man, one day in dry heat, the next day in humid heat - quick trip back to DC for you. Glad to hear you're back safe and at least more or less sound.

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"But first, are you experienced? Or have you you ever been experienced? Well, I have."
Jimi

Yeah DBA it was 118 degrees when I left and that was 0900.

I can really do without Andre Miller, but Marus Camby, he would fill in for Ben rather nicely.

Paul Pierce re-signed for 60 mil over 3 years. Kind of scares me because he is around the same level name wise as Billups and I cannot see us ever offering that much to Billups.

Billups and Pierce are about the same age, but Pierce has been to the last 5 All-Star games and averages almost 10 more points per game than CB. Is Billups worth, say $15 million per season? The Bulls think that Ben Wallace is worth that much...

Need to determine who the buyers will be next year (expiring deals) and then ascertain which of those teams need a PG badly. CB opting out could be to force the Pistons hand, but if there aren't a lot of needy buyers, he's strictly looking for long term financial security. This is the kind of stuff agents look at I imagine.

CB's worth about $10 million a year. The downside is that I think he will carry even more of the load and bolster his #s next year, irregardless of how the Pistons actually finish the season. #s equal payday. All of the Pistons marketing of their guys (Ben, CB, Tay) can work against them.

I'm just rambling. So much to consider before we begin wringing our hands aggressively.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."

Good to hear they are fitting you in for an MRI, that should give a clearer picture of whats going on for sure.
I hope they play some decent music for you while your trying not to move for an hour or so. I'll hope for the best for you-
cloud

Ros - I would agree that he is worth around 10mil but there have been a lot of crazy offers the past 2 seasons. Bobby Simmoms got max last year and the guy from Indy Stojakovic recently got max to leave Indy.

So you never know. It only takes one idiot to offer CB 15mil per and its over. You can only count on loyalty just so much.

I feel that the longer the Pistons wait, the harder CB will be to move.

Personally, for me it all comes down to can the team really be a threat to the other top tier teams without Ben?
If the answer is no, I don't see a need to stay stuck in mediocrity. Shake things up, start looking down the road a bit. Build a team that will be peaking when Tayshaun is in his prime.

I am talking about my own subjective ideas on what CB is worth. As you wrote Max, the market will set the price. My only fear is that Dumars will go too far the other way locking up Billups to compensate for losing Ben, and perhaps hooking us up longterm to a combo guard with questionable intangibles.

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Nov 13 LW Milan Lucic had an active night. He scored his first goal in eight games since his Oct. 25 hat trick and also pounded Michael Komisarek in a third-period fight. Lucic cut his hand in a fight with Michael Komisarek. "I'll be fine," he said. "(X-rays are) negative, but there's so many broken bones in there from before you can't really tell."