Pistons and free agents

No word on the contractual status of Kwame "Cut a Rug" Brown, Will "The Thrill" Bynum or Ben Wallace yet except that Joe Dumars "contacted" them after midnight. Matt Barnes and Brendan Haywood were also reportedly "contacted", though between the two, I would rather obtain Haywood. A most exciting time indeed, even if we're ensnared within the confines of the mid-level exception. Hopefully Joe Dumars scores a four point play in free agency.

fear the fro - no problem

iron will - pray that one desperate GM won't offer midlevel exception salary to him.


and I'm praying that this "desperate GM" isn't dumars

I'm thinking Joe won't use the MLE this summer unless he can make a trade to free up more cap room. For Will I'm thinking about 5 years / $20Million (first year would be $3.5M), because what Will gets will probably set precedent for Stuckey this summer. Offer Ben a $5M deal, whether we spend teh MLE has everything to do with what our team and salary situation looks like after a trade.

I don't think that Bynum will sign for 5 years.. I think he is looking for something shorter.. like 3 years..

There is not a single player in the league looking to sign a shorter contract, especially with a looming lockout and changes to the CBA on the horizon.

Getting Haywood would be a big step in fixing the problems at the 5. He is the best FA center out there. But with Amir and Darko getting big money, MLE, although fair for a guy that is 30 will probably not get the job done. Also if JD uses the full MLE he has to trade Rip for capp spayce, or else he might not have the money to extend Stuckey and Jerebko next season.

Yeah...but Haywood is not very good. I can't really tell if he's one step above or below Eric Dampier in the Giant Stiff Dept.

If that is true, Tay must be as good as GONE! But that kinda pisses me off, all these years where we needed a backup for Tay, I was ALWAYS clamoring to go after Matt Barnes, he's sooooo underrated, always works hard, can knock down the trey, always outplays his contract and expectations...ALWAYS! And some off brand team would eventually sign him with the bi-annual exception or the vet minimum, now we have 4 good SF's, and NOW you wanna make a run at this guy? WTH!!!

Naw Low, Haywood had a really good season, he's basically a 10&10 guy with 2blks/per.....now was that just a guy in his contract year......

Yeah, but a guy who gets you 10 and 10 in a contract year is going to give you Darko style numbers the rest of the time. I'm not sure I'm ready for another Nazr type contract.

That's the first thought that came to my head after I hit the submit post button.....touche!

I think Haywood is amongst the dumber players in the L. He'll fit right in at least...........

Agree. We are not gonna win anything this year anyway so I don't want to see any expensive mediocre veterans joining as FA:s who will retire when this team is ready to challange.

That would allow the team to shed a guard.

Rip or Gordon. I don't really care which. I think Rip's a better player, but by the time the team is good again, he won't be.

Gordon had an off year, so I'd be interested to see him when he's on, but I'm just not into one-dimensional scoring types.

I think you're under estimating or maybe forgetting how good Bengo is when he's on