The Times-Picayune reports the Hornets are still players in the James Posey sweepstakes:
“There is certainly interest on both sides,” said Mark Bartelstein, who represents Posey. “We have had a lot of continued talks.”
Posey is seeking a three- to four-year contract that will pay him up to $5.6 million, the full mid-level exception. For the Hornets, it appears the Celtics are their most serious competition; however, Boston has been reluctant to offer Posey a deal longer than two years.
Ok.. let’s say Posey would settle for 3 years/$17 million or so. We’re all good with the 3 years, right?
So… why not offer 4 years/$21 million? If you start him at $4.65 million (about a million less than the MLE)… give him the maximum 8% raise over 4 years… that works out to be about $20.8 million. He gets more money… we get $1 mil. to play with in the MLE this year… and in a worst case scenario… we can trade away about $5.7 mil. in expiring contract in year 4.
Just got Rajon’s autograph but he wouldn’t answer my questions about Posey.
I don’t like the way Posey said “those guys can only do so much”.
Mr. Karalis, you are a genius. Please have one of your spies deliver this message to Danny ASAP.
I just want this to be over with. I enjoyed the championship for about a week before I started worring about his deal. PoZ please sign so I can return to my glee and start to get excited about next season too.
Signing with the Celtics again would give him the best chance at another title, but you know…money doesn’t grow on trees.
Just to clarify, giving him the full MLE-1 mil doesn’t give us flexibility, since it can’t be combined with another exception or tacked on top of the veterans minimum (which for most if not all players is over 1 mil). We would need to offer him the MLE minus at least the minimum to be able to offer more than the minimum to someone else.