Fantasy Basketball Daily

The Washington Wizards gave Antawn Jamison a contract extension reportedly worth $50 million over 4 years, although the actual details were not disclosed (full story, ESPN.com).   Now the Wizards can turn their attention to Gilbert Arenas.  One thing is for certain, if Arenas gets the $100 million he wants, the Wizards won’t be adding any salary for quite awhile.

Other contract news:  Minnesota extended qualifying offers to Ryan Gomes, Chris Richard and Craig Smith.  The Timberwolves chose to let Sebastian Telfair and Kirk Snyder become unrestricted free agents. (full story, CBS Sportsline.com).  The Lakers extended qualifying offers to Sasha Vujacic and Ronny Turiaf. 

And for all the Kobe Bryant haters out there, I offer Kobe’s entry into Dickipedia.com (a Wiki of Dicks).

Since contract talks start tonight, I figured this might be a good time to take a look at some terms that get thrown around when talking free agents and contracts.  These are just a few of the terms and I got to warn you that it is some pretty dry stuff, so I’ll just try and hit the highlights.

Soft Cap.  Unlike the NFL and NHL, the NBA features a soft cap, meaning that there are significant exceptions that allow teams to exceed the salary cap.  The NFL and NHL caps are “hard caps” meaning that there are almost no exceptions that will allow a team to exceed the cap.   

Restricted Free Agent (RFA).  An NBA player whose contract has expired and who has received a qualifying offer from his current team.  An RFA can negotiate with other teams and other teams can make an offer to an RFA, however the RFA’s current club can match the offer within 15 days and keep him (this is a right of first refusal). 

Unrestricted Free Agent (UFA).  An NBA player whose contract has expired.  A UFA is free to negotiate with any team and there is no ”right of first refusal” from his former team.

Sign and Trade.  This occurs when a team signs one of its free agents and immediately trades that player to another team.  Basically the whole point in doing this is so that the team that signs the free agent can get something in return and doesn’t lose the free agent player for nothing.   Baseball has protection for this in the form of extra draft picks, the NBA doesn’t.  The signed player must be traded immediately and the contract signed must be for at least 3 years with the first year guaranteed.   

Mid Level Exception.  These are going to be common this year since so many teams are already up against the cap.  A team is allowed to sign one player to a contract equal to the average NBA salary, even if the team is over the salary cap already, or if the signing would put them over the cap.  The exception this year is around $5.8 million.

Larry Bird Exception (Bird Rights).   This exception deals with established players who have played at least three years for their existing team.  The Larry Bird exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents, at an amount up to the maximum salary.  To qualify, the player must have played three seasons without being waived or traded.

Minimum Salary Exception.  Teams can sign players for the NBA’s minimum salary even if the they are over the cap, for up to two years in length.

The NBA draft has come and gone and it gave us a couple of signals for the 08-09 fantasy season.   For fantasy players, there probably aren’t more than 6 or 7 players who will end up on fantasy rosters.  The trades surrounding draft day were much more important than the draft itself.

Winners

Jose Calderon.   Calderon should be moved way up the draft board.  Toronto shipped T. J. Ford, Rasho Nesterovic and a draft pick to Indiana in exchange for Jermaine O’Neal, leaving Calderon as the starting point guard.  Calderon averaged 11 pts, 8.3 ast, 2.9 reb and 1.1 stl in just over 30 minutes per game last year and those numbers should all increase.  Having Bosh and O’neal down low should free Calderon up outside, especially from 3 point range, where he shot nearly 43% last year.  

T.J. Ford.  Ford probably gets just as much benefit out of the trade to Indiana.  He should step right in as the starting point guard and hopefully he can avoid the injury bug in Indiana.

Milwaukee Bucks.   Adding Richard Jefferson, getting rid of Yi Jianlian and drafting Joe Alexander.  Jefferson is  pure offense and teaming him with Michael Redd is going to give Milwaukee a pretty good pair of scorers.  Jianlian never wanted to be in Milwaukee and sending him to New Jersey will hopefully help chemistry and give Charlie Villanueva a chance to make a run at starting.  I’ve seen alot of criticism of the Joe Alexander draft pick, but given Milwaukee’s moves, I think they are trying to win soon.  Who else were they going to draft that would help out quickly?  A draft pick isn’t going to replace Mo Williams, Michael Redd, Richard Jefferson or Andrew Bogut.  The weakest link is Villanueva, so Alexander makes alot of sense.  Milwaukee is obviously not building for size and defense, they are going small and will just try and outscore everyone.  Not sure it is going to work, but it’s probably their best shot.

Charlie Villanueva.  The Bucks sent Yi Jianlian to New Jersey so Villanueva looks to be given a shot at a starting job this season.  Villanueva is still only 23 years old and he showed some promise down the stretch last year when given the chance.  He deserves a look this year.

Losers

Jamaal Tinsley. T.J. Ford’s arrival signals that Tinsley is done in Indiana.  He puts up decent numbers when he plays, but the problem with him is injuries and motivation.  Hopefully he can get a trade and make a run at a starting job and jump to the list of offseason winners, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Ryan Gomes.  McHale has a mancrush on Kevin Love and I’m pretty sure he is going to insist that he plays good minutes this year.  Unfortunately, those minutes are going to come at the expense of Ryan Gomes.   Love’s development will directly affect Gomes’ value.

Kirk Hinrich.  Derrick Rose.  That pretty much says it all.  Chicago wasn’t thrilled with Hinrich’s performance last year and neither was my fantasy team.  The only thing that will save Hinrich’s value is a trade out of Chicago.

Steve Blake.  Portland sent a signal that they want more out of the Point Guard position by getting Jerryd Bayless.  The Trailblazers are going to put together this young core and just let them start playing this year, win or lose.  It’s probably a good move to build some chemistry between Bayless, Roy, Aldridge and Oden.  Blake gets caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Darrell Arthur.  Although it has little effect on fantasy players, I just had to include Arthur here.  Poor guy got traded a couple of times on draft night and lost a million dollars due to bad information.  Check out the full story (Sports Illustrated  SI.com)

We are working to get the main site www.fantasybasketballdaily.com finished and will be up and running July 1, 2008.  I will be posting reviews of the NBA draft and also some feature coverage of the Olympic basketball games.  You will also be able to get your daily fantasy basketball news fix beginning on the first!

I look forward to seeing you all July 1, 2008!!!