8/12 - ESPN Insider - Rebuilding the Heat with Odom

[OutletPass]

Can Odom turn up the Heat?
By Chad Ford
NBA Insider
Send an Email to Chad Ford Tuesday, August 12
Updated: August 12
9:54 AM ET


Who says that miracles never happen these days?


Just ask Lamar Odom. After two injury plagued seasons, drug suspensions and a four-year stint on the worst team in basketball, Odom hit the jackpot on Monday when he signed a six-year, $65 million offer sheet with the Heat.

Lamar Odom
Small Forward
Los Angeles Clippers
Profile


2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
49 14.6 6.7 3.6 .439 .777



Incredible? That's not the half of it. In an effort to front load the contract with bonuses to make it less palatable to the Clippers (who now have 15 days to match) Odom will receive a whopping $15 million this year -- $12 million of it payable on Oct. 15. For those of you at home with calculators, Odom will be making more money this year than Tim Duncan, Jason Kidd, Jermaine O'Neal and his teammate, Elton Brand. Not bad for a guy who averaged 14.6 ppg, 6.7 rpg and 3.6 apg on 27-55 team last season.

Like most too-good-to-be-true stories, there is a dark twist that could turn this fairy tale into horror flick. The word out of L.A. late Monday night was that the Clippers are seriously considering matching the offer. That scenario would be Odom and the Heat's worst nightmare.

For Odom, it would throw him back into a system and culture that historically has bred little but failure and disappointment. Odom has the talent to be a top-10 player in the NBA. There isn't a player in the NBA who is more versatile at his size. However, his off-the-court problems combined with a lack of discipline on the court has turned him into a player who, four years into his career, still has to rest on potential and upside. Odom knows that if he's ever going to break the cycle of mediocrity in his career, he needs a task master like Pat Riley pushing and prodding him to become the player he knows he can be.

In Miami, Odom may ultimately turn out to be a bargain at $11 million a year. In L.A., there's a very real chance that he'll be the guy who convinces owner Donald Sterling to never write another big check for the rest of his life. For the Heat, throwing this much money at Odom is, frankly, an act of desperation. They already lost out on Brand, Jermaine O'Neal and everyone else this summer. Riley is determined to end the rebuilding process in Miami and start winning. He believes that Odom's basketball skills are cut from the same cloth as Magic Johnson. He's hungered for a big point guard to run his team since his days in L.A. Odom and LeBron James are the only young big guys who appear capable of pulling it off.

The gamble, however, doesn't come without a price. Not only could the Heat walk away from this 15 days later with nothing, they could also walk away from this move capped out again, with no real size in the frontcourt and no money to make a move. Assuming for a second that the Clippers don't match, four of Riley's best five players are really guards or swingmen. Odom, Caron Butler, Eddie Jones and Dwyane Wade would give the Heat a versatile, dynamic backcourt. But currently, Riley's only decent frontcourt player is Brian Grant. There isn't much the Heat can do on that front via free agency. With just $3.5 million left in cap space after Odom, the best they can do is to sign a guy like Predrag Drobnjak, Tyrone Hill or re-sign Vladimir Stepania.

The key will be next summer. If the Heat can get Odom in the fold, they must find a way to trade Jones this year. This is MUCH easier said than done.

Eddie Jones
Shooting Guard
Miami Heat
Profile


2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
47 18.5 4.8 3.7 .423 .822



The four years, $56 million left on his contract is just one of the problems the Heat face in moving him. Jones played in just 47 games for the Heat last year because of injury. At 31, Jones' defensive skills also appear to be on the decline. The good news is that in the 47 games he did play, Jones averaged 18.5 ppg, pulled down 4.8 rpg and shot 41 percent from 3. Those are all around career bests for him.

The key is finding a team that needs him and is willing to send back at least one or two contracts that expire at the end of the season. The most talked about rumor has Jones going to the Grizzlies. The team is shopping Wesley Person and Brevin Knight (both in the last year of their deals) and the numbers do work -- however the trade no longer makes much sense. The Grizzlies just signed James Posey to play the two and have been trying to package Person and Knight for a big man. Jones doesn't qualify.

The Blazers are another possibility. They've shown interest in Jones in the past, and could package Ruben Patterson (who they are desperate to dump) and Arvyadas Sabonis' expiring contract. That would give the Heat an extra $7.7 million under the cap to play with next season. However, Blazers GM John Nash is under marching orders not to take back big salaries in return. Jones' deal should be enough to scare them away. The Pacers have been looking for some backcourt help and an Austin Croshere-and-Danny Ferry-for-Jones swap works. However, the Pacers are also very cash conscious at the moment and such a move would likely thrust them into luxury-tax territory after they re-sign Reggie Miller.

The Pistons are also looking to move a few players. A swap of Hubert Davis, Michael Curry (both Curry and Davis are in the last year of their contracts) and either Cliff Robinson or Corliss Williamson would work. However, Pistons president Joe Dumars has been careful to avoid paying big salaries and Jones' deal would be a hindrance down the road. The Jazz could get into the fray and offer to swap Greg Ostertag for Jones. That trade would give the Heat two benefits. One, Ostertag makes around $4 million less than Jones. Since the Jazz are around $16 million under the cap, they can make the trade and absorb the difference. That would give the Heat close to $7 million to play with this year, and roughly $12 million to work with in 2004 when Ostertag comes off the books. If they don't spend any money this summer, they'll have $18-19 million in cap space next summer. That could be enough to convince Kevin Garnett to take a long look. The other benefit is that Ostertag gives them a legit center in the East. For Utah, the deal gives them a solid backcourt player and still preserves around $17 million in cap room for next summer.

Glen Rice
Small Forward
Houston Rockets
Profile


2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
62 9.0 2.5 1.0 .429 .759



The deal that makes the most sense may be a Heat-Rockets swap. The Rockets could send Glen Rice and Bostjan Nachbar to Miami in exchange for Jones. Rice is in the last year of his contract, which means the Heat would clear roughly $9.6 million in cap space for next season. In Houston, new coach Jeff Van Gundy has been on the prowl for bigger, more defensive-minded shooting guard to pair in the backcourt with Steve Francis. He'd prefer to bring Cuttino Mobley off the bench to give them a scoring boost. The issue will be the long-term ramifications of Jones' deal. In 2004, he would catapult the Rockets past the luxury-tax threshold unless other moves were made. If the Heat do nothing, they'll have to field some interesting lineups next year.

The most obvious is to start Odom at the point, Jones at the two, Butler at the three, Malik Allen at the four and Brian Grant at the five. In this scenario, Wade would come off the bench. The other option is to have Wade play the point, Jones at the two, Butler at the three, Odom at the four and Grant at the five. This would give the team a lot of versatility, but they would be destroyed on the boards.

Around the League

Now that the Blazers know for sure that Arvydas Sabonis is retiring, they have until Friday to trade him to a team looking for additional cap space. Sabonis' contract doesn't become guaranteed until August 16th, leaving the Blazers with little time to get something done. The team has talked with Denver (for Marcus Camby), Detroit (for Cliff Robinson and Hubert Davis) and New Jersey (as part of larger deal for Kenyon Martin and Dikembe Mutombo) about possible deals that include Sabonis. The problem, according to one NBA GM, is that the Blazers are pushing the troubled Ruben Patterson as part of the package.

Not only does Patterson's off-the-court run-ins with the law concern teams, his four-year, $25 million remaining on his contract and a 15 percent trade kicker aren't welcome sights either. The Pistons are making steady progress in their efforts to package Robinson, Davis, Michael Curry and possibly Chucky Atkins in an attempt to get their roster down to a more manageable size. Davis and Curry are in the last year of their contracts, making them desirable to a team trying to get below the cap or under the luxury-tax threshold. Robinson has two years left on his contract, Atkins has three.

Right now the Pistons have 14 players under contract and a major logjam at small forward. Joe Dumars wants to ensure that second-year forward Tayshaun Prince gets plenty of minutes and is willing to move a few veterans to make that happen. One player who appears unlikely to join the team is first-round pick Carlos Delfino. Initially, the Pistons were under the impression that Delfino had a million dollar buyout in his contract for this season. Apparently he doesn't. Negotiations have been all over the board. Several weeks ago, the team thought it had struck an agreement that would allow Delfino to play in Detroit this season. However, Seragnoli Giorgio, the owner of Delfino's Italian team, Skipper Bolgona, changed his mind after the team signed Yugoslavian point guard Milos Vujanic. With Vujanic and Delfino in the backcourt, Giorgio feels that his team will compete for a Euroleague championship. Delfino does have a set buyout in his contract for next season.

Now that Billy Knight is officially the GM of the Hawks, will they start making deals? That answer, unfortunately, continues to be muddled. While Knight admitted that being the interim GM raised a few concerns, he said that for the most part he's been free to do whatever he wants over the past few months. "I don't think that's been the sole debilitating factor," Knight told the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "It's been one of the questions that's been asked. 'Billy, well, we know you like our player, but what if you're not there and the next GM . . .' It doesn't mean that we're going to immediately be able to sign people, [but] it certainly doesn't hurt."

The Hawks remain in some limbo until the sale of the team to potential owner David McDavid is approved. "We really haven't been denied the opportunities to do things in the past, so I don't think there are going to be a lot of drastic mentality changes," Knight said. "Whether I have a one-year contract or a lifetime contract, I'm going to do the best I can for the organization --- next year and going forward into the future."

The Hawks have several big issues on the table. First, they have yet to offer restricted free agent Jason Terry a contract. Terry has been trying to get an offer sheet from the Jazz, but still hasn't secured anything. Two, the team has just nine players under contract right now, three below the minimum. With Terrell Brandon set to retire, the number actually is eight.

Finally, several teams believe that with the Brandon-for-Glenn Robinson swap, the Hawks will attempt to dump more salaries in an effort to get under the cap for next season. Several teams have their eye on players like Shareef Abdur-Rahim and Theo Ratliff, who have long-term, expensive contracts with the team.

Kenyon Martin told Jason Kidd that he never demanded a trade despite numerous published reports.

"He told me that he never asked to be traded or anything like that," Kidd told the New Jersey Star Ledger. "He said that never came from his mouth, and I believe him. He wants to stay with this team if it's at all possible. I felt a lot better after talking to him. I hung up the phone and felt kind of relieved."
This revelation comes on the same day that the New York Daily News is reporting that talks between the Blazers and Nets about a Martin-Dikembe Mutombo-for-Rasheed Wallace-and-Arvydas Sabonis trade are still alive.

[Jeremiah]

Let's see, if I was a betting man, I'd say based on the new information that Brand was resigned, and the information that Elgin thinks Odom has the most talent on the team, Sterling matches. However, he did let Miller walk, and Miller was not very happy about staying. Of course, that might also been just because they have Jaric running the point for them. If Odom is able to walk, the Clips are w/o a 3. I'm thinking that Sterling matches. anyone else?

[OutletPass]

me too. I think Sterling matches.

[jayC]

Sterling would be an idiot to match. What have you done for me lately. Didn't matt harpering avg 18 points and 7 boards for utah last year on fifty percent shooting. Numbers can be decieving. I hope clipps do match because they will still be the clips when the day is over. I think Dave has been a little overzealous in his contracts that he has handed out. Their isn't an all-star on the team and yet he is handing out money as if their were one. The clipps are still the clipps and it appears they will remain the same. Hey this isn't footbal where every team needs to resign its own. The clipps don't even have their own pratice facility.

[NBAFan7]

Sterlings an idiot and he didn't match. Thanks Mr. Sterling. Yes, looks like Odom turned around the Miami Heat. Can he do it? Why yes he can, and I for one couldn't be happier. Matt Harpring? Does he honestly warrant being mentioned in the same sentence as 1 of the 20 best players in the NBA. Harprings a scrubb

[Evilmav2]

Lamar Odom Sucks.