L.A.'s Boozer bid $3.25M The Los Angeles Lakers have acquired Carlos Boozer on amnesty waivers, calling him "an established veteran and a proven All-Star who will be a welcome addition to our team." Nine teams with cap space were able to make a blind bid to pick up the remaining portion of Boozer's $16.8 million deal with the Chicago Bulls. The Lakers won with a bid of $3.25 million, sources told ESPN.com's Marc Stein. "We're very pleased to have won the bidding process and to have gained his rights, and look forward to his contributions next season," Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak said in a news release. The Bulls must pay Boozer the remaining $13.6 million that he is owed in 2014-15 on the final year of his current contract. Releasing Boozer via the amnesty clause removes that $13.6 million from Chicago's books for salary-cap and luxury-tax purposes, but the Bulls still must pay him the money he's owed. Read more http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/11229606/carlos-boozer-join-los-angeles-lakers
They might make the playoffs in the East. Maybe even 4th or 5th seed. Kobe has to come back at near his pre-injury form, though. Lin/Kobe/Hill/Boozer/Young. At least their offense could be potent. They have to make some moves to fill out the roster though. Julius Randle and Ed Davis both play PF. Nash is their starting PG if he is able.
@3.2 million Boozer is a good guy to have around and eat up minutes and gobble up points, rebounds and assists. It'll be a good situation for him too because he'll get to take lots of shots and maybe increase his odds of getting a decent contract in free agency. Still don't miss him though.
Everything you said is true. Even if we had him at what the Lakers are paying him, he'd be overpaid because he would be our fifth big. Pass.
Well, if there were any teams other than the Lakers who had interest in Boozer, but didn't want to trade for him because they knew he would be amnestied, I guess that they officially blew it.
Denny, I'd appreciate it if you'd give us more than a link. Even if it's only this much: Then it would be nice if you'd add your uppermost thought after reading the article rather than making posters like me guess. My take was that the Rockets were only interested in Boozer at a minimum salary. This means they certainly were never a likely trade partner for a $16.8mil Boozer. Further, I think that this was the case with most teams, that is, Boozer at the minimum is fine, but no way in hell I'm giving up anything real or spending anything real to get him. I'm guessing that your takeaway from the article differs from mine somewhat.
The rockets couldn't bid on him since they were over the cap. They would have pursued him as a FA, and he apparently wanted to go there. We have no idea what they would have offered him. They had room to maneuver under the cap. But their recent history was that they did so and ended up losing Parsons. It would be rather risky on their part to renounce exceptions to make room for Boozer only to fail to get him in the silent auction. So we have no clue what he might have made in contract with the Rockets.
Which is why, if they really wanted him, they should have tried to trade for him rather than hope he came all the way through waivers. I mean, Boozer's value has dropped precipitously, but I don't think many close observers expected him to clear waivers and become a FA.
His value is between 0 and about $17M. He could be had for closer to 0, not because his value dropped, but because there wasn't anything resembling a free market. Only 9 teams got to bid on him. The incentive to bid low is because the Chairman pays the difference between the ~$17M and what the winning bid turned out to be. There could be no bidding war, just submit your best offer. Frankly, $3.2M is pretty high. IMO.
K4E touched on this in another thread. If the Bulls had kept Deng, they might have been able to facilitate a S&T with him to the Lakers for Gasol. Certainly an easier thing to do than trading Boozer turned out to be. As it turns out, the Lakers have little cap space left, if any, after signing Boozer. Deng would be a great fit for them, IMO. It would have enabled us to stay over the cap and use the MLE and BAE. Boozer's amnesty is the same effect either way - $16.xM more beneath the tax threshold. As I see the math, it's $12M or so that we ended up under the cap and able to use on players (plus room) vs. $10M for Gasol and a TPE plus MLE and BAE. The latter would have allowed us to have more or better players (if salary is a judge). In case it's not clear, it's Deng re-signed at $10M for Gasol at $7M and a $3M TPE. Or Deng at $12M and Gasol at $9M, etc. Deng obviously would have wanted to go to LA. I think both teams would have done it without either side needing to sweeten the deal.
Also, ironically, Boozer's amnesty turns out to be pretty much a net zero in terms of profit. The team is paying him about $13M off the books (for cap purposes). They're also paying close to $13M less in payroll - from close to the LT threshold to barely above the cap. ($76M LT threshold - $63M CAP = $13M) $13M washes $13M.
Yeah, I didn't consider it from that angle at all. I knew that the Chairman eating Boozer's contract at a loss was too good to be true.
