Merged: Dumb question / Bring Over Freeland Now?

[RR7]

have to waive someone, unless you get down to 7 healthy bodies left.

 

[STOMP]

On the one hand, he is under contract with Unicaja Malaga.
On the other hand, players in Europe have been released from contracts before (e.g., Pops Mensah-Bonsu last year) and Unicaja is sucking majorly in the ACB this season, so might regret their fairly expensive investment. I'm guessing they wouldn't just release him, though, as there's a lot of money to be made in buyouts...

I'm sure KP has lawyers checking out right now, particularly as one main reason Freeland didn't want to come over was that there was unlikely to be minutes for him with Joel, Greg and LaMarcus healthy.

(One last thought, though: Freeland's agent might advise him to stay in Spain one more year because if so (I believe) he won't be bound by the rookie scale any more.)

it takes two to tango, and I'm sure that Freeland would prefer to dance while locked in at a significantly higher pay scale then if he were to come over this year. He'll probably command less then a MLE but much more then the 1M or so per year for 3 years that he'd be due as the 30th selection.

I've never seen the guy play outside of highlights and don't really have a feel on how well he'll do in the NBA. I wonder how his listed 6'10 would look beside LA's 6'11. If he can guard most PFs decently and is good enough overall to warrant rotation minutes, Portland should have minutes for him. LA is big enough to get a lionshare of the backup center minutes so a 3 man Bigs rotation with a true 6'10 Freeland works on paper.

STOMP