Makin Some Moves

Back from a not so long weekend, but at least it's hump day and aided by the fact I'm heading to Dallas on Friday afternoon it will be a very short week. Over the weekend the NBA Free Agency period started and although players can't sign the contracts until July 12th there have been a number of verbal commitments to contracts.

Starting off with the Lakers , in a somewhat surprisng move, got Vladimir Radmanovic to move across the hall from the Clippers with a 5 year deal at the mid-level exception. I had not heard anything about bringing Radmanovic in but I am happy with the move. Last season the front office did nothing with their mid level exception except spend half of it on Aaron McKie. Supposedly there was a master 2007/08 free agent plan which would need cap space for the Lakers to either make a trade, or outright sign a max contract player. Names that surfaced were LeBron James or Chris Bosh, but those were such long shots anyways. I think the combination of Kobe coming into his prime as well as management seeing that this team is not as far from contending as once thought, made them shell out the money for a player this offseason. Antonio Daniels was ready to come to LA but the team was not willing to give him a similar 4-5 year deal at the mid-level exception.

Radmanovic brings someone who can hit the open shot and space the floor for the Lakers as teams could easily drop down on Kobe because there weren't many consistent shooters for the Lakers last year but that changes now. Radmanovic is deadly from the outside and will make teams pay if they decide to double/triple down on Kobe. But the work is not done yet as some other moves will have to be made for this team to be considered one of the better teams in the West. I expect Chris Mihm to be moved since he is an expiring contract with a low cap number and the Lakers still have the lower level exception to work with as well.

There were numerous other moves around the league as Predrag Stojakovic and Bobby Jackson have agreed to play for the New Orleans Hornets and that isn't the only move NO is making as they are close to trading P.J. Brown and J.R. Smith to Chicago for Tyson Chandler. Chicago also made waves by getting Ben Wallace to agree to a FA contract with them. I like the moves the Bulls have made, not so much with the Hornets. The Clippers, to make up for losing Radmanovic will sign Tim Thomas and have kept Sam Cassell so it isn't too big of a loss for them. There's a lot more movement to take place so we'll wait to see what else happens, after free agency my attention will completely turn back towards College Football as we're only 2 months away and I can't wait. To end today I'll leave you with this ridiculous 720 dunk, I think it's from the And 1 Tour which I used to watch a ton of but haven't that much recently since all the stuff is getting so redundant but a 720 dunk is just crazy.