July 3, 2006

60 Million Reasons to play in Denver : If I'm correct, didn't Nene tear his ACL last year? Yet here we stand, and Nene gets a 6 year, 60 Million dollar deal...tells you how much teams will splurge for size.

read story | posted by chemwizBsquared to Basketball at 9:19 AM CDT (8 comments total)

i guess size does count

Comment icon posted by dford at 10:16 AM CDT on July 3

Is he really worh that? There are other big men who are healthy, or have not suffered from a season-ending injury on the market that would have cost less! He must have some talent that the NBA hasn't seen yet!

Comment icon posted by bkdet at 10:17 AM CDT on July 3

Teams are all out there overpaying big men to to fill the middle and make differences. Houston did the same thing last year with Stromille Swift. Lucky for us we found someone dumb enough to take him off our hands (Memphis). No, Nene is not worth 60 million. I'd have a hard time saying he's worth 30 million right now. He shouldn't have gotten the big payday till he proved to be healthy. I hope he proves us all wrong and goes out having a huge season.

Other bigs who will surely be overpaid: Joel Prezbilla and Al Harrington.

Comment icon posted by chemwizBsquared at 10:32 AM CDT on July 3

I'm commenting on the length of Swift's contract...it was for 6 years and about 6-8 million per year. It doesn't sound like a lot, but it can add up eventually.

But the point here is that Nene just set the bar for what a big man can get this offseason. Al Harrington is salvating over this. He's now looking at 12-14 million per year now and some club will be desperate enough to give it to him (Isiah are you listening?).

Comment icon posted by chemwizBsquared at 1:48 PM CDT on July 3

I think Al's last contract was the big cash in. I'm thinking he pulls down the MLE somewhere (not that that is anything to sneaze at). Pryzbilla will probably grab something in the MLE range as well, his game isn't pretty but there is something to be said for big men who do the dirty work without griping about shots.

Nene might be overpaid, but he does quite a bit, and is still developing. The Nuggets needed to have his contract done so they could move on to trading K-Mart (though Karl claims they will get along next season).

As for Nene's ACL, well, knee surgery has come a long way since Bernard King and Danny Manning.

Comment icon posted by lilnemo at 2:24 PM CDT on July 3

Still, that's a heckuva gamble.

Comment icon posted by Hugh Janus at 3:00 PM CDT on July 3

This just shows- big men are at a premium right now. Denver will be fine saslary wise, once the Knicks pick up K Mart, give up the number 1 pick, and like all their young talent, Denver will be championship caliber. As for Nene, he dosent deserve 60 mil. They shouldnt have signed him to that long of a deal anyways. Something tells me this will come back to bite them like the K Mart Deal.

Comment icon posted by redsoxrgay at 5:52 PM CDT on July 3

Ridiculous. Nene is not worth a Ben Wallace-sized contract- there's no way you can convince me of that. Coming off a lost year and given his previous production, and overall game? You think this guy is ever going to be able to hit a free throw or develop a game beyond dunking?

Ah, everybody makes this kind of money in the NBA though. It's not really a huge departure from the norm. But this one won't be an albatross like K-Mart's. $10 million isn't too much, and certainly won't look like a big deal a couple years from now when he's 26 and got three years left at a cheap $10 million. It's tradeable.

Comment icon posted by WeedyMcSmokey at 9:08 AM CDT on July 4

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