Lou Williams Wins 6th Man of the Year!! Congrats Lou!!

[yabadabayolo]

I sense a 1 year 10 mill contract coming up.

[magoon]

Or he just increased his S&T value!

Sign-and-trades aren't really all that big a deal any more. There were only four last year - Thabo Sefolosha, Kris Humphries, Isaiah Thomas and Trevor Ariza - and only Ariza was actually the focus of a major deal, and that was mostly Houston finding a way to offload Omer Asik's salary onto New Orleans for a first-round pick from the Pellies. All Washington got out of that for the sign-and-trade was the opportunity to waive Melvin Ely. As for the other three deals, it was mostly trade exceptions and late second-rounders that likely will never pan out.

Sign-and-trades these days are mostly "okay I'll do you a small favour to work around some cap hold issues, and you can owe me one" because the major benefit for players on a sign-and-trade (getting that extra fifth year that their previous team could give them) is gone as of the most recent CBA. Well and good that you can get small things for sign-and-trades, but Masai would have to be a dark wizard to get anything great out of a sign-and-trade.

[tucas]

Lou's pricetag just went up by at least a million a year and probably more. He's a great value at $5.5m (what we paid him). At $7m... not so much.

I don't mind Lou at 7 million if it's a 2 year deal or something. If he's looking longterm no way, but I don't see how he wouldn't deserve a 2 year 14 million deal.

[Cody73]

If we do trade him, Landry needs to come back as the 3rd SG. Ross moves to the 2 full-time.

[octothorp]

Forgive my capology ignorance, but do any sort of Bird rights apply in Lou's situation? Is there mutual benefit for him to S&T?

Yeah, I'd like a clarification on this: He definitely doesn't have full bird rights, which require playing three years for the same team. But he played two years for Atlanta, which should give him early-bird rights. But are the early-bird rights transferred to us the way that full bird rights would have been?
We could sign him for one year to get him to 2016, at which point he'll get a lot more money, and we'll have the option of using his full bird rights to sign him to a bigger contract. But we can't use his early-bird-rights to sign him for 1 year (even if we have those rights, which I'm not clear on): early-bird minimum is 2 years.

I wouldn't mind having him back for another year under a different coach, especially if it's on a contract that preserves 2016 salary flexibility.

[magoon]

If we do trade him, Landry needs to come back as the 3rd SG.

In what universe would we do this? Landry's a liability. Great teammate, decent defender and passer, but he can't shoot and in today's NBA spacing on the wings is too important to give Landry Fields time.

You get more value from a rookie on the bench than Landry. The rook might become something. Landry will be lucky if he's in the NBA next year.

[Mauro150611]

He deserves had a great season, but prefer to pass the ball more

[CalgaryRapsFan]

Forgive my capology ignorance, but do any sort of Bird rights apply in Lou's situation? Is there mutual benefit for him to S&T?

If him winning this award prices him out of a particular's team budget, then there could be mutual benefit. Basically speaking, the more teams that can't afford to sign him straight up, the greater the likelihood of him being a S&T candidate (or re-signing on the cheap). Of course, with the new financial realities of the NBA, a lot more teams are going to have a lot more cap space!

[raptors999]

Yeah, I'd like a clarification on this: He definitely doesn't have full bird rights, which require playing three years for the same team. But he played two years for Atlanta, which should give him early-bird rights. But are the early-bird rights transferred to us the way that full bird rights would have been?
We could sign him for one year to get him to 2016, at which point he'll get a lot more money, and we'll have the option of using his full bird rights to sign him to a bigger contract. But we can't use his early-bird-rights to sign him for 1 year (even if we have those rights, which I'm not clear on): early-bird minimum is 2 years.

I wouldn't mind having him back for another year under a different coach, especially if it's on a contract that preserves 2016 salary flexibility.

AFAIK a player who has played for three seasons without changing teams via waiver or free agency has Bird Rights.

[slaw]

Lou Williams in 1 year here has already accomplished more than some of the players the Raps "honoured" this year. *cough Muggsy Bogues *cough *cough Alvin Williams *cough* *cough T-Mac *cough*

So when are we honouring Lou???

Good grief. Using this opportunity to sideswipe the organization and former players is just sad. But you're right, of course, the Raptors shouldn't have celebrated their 20th season by inviting back fan favorites and famous past Raptors unless they won NBA awards. Jebus.

And, by the way, I would imagine Lou is honored properly tomorrow night before the game when he gets his award.

[S.R.]

I don't mind Lou at 7 million if it's a 2 year deal or something. If he's looking longterm no way, but I don't see how he wouldn't deserve a 2 year 14 million deal.

Jamal Crawford has been SMOY twice and has only made more than that for a couple seasons of his career on a deal signed when he was a starter. He's never signed for that much as a bench player.

Tack on $1m or $2m more because of the rising cap, but even award winning bench players (real bench players, not pseudo bench players like Ginobli) have never made that much.

[Uncle_Si]

In what universe would we do this? Landry's a liability. Great teammate, decent defender and passer, but he can't shoot and in today's NBA spacing on the wings is too important to give Landry Fields time.

You get more value from a rookie on the bench than Landry. The rook might become something. Landry will be lucky if he's in the NBA next year.

You responded in a much nicer tone than I would have. So I'm just going to agree with this and stop there.

[Joey]

Can see exactly who voted for who if you go here: http://official.nba.com/wp-content/u...esults-PDF.pdf

Here, you can see guys like Bob Fitzgerald from the Bay Area Sportsnet (Golden State) vote for Iguodala; Surprise, surprise (his 2nd and 3rd place votes were Tristan Thomspon and Manu Ginobili .. so there's that.)

Dan Woike from LA vote for Jamal Crawford; surprise, surprise.

Or Hubie Brown vote for .. Nikola Mirotic? Weird.

Eric Smith, Doug Smith and Sherm Hamilton all voted for Lou at least.

[007]

bit ot

hahahahaha

[DanH]

Lou has his full Bird Rights with us.

Sign and trade is a possibility, but it in no way benefits Lou. Unless he really, really wants to play for a team that doesn't have the cap room to sign him but is interested in paying him what he wants, and has salary/assets to send back our way.

Congrats Lou! Well earned. Carried the team for long stretches.