Fan Duel Toronto Raptors

The Decision – Latest on Lowry: He’ll Take a “Few Days” to Make His Decision

Keep refreshing the page. Updates dropping every few minutes. The last post is giving me issues in the CSS editor, so I’m moving it here. To recap tonight’s events: Raptors very confident they can keep Lowry Offers will start from the $12 million per year range Conflicting reports on whether or not Lowry has signed…

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Keep refreshing the page. Updates dropping every few minutes.

The last post is giving me issues in the CSS editor, so I’m moving it here. To recap tonight’s events:

  • Raptors very confident they can keep Lowry
  • Offers will start from the $12 million per year range
  • Conflicting reports on whether or not Lowry has signed (probably not)
  • Ujiri will present Lowry with offer shortly after midnight
  • Rockets also in on Lowry, would need to resolve their ‘Melo thing first
  • Yahoo Sports misreported on Lowry’s starting salary bid at $14.5 million
  • Oh, and the Raptors are reportedly interested in Vince Carter too. Read that here.

UPDATE 11:32

A quick peak at the Raptors’ up-to-date cap situation. Find the data here. DanH, if you’re out there, could you double-check this? Thanks man.

cap situationUPDATE 12:07

So let’s strike the Lakers off the list. Lowry needs security and money.

UPDATE: 12:13

Houston can’t offer Lowry a salary on par with the Raptors’ until they find a taker for Jeremy Lin. Looks like with LeBron calling audibles, Lowry is their plan B. We should be worried about this. Houston is much closer to a championship than the Raptors are.

Yeah, Lowry is definitely Houston’s plan A. Perhaps the talk of pursuing James/Melo was a smokescreen. Lowry fits so perfectly there. Floor general who can shoot threes, pass and play defense? Yikes. I’m officially worried. They can offer him over $10 million as of now.

And Lowry is no longer at odds with Rockets head coach Kevin McHale. They reconciled their differences. Here’s an excerpt:

I really respected Kevin McHale. I wish I would have had an opportunity to play for him longer. The things he was teaching me, well, I didn’t understand right away. When you get away from someone, though, see it from the outside looking in, you go back and think, ‘Damn, I could’ve learned some more things from the guy

UPDATE 12:32

Let’s hope this is Lowry’s response to the advances from Houston’s advances:

UPDATE 12:36

Does this put you at ease? No? Didn’t think so.

UPDATE 12:41

Rockets meeting with Lowry right now.

UPDATE 12:44

I have no idea who this reporter is, or if he’s credible. With Woj having already reported on the situation, he’s clearly got a source inside the situation. Nevertheless

UPDATE 12:46

S0…we should just all go to sleep? Nah.

Also, Rashard Lewis? Is this a back-up for Patrick Patterson? Is he even better than Steve Novak at this point?

 

UPDATE 12:51

We’re building an awesome team for the year 2005.

UPDATE 1:45

Great. We’ll be at this all day. Someone else will tag in for me tomorrow morning, I hope. I’m going to bed.

UPDATE 1:49

No. Shit. Was that even worth a tweet? I need sleep. Also, Kyrie signed a max deal. Sweet. Your move, Dion Waiters. Watch your back.

UPDATE: 2:03

Your list of princes:

 

Officially #loggingoff now. No one has signed Lowry yet. Miami and Toronto will meet with Lowry tomorrow. Houston already has. Check back tomorrow morning. We’ll have everything covered (maybe).

8am Tuesday Update (Zarar)

He’s heard what Houston has to say, now it’s Ujiri’s time to shine. My only thing is, Lowry knows we tried to trade him, wonder if it’ll play in his decision?

8:40am update

Just some housekeeping here. Grange admits that the info reported earlier was wrong. He’s now saying what Woj is saying. Maybe he fell for this.

UPDATE – 2:40pm

The more this goes on, the less likely we have to worry about Miami. Houston the main threat.

UPDATE: 4:41 (Tim W.)

Things are coming fast and furious. The latest….

No confirmation of that just yet, but that seems to be the story people are running with at the moment. It would back up this story…

What this means for Kyle Lowry and the Raptors is anyone’s guess, but it does mean that the Heat will, in principle, have enough money to make a competitive offer to Lowry, and not ask him to take a discount. That said, if they sign Lowry for $12 million, they have very little to spend on the center position:

It would seem to me that it would make more sense to spend on Gortat, rather than add to their point guard position.

UPDATE: 4:50PM (Zarar)

Houston want a sign-and-trade. How nice of them to give us something in return. F*** off.

UPDATE: 5pm (Zarar)

Woj has published an article detailing the Lowry situation:

Miami president Pat Riley has been pushing for a sit-down meeting with Lowry, but Lowry is taking time on Tuesday afternoon to consider his next step in the process. Lowry met with Toronto general manager Masai Ujiri and coach Dwane Casey on Tuesday afternoon in Philadelphia after meeting with Houston GM Daryl Morey and coach Kevin McHale in the early morning hours.

So the ball is in Lowry’s court – the Raptors have made their offer, Lowry has listened and is now debating while Pat Riley tries to get his oily hands in there. This is one of those moments which reflect whether the Raptors do really have the stature that Leiweke and Ujiri purport they do. Big free agent. Big teams on the hunt. Can the Raptors pull through? Stay tuned.

UPDATE 8:45 PM (Zarar)

Marcin Gortat has signed a 5yr/60M deal with the Wizards, and you got to be thinking that Lowry would command more. Then again, this league is thin at the C and heavy at PG, so you never know. Still, though, a precedent has been set and Lowry has to be thinking he’s more valuable to Toronto than Gortat is to Washington.

In other news, Shaun Livingston has signed a 3yr/$16M deal with the Warriors which comes to $5.3M, which is what you think someone like Greivis Vasquez could command. Again, precedents being set.

UPDATE – Tuesday 10:17 PM – Zarar

There you have it, we need to wait a few more days before he makes up his mind. Maybe he’s just buying more time, maybe he’s stalling, maybe he wants to see all of what’s out there. Bottom line is that the decision to stay with the Raptors isn’t as clear-cut as we’d hoped it was. At this point, you have to think that other opportunities are teasing him enough that this could go either way.

UPDATE – Tuesday, 11:16 PM – Zarar

The Heat are easing off, apparently, or haven’t gone full force. Not sure what the LA offer is or if they’ve even met with Lowry. Very cold on the LA front, right now it’s between the Rockets and Raptors.

END OF POST – WE’LL PICK THIS UP ELSEWHERE

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