Barnes to Toronto deal hits serious snag; talks could be dead
White women.
Matt Barnes was all set to be a Toronto Raptor. Now, he might never get that chance.
Tweeting, “Nxt season I will b playing for the Toronto Raptors. I wanted to thank the fans in orl you guys were amazing the way u guys excepted,” Barnes was ready to get paid for the first time in his NBA career. Two years, $10 million for the expected deal, which would have been finalized after Toronto completed a sign-and-trade with Orlando.
Would have been finalized, ya know, except those talks hit a snag and – depending on who you ask – might have completely fallen through. Marc Stein (ESPN) believed talks would continue today, despite the problems the trade faced yesterday, but Adrian Wojnarowski (Yahoo!) reported that the talks are completely dead. Here’s what Stein had to say:
Veteran swingman Matt Barnes, one of the most coveted free agents left on the open market, announced Monday night that he is headed to the Toronto Raptors.
But the limited sign-and-trade options available to Orlando — Barnes’ last team — could scuttle the deal, according to sources close to the situation.
Under the impression that he would be receiving a two-year contract in the $10 million range, Barnes thanked Magic fans via his Twitter feed and said that he’ll be “playing for the Toronto Raptors” next season.
Sources told ESPN.com that the teams will resume discussions Tuesday, as planned all along, with the intent of landing Barnes with the Raptors via sign-and-trade.
Yet no such deal could be assured as of midnight, raising the possibility that Barnes would have to accept new terms to sign with the Raptors or that other teams that have been chasing Barnes will get another shot at him if the deal collapses.
A little while after ESPN reported that the teams would resume sign-and-trade discussions today, Wojnarowski tweeted, “For Matt Barnes-to-Toronto, a league source says, ‘The sign and trade (scenario) is dead.’ Blamed on a ‘miscalculation’ somewhere in talks.”
Even if the trade talks ARE dead, does this open Barnes back up to the market? I don’t know. Maybe he’ll still feel loyalty to Toronto and sign for a lesser deal. Or maybe Barnes will end up back as a free agent. If so Cleveland reportedly offered him the most money besides Toronto, while Miami, LA, Dallas and Boston can all offer a shot at contending.
Who knows? Maybe Barnes will even end up a Celtic. But I wouldn’t bet your life on it. Actually, I wouldn’t even bet a couple bucks.
Related posts:
Celtics Blog, Featured | Jay King | July 20, 2010
It’s more than a slight miscalculation. The Raptors don’t have an MLE anymore after signing Kleiza and the Magic can only sign him for around 2 million because of his non-Bird exemption (same way we resigned Nate). How they agreed on a 5 million annual deal is beyond me.
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Isn’t that absurd? I have no idea how two NBA GMs can be so unknowledgable about the cap rules.
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Not to mention an agent in between. If I were Barnes, I’d fire the agent immediately then preferably go to a team that has at least a passing understanding of how the league works.
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Yeah, what a cock tease for Barnes. He thought he had $10 million in the bank.
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Such is the life of Matt Barnes.
He is always thinking he’ll get a big payday, always looking for one and then realizes…NO ONE WILL EVER GIVE HIM A BIG PAYDAY!!!
Might as well just come to Boston for the minimum of about $1.6 Matt because otherwise you’ll be making a MAX of $2 mil for a team that, not only doesn’t know anything about the cap but, isn’t going anywhere.
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Barnes is opening his recruiting back up. The Cavs are involved again, says Brian Windhorst, and have a little money to spend. But they aren’t willing to offer what Toronto did.
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Why would anyone offer what TOR did?!
LOL! Colangelo’s crazy to throw almost full MLE type $$$ at Barnes.
No offense to Barnes but, he’s a career D and 3 backup type guy! End of story! He’s never going to be an impact player that gives you 15-5-6 a night while playing lockdown D.
Sorry Matt.
But we’ll still take you as a backup!
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The Celtics should offer Barnes that much too. They might as well since they don’t have that money either.
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LOL! Yeah! Good idea!
Offer him $20 mil for 2 years and then say, “Oopps! Sorry Matt, we got our math wrong! But we’ll pay you $1.6 mil for 2 years!”
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Exactly lol.
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