Just as a point to everyone. IT'S NOT ABOUT THE MONEY. We hold his Bird Rights - it doesn't come out of the money we have to offer FA's (the MLE, the LLE and Vet Min Contracts). IT'S ABOUT THE ROSTER SPOT. This coming year we have 4 vet bigs (assuming we resign Kurt) - Thomas, Duncan, Oberto, Bonner. We hope Mahinmi develops. The season after this one, we have 3 reliable Bigs on the roster (assuming KT resigns for 2 years - 2010 plan, and Mahinmi pans out) - Duncan, Thomas (very old, potentially done ala Horry this season), Mahinmi. We have to start succession planning or try and find at least 2 and maybe 3 usable bigs as FA's in the summer of 09 (note, we have no 1st rounder, and Splitter doesn't have a buyout until 2010, IIRC). Good Luck with that FO. We need to start developing a big for the future, beyond Mahinmi. Unless you think that developmental big is Bonner, it's time to use that Roster spot on someone younger than Horry.
There are candidates - Gist (although I look at him as an SF in the NBA), Sanikidze (Also an SF, but IIRC, rumour on the board said he'd grown to 6'10, he was our best SL player last year, but seems to be made of glass), Javtokas (he might be a bit old for a developmental spot, still he could learn the system and maybe give us 4 or 5 years...). There are FA's as well - guys like Fazekas (a personal favorite), Diop (although he will be relatively expensive), O'Bryant (IMO a stiff...), some really hard to get RFA's (Landry, Biedrins, etc), Kwame Brown (I don't like this idea)...
Really, there are a lot of potential candidates, but we NEED, IMO, to use that roster spot to develop a big for longer term use.

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