Fortson, Battie signings

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

> I'm also guessing the Fortson ends up getting about $63m either now or later 
> and if Battie is signed it will be in the $45m range.
 
I hope this isn't the case. I think Battie is a nice pickup but he is not
as good as Marcus Camby was at the same point in their careers, and Camby
"only" got $39M from New York, which is not exactly a penny-pinching team.
Camby's second year: 12.1 ppg, 7.4 rpg, 3.65 bpg. Right now Battie isn't
even projected to start so I would estimate that it should be closer to
$30M.

Realistically, Pitino would have a hard time justifying paying Fortson a
huge salary when he was talking about being unable to pay Mercer. In fact
I'd be very surprised if Pitino didn't find out from Fortson's agent what
it would take to extend him before the trade; he wouldn't make the trade
if it wasn't a number he was comfortable with. I believe the same was true
of the Potapenko trade. Fortson is probably a superior talent to Potapenko
so $45M seems reasonable to me.

The total salary of $75M is right around what the max, which is what Mercer
wanted. So assuming this is about the numbers they come in at, would you 
rather have Battie and Fortson, or Mercer? 

Alex