LeBron James’ Contract

I know it is not the end of the season, and LeBron James’ contract does not expire until 2014 but I have gotten requests to give my opinions on what might happen to LeBron James after his contract expires.

There are always rumors around for someone who is as polarizing as LeBron James. The first rumor is LeBron leaving Miami. The rumor is that he will leave the Miami Heat and go back to the Cleveland Cavaliers where he was born and raised, as well as where he started his NBA career. You know what I think about this rumor, well it is just that, a rumor. In my opinion I think there is no chance that this will happen. Can I ask you this? Why would LeBron leave the Heat if he is winning championships? Especially when most of his critics are critics because of the number of championships he has. I think the the only way he would ever consider leaving for the Cavs if they signed Dwight Howard in the off-season. My best bet is LeBron stays with the Heat. The main reason is, Dwayne Wade. He and LeBron James are very close, and I do not think LeBron would want to have to learn how to play with different players than he is used to.

The next rumor I am going to talk about is a contract rumor. A couple of weeks ago I saw ESPN talking about this same topic. They said there is a possibility that the Miami Heat would pay LeBron 75 million dollars a year to stay with them. That is right, I said 75 million dollars PER YEAR to keep the Heat uniform on LeBron James every game. Now, I think this is outrageous. How will the Heat be able to muster up 75 million dollars in cap space to spend on only one player. Now do not get me wrong, if anyone deserves 75 million dollars a year it is LeBron James, but there is not just one player on a team. Especially when you also have a player like Dwayne Wade. Overall I see this unlikely as well.

What do I think will happen to LeBron? I think he will resign with the Heat for around 25 million dollars per year. He is currently making only 17.5 million dollars per year, which is probably less than he deserves, so I think he will cash in on his new contract. How do I think the Heat will accommodate for this cap space hit? I think the Heat will try to restructure Chris Bosh’s contract, who has become more of a back-up option to James and Wade. Bosh is currently making 14.5 million dollars a year. That is what I think will happen to LeBron James.

Percy Harvin’s Future

We are close approaching the date when NFL teams can sign free agents. And today I am going to discuss what I think the Vikings should do with Percy Harvin, who has one year left on his contract.

There have been many trade rumors involving Harvin, but most likely none of them are going to happen. The first one I am going to talk about is Percy Harvin for Larry Fitzgerald. This trade is probably the least likely of the trades I am going to tell you about today. First things first is both of the players contracts. The Vikings might not have the cash to pay Larry Fitzgerald’s monster contract. If you think about from the Cardinals perspective, it would not work either. As I said earlier Percy Harvin has one year on his contract and if the Cardinals were to trade for him they would have to get him to agree to a long term contract. If we are being realistic, what wide receiver would want to have John Skelton throwing to him every Sunday?  And I get the feeling the Cardinals are not wanting to get rid of Fitzgerald.  So all in all, a very unlikely trade.

Now I am going to talk about another trade that is more likely, but still not plausible. I am talking about the Percy Harvin for Wes Welker deal. If you look on paper, these two wide receivers look very similar, but if you watch them you would realize they are not. Percy Harvin can play running back as well as wide receiver. And Harvin is much more physical than Welker. Plus Harvin is much younger than Welker. The other problem is the contracts. Welker’s contract has already expired so they need to sign him before they could trade him. So this trade is unlikely as well.

The situations I think is the most reasonable is that the Vikings trade Harvin for a couple of draft picks and signing a free agent in the off-season. Now, there are three big candidates for the Vikings to sign. The first is Wes Welker. I already talked about the Vikings trading for him, but it is possible that the Patriots would let Welker go and make him a free agent. The second guy the Vikings could sign is the former Rams receiver, Danny Amendola. He is very similar to Welker because of his small build and good hands. But I do not think he or Welker would be a good fit in the Vikings offense. The final receiver the Vikings could sign is Greg Jennings. In my opinion the former Packer would make the best fit for replacing Harvin, other than Harvin himself.

What I want to happen is for the Vikings to sign Harvin and Jennings to long term deals to give young quarterback Christian Ponder some options to throw to.

One of the things the Vikings have is options. They could do anything they want to and nobody knows what they will do. We will just have to wait and see.

Final Four Predictions

With Selection Sunday right around the corner I thought I would give my predictions for who will go to the final four.

I think that the front runner going into the tournament is Duke. They are on a hot streak right now. Even if they are not going to win the ACC they still have not lost with Forward Ryan Kelly. In my opinion they will be the best team that advances to the Final Four.

Another ranked team that I think will advance to the Final Four is Oklahoma St. I know they have not gotten much attention and are under the radar, but they have been playing really good basketball lately. Especially player of the year candidate, Marcus Smart.

The third team that I think will make it to the semi-final game is Michigan St. There is something about them that just strikes me as a team that can go all the way. No matter how many times they lose they always seem to bounce back, and I think that resiliency can take them all the way.

The final team I think will make it to the Final Four is Kansas. They have Ben Mclemore, a player of the year candidate and Jeff Withey who has the defensive player of the year award locked up. They just lost to Baylor, and with that loss they do not clinch a outright Big 12 Championship. I think Kansas will play a lot better after that loss and be motivated to make it back to where they where last year.

I have just told you my picks for the final four this year. If you are wondering, “But who does he think will make the National Championship game? And who will win that game?” Well, the answer is I do not know. I can envision all of these teams making and winning the national championship game. Another determining factor is what region all of these teams are in, because if two of these teams are in the same region one will have to go through to advance to the final four. But who really knows? Every year there is one Cinderella team that can make and win the big game.