Well this isn’t the way Hornet fans wanted things to go down. Amundson would have been a great bench player for the team, but he followed the money as he rightly should have. ESPN’s Marc Stein has the story:
The Hornets had been pursuing Amundson hard to join the recently acquired Trevor Ariza as a key newcomer, with new general manager Dell Demps flying to Los Angeles in August to lobby the former Phoenix banger face-to-face and present him with a Hornets jersey.
But with the Hornets still possessing roster spots left to fill with only 11 players under contract and thanks to a $1.25 million performance bonus Hornets center Emeka Okafor is expected to trigger in his contract by season’s end, New Orleans couldn’t start Amundson’s contract at higher than roughly $1.9 million without straying into luxury-tax territory.
That enabled the Warriors, still possessing their $2.1 million bi-annual exception and with $2.4 million left from their mid-level exception, to make an offer starting at higher than $2 million and outbid the Hornets.
The Warriors, Hornets and Indiana Pacers had moved to the forefront of the Amundson bidding last month, but sources close to the process said that the 27-year-old wanted to give teams such as New Orleans and Indiana more time to see if they could potentially make a roster move that would lead to a more lucrative offer before telling the Warriors he was accepting.
My take on this is that there is still plenty of time for the Hornets to work a trade or sign someone like Josh Boone. But the options seem very scarce and I’m not all that pleased. I think with Louis heading to Golden State this may mean that a Darius Songaila trade is more possible than before.
Also expect to see Dell Demps use the D-League as a means of getting the roster up from its current 11. Should be an interesting month.
Original Story:
http://swarmandsting.com/2010/09/13/l...
