The Hornets have ended talks regarding trading Chris Kaman and he will resume participating in team activities, according to Marc Stein from ESPN.
As it turns out, Chris Kaman isn’t quite done with New Orleans after all. ESPN’s Marc Stein is reporting that the Hornets’ shelved center will resume participating in team activities. He was told roughly a week ago that he would be inactive as the Hornets searched for a trade partner.
New Orleans has decided to end those talks and recall Kaman, although it wasn’t immediately clear what sort of role he’ll have after Hornets coach Monty Williams announced last week that getting minutes for young players such as Al-Farouq Aminu and Gustavo Ayon was the staff’s priority.
I’ve contacted the Hornets, but have yet to confirm the news.
You may recall Michael warning us all about the difficulty in trading Chris Kaman right now. It appears that the Hornets found that out the hard way.
Regardless, this shouldn’t really hurt his value unless he winds up hurting himself. Everyone knows his game and what he brings to the table. When it comes down to it, he will likely fetch equal or greater value closer to the deadline when teams get a bit more desperate to add that final piece, and the restrictions are less cumbersome.
On a personal note, I’m actually glad he’s back for a while. There’s nobody on the Hornets nearly as entertaining on twitter, behind the scenes, or in the facial hair department. Plus this renews my optimism that one day Hornets247 will be able to one day get an awesome interview with him either on a hunting trip or at a gun show.
44 responses to “Hornets’ Chris Kaman Will Return to Active Duty”
Seems to me like the Hornets didn’t get an offer to their liking, decided they were in no rush to trade him, and will now let him play again to try and up his trade value. Only way this backfires is if he gets hurt; I don’t see any other way that his value could go down. Either way, the news is fairly disappointing. Should still end with him getting dealt before the trade deadline, just an annoying step in the process.
I missed the Chewbacka. His rebounding will help. I just hope we cut his post up opportunities. He is not efficient there despite his clearly above average post work. Better as a pick and pop option
Whose PT gets cut to play him though? The only guy whose minutes I’m comfortable slashing is Smith, but I’d even feel bad about that because he’s having the best year of his young career. It’s a tough situation… I’m not sure how Monty plans on handling it.
yeah. Monty is in a tough cookie — too many average options in the big, nobody really standing out, even Ayon. so, the sooner this situation gets handled, the better for our team chemistry
Easy, just play him in OT. Everyone keeps their regular minutes. Our OT specialist. He’ll be fresh, too. Ricky Vaughn, Wild Thing.
C’mon, Mason, didn’t you go to grade school?
I fully support that idea. He’ll be the basketball version of Brian Wilson. Completely sold.
“The Beach Boy? Or that guy who copied the gnarly beard look?
“I may not always love you
But long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it
God only knows what I’d be without you” — The Beach Boys
I’m guessing Landry’s get cut, for better or worse. For now, I’d like to see Emeka and Smith start at 5 and 4. Kaman and Ayon off the bench at 5 and 4 or vice versa. Landry fills in where needed since he’s on a short contract and likely to be gone after this season.
What do yall think about this long term scenario: Kaman likes new orleans (I believe anyway). What about signing Kaman to an extension? For much less than he’s making now of course. This assumes people aren’t willing to throw crazy money at him and he wants to be here, and I’m not sure those assumptions are sound. Anyway, if we could get him for decent money, it would give us another 7 footer who’s a solid back up or starter if need be. The draft could change this, but to my knowledge there’s not a lot of Kamans in this draft. Thoughts?
I agree Landry’s PT gets cut. Don’t agree about resigning Kaman. He may only be the 4th or 5th best big on the team.
No, No, No. Even if they can’t trade, leave him where he is. Eesh.
You really think this makes a lick of sense?
I don’t.
Therefore it makes other-sense. Hardball. Gotta be. Yeah?
Where’s my woobie? A teddy bear and an mocha will substitute.
+1 to this. I’d rather just keep him out in order to give our young guys more burn and then just deal him when a team gets desperate. Trading him for something is better than nothing.
I mean don’t we really know where are big young guys, except maybe Ayun, are?? We already know what Jason Smith is going to bring to the table … I believe he’s 26 years old … we know he’ll hustle, have the occassional game where he’ll hit 16 points, but otherwise be inconsistent. We know Landry is likely to be traded and his skills don’t fit particularly well with the team. We know Aminu is probably a bust, for a lottery pick, especially on the offensive side. And Okafor is Okafor. Which of those guys do you really think is going to be a Hornet in say two years?
The reason Ayon is a maybe is that he’ll be 27 on April 1. Young . . . maybe.
They are not compelled to play him, or play him much if they do.
If we get a first rounder or Montijunas in a trade with Houston, or something cool from another team directly or in a multi-team deal, then I say whatever the issue with this move that may happen, it was worth it and just part of the dance.
If nothing else, we aren’t caving on the asking. That’s a plus. It may come with minus, even a big and bigger minus, but at least it’s a plus. How many other situations have we been in with no upside?
I’ll be honest – though my response earlier was grumpy, everything in the NBA, particularly trades are a negotiation. If they don’t like the offers they are getting, the obvious thing to do is say, “I guess we’ll just keep him” and see if the offers improve at all.
If they don’t, then you can always come back and say “What the hell, I guess I will trade him for the pogo stick you offered. If you thrown in the lightly-used thanksgiving turkey.”
David “Moe” Stern,Monty “Larry” Williams and Dell “Curly” Demps as The Three Stooges in: Three Sappy Jokers lol. The Hornaints are a joke who owns this team John Mecom
J, just post these from the one account.
it’s not me
Same IP address. You said Horaints for the first time on 1/26. He said it in his second post, mere minutes after his first post after people were giving you a hard time. When you are both active, the posts are in runs.
It’s a fact. Analyzing data is my job, and I’m good at it.
The basic fact is not an issue, but I don’t see alot of distinction between the characters, J and Rico.
Haha!
your writing signature would agree with 42…
you work for the CIA or the FBI because a persons IP is private.
No, it’s not.
There are private IP addresses, but that’s not what that means.
And I don’t see any disputing of my analysis.
Either give Rico some personality, make him a good character, whatever, or just focus on J being a better poster . . . with punctuation. It will help people understand the good points you actually do make.
I think many of us caught on to the charade…
Grammar, punctuation, writing style, and the lame high school/middle school comparisons are all the same…
Cheers to 42 for simply proving it!
I agree with Jo D. Go 42!
What went wrong on the trade?
We need him. The season ticket holders want to see some WINS. He’s a fan favorite, and people have seen that we’re not nearly as competitive with him out of the lineup. If he gets hurt, so be it. What good would it do us to pick up a bunch of schwag or a late first round pick? We’ve already got a team full of decent players, adding more young, decent players will only leave us with the exact same situation we’re in now. If no one’s offering us anything better, then we keep him and try to win some freakin’ games!
with Kaman or not we was not winning anyway but on the other hand 14 million off the books will be a great help in the offseason
I meant without Kaman
I agree Hog. I must be missing something but I don’t see Kaman as such a liability for the team. He seems to fit the needs of the team more than, say, Landry. Let’s see if we can talk his butt down on the salary demands or alternatively wait to see if Dallas wants to unload Marion or some such, or maybe Houston will get really desperate and give us that European dude whose name I can’t spell.
I have trouble with it too.
Montiejunas.
you-da-man
May the light shine on the Smith and Jack families.
Could we perhaps read into this that there may be a trade brewing involving Mek? After all, I would think his is the albatross contract that we most want to jettison and he’s been playing well. Idle speculation, but I thought I’d throw it out there.
No T-Wolves trade no Beasley he’s a cancer
There he is!
I think today it is harder to trade Emeka than Kaman. I could be wrong, but I think it’s the case. Emeka’s contract is for 2 years beyond this one, making about $12.5m, $13.5m, $14.5. Kaman’s contract was about $12.5m then got bumped a little with a trade bonus I think, but he expires. I think Emeka is more worth it than Kaman on a per year basis, but the market for an expiring at that price should be bigger than for Emeka for such a long time, especially one that stretches into the higher tax time.
Of course, you don’t trade to a market, you trade to a single team. With no other demand, Emeka could be had at a bargain, relatively speaking, maybe.
I think it’s just hardball. We’ll see.
Long term, we’re better off if your question / speculation holds water.
Honestly I thought it was a bad idea to come out and deactivate Kaman, even if we were looking to trade him. It seem like we devalued our own player. I know we were hoping to avoid injuries, but it just made us look “desperate” for a lack of a better word. Especially since we can’t package Chris with anybody until later anyways.
Now we have to invite the big guy back say “it’s no big deal” and pretend like it never happened until we actually trade him.
Personally I have been saying that we should be trying to move the guys with 2-3years left and keep the expiring deals for ourself. This about finding an owner. The more flexibilty we have the more attractive we are. The owner/s would have clay that they can mold however they want.
If you trade Aminu,Henry,Kaman and Okafor contracts it will give the Hornets more flexablity 26 million off the books.With other expired contracts this team can be 35 to 40 million under the cap.
No sense in trading Xavier or Aminu…
Both young players with great potential… Esp on defense…
They fit the Monty Mold
Both on rookie contracts too… means cheap young talent
Just don’t see them giving Mek away. I think they value him too much to simply give him away in a salary dump and get no value in return, especially with no viable replacement in house right now.
What the hornets need to do is play chris 30+ minutes per game for the next 2 weeks and also need to make sure he gets lots of touches. If they do this I guarantee he will average at least 16 pts and 10 rebounds and the hornets could get some very valuable trade offers. If he were to get injured well that won’t matter to much as he is an expiring contract.
Holy Cow is on to something. Seems the only reason to play Kaman is need, and we only need to if we lose a big. If Kaveman plays, I think Mek or Carl don’t.
Ayon can only get better if he’s a part of the rotation and is guaranteed regular minutes. I don’t see how much adding Kaman into the mix hurts him specifically. Kaman’s return may impact Smith and Landry if for no other reason than Monty already knows Smith’s and Landry’s game. If their minutes get shortened, I don’t think it’s going to affect them tremendously. It does seem Kaman played better while Gordon was on the floor. I say if the Hornets can wait until Gordon comes back, then that might be the best time to return Kaman to the lineup.