FanHouse RonnyTuriaf

This week, FanHouse is taking an early look at the top teams heading into 2008 with a BlogPoll decided on by our college hoops bloggers. To help with the team capsules, we've brought in some of the top fan bloggers around the internets to give us insights on their teams.

Today, we have enlisted Zach Bell and Max Mandel of the The Kennel Report to break down the Gonzaga Bulldogs.

Gonzaga has become one of the most recognizable college basketball programs in the nation. During his tenure, Mark Few has elevated the small, Jesuit institution to the forefront of college basketball. He's had guys like Adam Morrison, Ronny Turiaf, and Dan Dickau but the talent he has for the 2008 season is the best he has ever had at Gonzaga.

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A season ago, the Pacific Division was able to send just two of its teams to the playoffs, but one of them went all the way to the Finals. And while that's not likely to change this season -- at least the part about the two playoff teams -- each club definitely has its share of intriguing story lines.

Let's start off in Los Angeles, where the Lakers' playoff run last season took place with one of the team's key components on the sidelines. There are always many stories in Laker-land, but a lot of the team's fans seem to be most interested in this one: With the return of Andrew Bynum, do the Lakers have a shot to win 70 games?

Despite the recent flood of positive Andrew Bynum stories hitting the L.A. papers lately (seriously, his P.R. machine is working overtime), I'm not convinced that his addition to the lineup automatically makes the Lakers unstoppable. There's the whole thing about figuring out how to co-exist with Pau Gasol, and how Lamar Odom will perform (likely) playing further away from the basket. When you add in the fact that even if the team was capable of winning 70 games, there's really no motivation to do so, unless someone else is on the same ridiculous pace and it would mean home court advantage.

No, silly Europeans, Andris Biedrins is for Nellie!

The Warriors shored up their remaining free agent quandary today, according to the infinitely reliable Marc Stein over at the WWL. Stein says the Dubs have given Biedrins a 6 year, $63 million contract, with a player option for the fifth year. Tim Kawakami respectfully disagrees with Stein's report on the amount, putting the number at $54 million. Six years, $54 million seems a little more reasonable for the top big man on a team that was, you know, kind of terrible at both defense and rebounding. Still, Don Nelson is big on Biedrins, and after Baron Davis absconded to LA, the Warriors needed to shore up their roster in-house.

It's unknown at this point what effect Biedrins' position on the NBA Overseas Defection Watch had on the urgency for the Warriors to get the deal done, if any, but anyway, go ahead and cross him off the list. And, barring injury or a team losing their mind in a trade (we're looking at you, Atlanta), this should pretty much lock up the Warriors roster next year, with both Anthony Randolph and Richard Hendrix signed. So for better or worse, it's Monta Ellis, Kelenna Azubuike, and Andris Biedrins resigned, Mickael Pietrus and Baron Davis gone with the wind, and Corey Maggette and Ronny Turiaf newly acquired. Your guess is as good as ours as far as next season goes.

We can officially cross one name off of the NBA Overseas Defection Watch List (NBA-ODWL from now on, agreed?), and that's because the Lakers signed Sasha Vujacic to a deal this afternoon. The contract is reportedly for $15M over three years, not a bad raise for someone who took home just $1.76M last season.

That was before playing what will forever be known as the Josh Childress card though, which can be defined as "threatening my current team with the prospect of signing a deal to play in Europe if they don't make me an offer that I feel is appropriate." The Lakers' initial offer was for three years, $12M, but apparently the prospect of Sasha heading overseas as early as tonight to begin negotiating (he supposedly had a red-eye flight booked) lit a fire under the team to get a deal in place today.

This is good news for the Lakers, and good news for the league. Sasha's deal is by no means exorbitant for someone with his skill set, unlike the offer that the Lakers declined to match for Ronny Turiaf. And it's very possible that Sasha might have gotten a slightly better offer to play in Europe, but he accepted a fair one to stay and play in the NBA. I think we're likely to see the bulk of restricted free agents do the same thing that Sasha did: use Europe as a bargaining chip, but ultimately, sign with their current team ... as long as they receive a reasonable offer.

As had become apparent over the past few days, the Lakers were not interested in paying hyphy superstar Ronny Turiaf $17 million over four years. Thus, the Frenchman has relocated to the Bay Area and will suit up as a key cog in Don Nelson's big-man rotation for Golden State. Andris Biedrins expects to remain the starting center in Oakland (if he ever re-signs) and Al Harrington should be the default power forward (if he doesn't get traded). But Turiaf certainly isn't light years behind either on total basketball offerings -- it wouldn't surprise me to see any of them starting 50+ games and Golden State still have a decent season.

Meanwhile, we haven't really addressed what the Turiaf exit does to the Lakers. It was believed by several pundits/reporters that the Turiaf exit would create the necessary cushion in payroll to allow the addition of an albatross contract in trading for Ron Artest. While missing Turiaf's $4 million makes Kenny Thomas' $8 million functionally easier to swallow, it sure doesn't make the poison pill any more palatable.

And as Scott Howard-Cooper notes, losing Turiaf leaves L.A. a bit understaffed in the frontcourt. Behind Andrew Bynum (who happens to be coming off a serious-enough injury), there's Chris Mihm (who happens to be coming off a string of serious-enough injuries). Beyond those two, there's Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, the prospective trade bait for Artest (or any other stud small forward L.A. seeks). If Bynum's not ready, and Odom's gone -- that's a weak frontcourt (even with the addition of Thomas or Mikki Moore). Turiaf averaged almost 19 minutes a game. Who picks those up?

As it is, Odom can expect to play plenty of backup power forward to go along with his possible starting role at the three. A three-man big rotation excluding Mihm seems most likely, unless Mitch Kupchak can find a suitable sub this summer.

After losing Baron Davis and losing out on Elton Brand, most pundits have quickly assumed the Warriors would stay true to their lottery roots for the immediate future. Chris Mullin insists he'll be able to keep restricted free agents Monta Ellis and Andris Biedrins, and the likelihood of the Lakers matching Ronny Turiaf's offer sheet looks smaller and smaller each day. Corey Maggette is in town, and Don Nelson has been saying Ellis will be able to play point full-time for the Dubs.

Could this team actually be pretty good?

If preseason prognostications are iffy, ones made in the middle of July are downright laughable. But hear me out. Davis was an elite point guard -- a potent scorer, an efficient ball-handler, a strong rebounder, and a good passer. His shooting, though, is suspect. Ellis is also a strong rebounder, he cut his turnovers way down last season, and he's almost as potent a scorer as Davis already, at age 22. While Ellis doesn't and probably will not rack up assists, he's a much more efficient shooter. He boasts no range but realizes this and refuses the three ... unlike Davis, who despite mediocre three-point shooting percentages his entire career still took a third of his shots from deep last year.

The central question that will decide the immediate success of the Warriors: do the other players need a point guard to set them up? Maggette is already a firm 'no.' He played with some unholy combination of Brevin Knight and decrepit Sam Cassell last year, and had some of the best scoring and shooting numbers of his already-strong career. Stephen Jackson's basically a point-forward who has little trouble creating.

Biedrins could use some inside dishes, but currently gets most of his production on clean-up duty. No one knows who will get the heavy minutes at power forward -- Al Harrington could be shipped out, Brandan Wright may or may not be ready, Turiaf figures to be a bench player.

Losing Davis hurts, because he combined with Ellis created one of the most potent backcourts in the league. But the quality of the new Warriors could surprise you. Depending on the rest of the West, Golden State could still threaten playoff contention.

As expected, hyphy superstar Ronny Turiaf signed an offer sheet with the Golden State Warriors on Thursday. The deal is being reported as $17 million over four years, and through the San Francisco Chronicle Turiaf's agent Mark Bartelstein indicates the contract is slight front-loaded ... which makes it tough to match for the Lakers.

Mitch Kupchak has seven days to make a decision whether to match. The Lakers are over the expected luxury tax threshold next season, so there's the whole 'dollar-for-dollar' penalty which would cost L.A. an extra $5 million in penalties in addition to Turiaf's salary. It's simplistic to equate this to "Turiaf costs the Lakers $10 million a year" -- Kobe Bryant, Pau Gasol, and Lamar Odom are more the reason for the tax payments than Turiaf and his (relatively) low-dollar brethren.

But Camp Turiaf might prefer L.A. takes the grumpy view of the tax implications. Bartelstein gives every indication that his dude would rather play in Golden State.

"He's got nothing but warm feelings for the Lakers, but the reality is that they have an overabundance of big guys," Bartelstein said. "Ronny wants to play and wants to find out how good a player he can be. I think the opportunity is much greater with the Warriors."

Officially, the only big man with NBA starts under his belt the Warriors have signed under contract is Al Harrington. Golden State's expected to bring restricted free agent Andris Biedrins back, and Brandan Wright and Anthony Randolph wait in the wings. I'm not sure there's exactly a dearth of bigs in Golden State (who plays Stephen Jackson at the four half the time anyway), there's just a dearth of good ones.

This NBA free agency thing has been absolutely bonkers, hasn't it? Baron Davis opts out, signs with the Clippers. Elton Brand now has no reason to leave, as the Clips finally got him some help, so he goes ahead and ... signs with the Sixers for similar dollars. Huh? Corey Maggette, despite all the rumors, takes the big payday with Golden State.

And we're not finished. There's still the matter of Josh Smith and Andre Iguodala, as well as smaller pieces like James Posey, Sasha Vujacic, and Ronny Turiaf. Madness, people. Join me and my fellow FanHousers at 3PM EST to discuss.