Then take Barnes: he's the exact opposite. He's a player without a ton of skills, but he's cold-blooded, he's clutch, and he plays with passion. What he doesn't have in potential and height (Darko's only upsides), he makes up in actually playing like he wants to win. That's invaluable in my opinion.

For the record: Pietrus is spotty. Think they should let him go if he's going to cost us anything substantial.

Having three deadweight and/or young centers (Kosta, POB and Foyle) plus a rookie PF in Wright and then thinking about bringing in Darko must be part of a larger strategy

Otherwise the roster is greatly lacking depth at the 3

Signing Kosta might mean POB is gone or Foyle will be cut

Forget the dunks...you can even forget about the blocks. Watch him move:
-When he shows on screens, he's able to cut off smaller guards. Even when other forwards try to take him off the dribble, he does a pretty good job moving his feet and staying on front

-Toward the end of the clip, you see him make some really, really nice feeds, so the high post passing ability that Nellie demands is gonna be there.
-Now bring the blocks back into the picture, and look at how he uses his length and quickness to get into position. His block rate is higher than that of Biedrins.
-His range extends to the top of the key

That's a pretty alluring package for a big man in his early 20's with legit 7 foot size.

He's asking for $9-10M which is too much, and he won't settle for the MLE if he doesn't have to. We are one of only a few teams that can split the difference and offer him something like $7-8M (if it came down to that).

2. Barnes and Pietrus.
Why would anyone want Pietrus back? He sucks.

Barnes I'd like back, but it's not looking good. Today, the bulls offered Andres Nocioni 5 years, $38M, an average of over $7M/year. Nocioni is a more proven performer than Barnes, but last year the two were pretty comparable. If it takes something like 5 years, $30-35M to keep him, then I don't want him back. You can't pay bench players that much money if you want to be financially responsibile at all, and you can't let the thought of "keeping the team together" cloud your judgment. Barnes is not worth that kind of money- his value to us was the versatility at a minimal cost. When you give him that sort of contract, you have to get back more, and given that Barnes had a career year from 3 pt range, you can't really count on him to repeat or maintain that over his contract

3. Perovic.
Makes no sense to bring him over

4. Luxury tax.
Bullshit. I want copies of the receipts if Cohan wants us to buy this.

5. Garnett.
The best time to take advantage of the market is the very start (beating people to the punch) or the very end (when everyone's spent their wad). I hope the Garnett chase is actually progressing, or else we're obsessing over this at the cost of other moves. Flexibility can be lack of direction real easily, Mullin better have clear priorities and deadlines laid out.

It's just like the issues with Yao Ming, Wang Zhi Zhi and eventually Yi Jianlian.

The Chinese government wanted Yao and Co. to return and play in the Asian basketball championships that usually occur around late September and early October.  That was a cause of tension with Wang Zhi-Zhi when he chose not to return to practice with the chinese national team back in 2002.

This isn't too unusual.  Many countries worry about losing their "best players".