Bobcats extend qualifying offer, Cunningham a RFA

[ALong13]

Charlotte Bobcats President of Basketball Operations Rod Higgins announced today that the team has extended a qualifying offer to forward Dante Cunningham, making him a restricted free agent. The qualifying offer allows the Bobcats to match any offer he receives from another team.

The Bobcats acquired Cunningham on Feb. 24, 2011, along with Joel Przybilla, Sean Marks and two first-round draft picks from Portland in exchange for Gerald Wallace. In 22 games played for the Bobcats, Cunningham averaged 9.0 points and 4.0 rebounds in 24.0 minutes. He scored in double figures in 11 of the 22 games, tallying a career-high 21 points on two occasions.

Initially selected by Portland with the 33rd overall pick in the 2009 NBA Draft, Cunningham has played in 141 career NBA games with averages of 5.1 points and 3.1 rebounds in 16.6 minutes.

-Bobcats.com

Good to know he'll be back. Once an agreement is made between the players and owners, I think he could be the first SF off the bench going into the season. Hopefully in the meantime he can get his legal battles behind him...

[LiquidWayno]

This pleases me.

[ammofan]

Awesome. Now trade Boris for Barbosa and it's the best offseason ever already.

[Marvel]

Awesome. Now trade Boris for Barbosa and it's the best offseason ever already.

Why? Another undersized scoring guard off the bench...OoooK.

[ammofan]

Why? Another undersized scoring guard off the bench...OoooK.

He adds three point shooting and quickness....also has experience with a up tempo offense. He's a veteran who can help out. Most of us here would trade Diaw for a bag of chips so I would GLADLY Barbosa on the team. He's also an expiring. If things arent working out....deal him at the deadline or let him expire.

[teej]

Glad to read that. He showed flashes of brilliance at the end of last season.

[Marvel]

He adds three point shooting and quickness....also has experience with a up tempo offense. He's a veteran who can help out. Most of us here would trade Diaw for a bag of chips so I would GLADLY Barbosa on the team. He's also an expiring. If things arent working out....deal him at the deadline or let him expire.

Again, why? Slow Kemba's development, minutes is the last thing we need in a rebuild phase.

[ND22]

This is good, he played solid with us and should get plenty of PT off the bench. Here's to hoping he continues to develop.

[Ghost Kat]

Cunningham did a good job coming off the bench. I thought he should have played more. He's an athletic wing that can hit an open jumper. I was upset after all those trades but it's turning out to be worth it. Even a broken front office is right once a day...

[SWedd523]

Again, why? Slow Kemba's development, minutes is the last thing we need in a rebuild phase.
We need another backup guard way more than a PF at this point.

DJ/Kemba/Hendo/Hammer are the only 4 guards on the roster. Hendo is injured and will likely be slow to return to form (even after being ruled healthy) and Hammer shouldn't ever see the floor. Barbosa would be a nice pickup to help spread the floor and give our points another outside shooting thread. It's not like Barbosa is a high usage player or a chucker. He won't make us better, just helps spread the depth out a little more

[Demon DeaCat]

Glad to see this. Dante is a solid piece to our second unit and hopefully will be for years to come.

I like the Boris/Barbosa idea if for no other reason than it gets TT on the floor. He needs to have a really good year for a couple of reasons: a) we're paying him like a highly productive starter so he should be, and b) if we ever wanted/needed to trade him, he needs to play in order to prove to other teams that he's actually worth his contract. Him getting 20 mins a night behind Boris isn't accomplishing either of those.