OT: My Camby to Clippers for 2nd round pick analysis (long)

[shrink]

I don't think the Blazers will make the playoffs next year, and I think that's the majority opinion.

I always hear how they are destined to make the play-offs, and I agree they would in the East, but I'm not yet convinced in the West.

The only guarantee I would give is that whatever the record, several will come over to this board to point out that it is better than the wolves.

[shrink]

I'm very proud of Donald Sterling too for making the financial commitment. Glen Taylor is starting to surpass him in the stinginess dept.

Talk to me when Sterling is willing to go over the lux.

[Worm Guts]

If Oden isn't too hampered by his injury then Portland makes the playoffs no problem.

[Devilzsidewalk]

I'm very proud of Donald Sterling too for making the financial commitment. Glen Taylor is starting to surpass him in the stinginess dept.

Talk to me when Sterling is willing to go over the lux.

so what are you trying to say, that I'm totally gay and stupid? Thats really mean of you to say.

[GopherIt!]

I went over and read one of the NYK threads too. I was amused by the poster who said there were only four GM's stupid enough to acquire Zach, LAC and NJN were out of the question now, but McHale still runs the Wolves.

Yeah that was ridiculous, especially coming from a Knicks fan. Combine our four worst contracts (THUD, Howard, Cardinal and Maddog) and that still doesn't equal what Marbury is getting paid this year.

[Devilzsidewalk]

I adore the Knicks fans though, no matter how much their organization defecates on them, they keep coming back for more. Just like us.

this quote from the NYK board is gold:

I have studied all possibilities, all trades, looking at the Trade Checker, and writing my notes, and I have concluded that there is no hope.

[Mcfale313]

I went over and read one of the NYK threads too. I was amused by the poster who said there were only four GM's stupid enough to acquire Zach, LAC and NJN were out of the question now, but McHale still runs the Wolves.

there were 4? so who is the other GM besides LAC, NJN, and Mchale?


btw I do not think the Blazers gonna be making the playoffs this year too, but they'll make a splash of the league in 3 to 5 years

The wolves could be chasing that 7th or 8th seed~~~lol yes I believe

[Worm Guts]

I don't know why you dismiss the owners. They bought the team. It is theirs. If fans want to pay money to watch, that's their decision.

I'm not dismissing the owners, I'm not saying I don't understand the trade from his perspective I just don't understand why any fan would care if the owner makes money.

However I will give you two quick answers off the top of my head.

First, why do you dismiss free agency? They have the MLE, so they can spend money on free agents. Heck, they have an $11.25 mil TPE they could break up and use as well, but I think getting under the lux is more important. Anyway, if the owner is over the lux, he probably is not going to spend his money to get new and maybe better players. For instance, if a free agent costs $5 mil, but he'll give your team $6.5 mil in production on the floor, he'd be a smart buy. However, if the team is over the lux, so he costs the owner $10 mil, he's more likely to pass, to the detriment of the team and the fans. In fact, they face that question right now. They like JR Smith, but what if another team makes him a $4.5 mil offer? they've moved closer to getting under the lux, and if they can do another deal to get there, they may only have to decide whether JR is worth $4.5, or $9.
.

They had the MLE anyway, this trade doesn't allow to sign anymore free agents then they otherwise would have been able to. Camby was worth his contract and would have given them more production than anyone they'll likely get for the TPE.

Second, I believe that success in basketball is cyclical. As fond as I am of trades, nothing does more to create a winning team than drafting in the beginning of the lottery. LeBron James, Dwight Howard, perhaps Greg Oden .. these are players that define a franchise for years. Teams drafting in the teens don't get these players on cheap contracts for multiple years. Because only five guys are on the court at any given time, and they play both offense and defense, there is probably no major sport that is more influenced by the draft.

If the goal is to win a ring, then Denver was a very long shot, and they may not have even made the play-offs. They probably wouldn't be horrible, but they probably wouldn't be great either. Moving Camby, and clearing financial space, I feel, is a better course for a championship than the one they were on right now.

Camby should have been able to fetch an expiring contract and picks or young players. Even if they are going for the rebuild, they still should have gotten something for him. On top of that, Denver is nowhere near bottoming out. At worst, they're a top lottery team. A 12-14 pick isn't going to get you a Lebron. Even if they want to bottom out, they're going to have a hard time moving the veterans they would need to do that.

[karch34]

am i the only one that does not like this for the clippers?

Camby blocks a lot of shots, but is a below average man defender. He gets rebounds, but is not strong enough to keep other players off the glass. He has a decent mid-ranger jumper, but is nothing near a consistant offensive player. AND he is a serious injury risk.

Add to the fact that Thornton played his best at the 4 last year, not the 3. And, how is Kaman going to react playing next to a big that has no power? Now kaman has to body up the stronger guys.

From denver's side it was money. We know that. But you need to get a pick or a prospect back. Also, Martin has not proven he can be a starter right now with his injury issues. Nene has also had problems missing games. There is so much money invested with those 2 guys but they are probably unmovable.

Bad trade from both sides. LAC should have went after Josh Smith, Denver should have got something back in return.

I agree that LAC should've made an offer for Smith or even Okafor (rumored slight interest). Granted they would've had to wait 7 days to see if it's matched, but I can't see how this trade wouldn't have still been available if their offer to Smith was matched. I think the only issue with restricted is that teams feel they'll get usurped on their fall back option if the team with rights match.

[shrink]

I went over and read one of the NYK threads too. I was amused by the poster who said there were only four GM's stupid enough to acquire Zach, LAC and NJN were out of the question now, but McHale still runs the Wolves.

there were 4? so who is the other GM besides LAC, NJN, and Mchale?

Do you remember GopherIt? You made a very eloquent response that remarkably didn't set the Knicksfans on their typical "At least we're bettuh than youze guys!" response.

I can't recall, but if I had to guess, I'd say it was Memphis.

[Devilzsidewalk]

I agree that LAC should've made an offer for Smith or even Okafor (rumored slight interest). Granted they would've had to wait 7 days to see if it's matched, but I can't see how this trade wouldn't have still been available if their offer to Smith was matched. I think the only issue with restricted is that teams feel they'll get usurped on their fall back option if the team with rights match.

are Okafor and Smith twice as good though, because they'd be making almost 2x as much as Camby. With this trade, Camby, Mobley, and Tim Thomas all expire in 2 seasons. Clippers will have a heap of cap space to rebuild on the fly w/ Thornton, Kaman and Gordon still under contract.

Clippers made an outstandingly astute trade, there's no 2 ways around it.

[shrink]

To devilz -- nah, I'm just trying to get people to commit to talking to me. I'm very lonely.

Non-nerds, you can skip everything that follows.

I've actually done a little research into the optimal amount to spend on salary. Overspending can lead to more team success (like BOS), or not (like NYK), but what I was curious about wasn't winning percentage but profitability in a business model. If you spend too little, you save money on payroll, but nobody shows up to watch your team (or buy your merchandise) and you lose money. If you spend too much, you might not get enough extra fans to increase the revenues an amount that justifies buying that extra player. Commonly, GM's seem to settle on the lux as their optimum level of spending.

Fans usually don't like this, because their optimization function is on "wins" and not "profits." I remember a long discussion on the CanisHoopus site explaining why Glen Taylor shouldn't have been ripped so badly for not trading Ratliff's expiring and taking on more salary. Clearly, its not our money, so telling other people how to spend it, and how to run their business makes us all sound a little bit like self-important hypocrites. But in a business model, adding a talented and expensive player that might add a few more wins does not necessarily mean that you're going to draw in new fans, or get old fans to shell out more money.

Finally, I think for all of us Minnesota fans, we can see this in action more dramaticly when the Twins play the Yankees. The Yanks pay $209 mil on their players, and the Twins pay $62 mil, and clearly this gives the New Yorkers a big (but not insurmountable) advantage on the field. However, to the Yankee's credit, they've developed an economic model that works for them. They started with a big market, and made it a national and international product. They did this with wins of course, but the YES network etc. If the Yankees have three times the Twins payroll, do they have three times the revenues? The surprising answer is "YES," though their Operating Income is in the toilet. However, these numbers are always complicated, because of personal accounting decisions where a team ends and the business subsidiaries begin.

http://www.forbes.com/lists/2007/33/07m ... _Rank.html

(btw, I didn'trealize the Twins were #1 in the 1-year value change of the baseball team! Hooray for the new stadium!)

Anyway, stumbling back to my original point, it seems to be the consensis among most owners that the best way to use their finances is to spend up to the lux (to get a competitive team), and stop there. Could we see a "Yankees-style" team that ignores the lux (there's no luxing in baseball) to create a dominant team that can still draw the revenues to support itself? I suspect not. Rookies, on their cheap 4-year rookie contracts by the mechanics of the system keep getting sent to the worst teams. And while salary-matching (again, not in baseball) doesn't keep teams from going light-years over the lux, they need to do it in only +25% chunks, so it would take a while for a team to try to get up to that level of, say, a $200 mil NBA team. .. and it would cost them $340 mil to do it. For this reason, I think the NBA system is one of the better collective bargaining agreements in sports, maintaining competition and keeping owners and players in a soft-cap situation they can both make money from.

[karch34]

I agree that LAC should've made an offer for Smith or even Okafor (rumored slight interest). Granted they would've had to wait 7 days to see if it's matched, but I can't see how this trade wouldn't have still been available if their offer to Smith was matched. I think the only issue with restricted is that teams feel they'll get usurped on their fall back option if the team with rights match.

are Okafor and Smith twice as good though, because they'd be making almost 2x as much as Camby. With this trade, Camby, Mobley, and Tim Thomas all expire in 2 seasons. Clippers will have a heap of cap space to rebuild on the fly w/ Thornton, Kaman and Gordon still under contract.

Clippers made an outstandingly astute trade, there's no 2 ways around it.

I assume you're talking twice as much in terms of years. Camby about $10 million contract and the Clippers now about $2-3million below the cap. So the max offer to Okafor or Smith would've been $12-$13 million. So in that scenario I pay the extra couple million for the better player who's going to be around longer.

I see what you're saying about cap space in 2 years and you're correct. However, why spend that at all? If you're rebuilding then you don't need Camby and you're better having the financial flexibility now, you might even get a good piece for considerably less and still have cap room in 2 years. If you're trying to compete for a title then you use the money under the cap for a better fit (Smith or Okafor). If you're trying to stay reasonably competitive for two years, but not much else then this is a great deal.

Financially it doesn't hurt them long term, but don't know if it really improves them enough to do it at all.

[Al n' Perk No Layups!]

I went over and read one of the NYK threads too. I was amused by the poster who said there were only four GM's stupid enough to acquire Zach, LAC and NJN were out of the question now, but McHale still runs the Wolves.

there were 4? so who is the other GM besides LAC, NJN, and Mchale?

Isaiah, but he's no longer available.

[GopherIt!]

I adore the Knicks fans though, no matter how much their organization defecates on them, they keep coming back for more. Just like us.

true. Knicks, Pacers, Clippers. and until last year, Celtics fans have all spent extended time in hoops hell with us. Misery loves company.