Why do we care so much about the money?

[Alfred]

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Other than Fields, which contracts on this team are bad? Jose? 10 points, 10 assists, no turnovers. 10 mil is fair value. Demar? He's still on a rookie deal. Great value for his production. Even at his extension, for the numbers that he produces, he is paid fairly. Even Bargs, if he was playing non-crappily is fair value for his contract.

- Jose Calderon has been on the market for years, and he's still on the team. That should tell you something about his contract.
- Nobody is complaining about DeMar's rookie deal. They're complaining about his terrible contract that he signed this season.
- "If Bargnani wasn't terrible he'd be worth his contract". That's quite the statement.

[ruckus]

OK. Let's talk contracts. The big 3 that come to mind are Kapono, Hedo and JO. For all the talk that these players were overpaid, were we not able to move all 3 players for decent value? Kapono turned into Evans. Hedo into Barbosa and JO into the Matrix.



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[Alfred]

Besides, if we have all these great value contracts, and we're right up against the salary cap, we should have a good team, right?

[Alfred]

OK. Let's talk contracts. The big 3 that come to mind are Kapono, Hedo and JO. For all the talk that these players were overpaid, were we not able to move all 3 players for decent value? Kapono turned into Evans. Hedo into Barbosa and JO into the Matrix.

Excuse me? The Jermaine O'Neal trade to Miami was a GOOD ONE? Are you joking?

Kapono was traded for Evans, who was then not resigned. Hedo was traded for Barbosa, who was not resigned. We then turned the cap savings into Landry Fields.

[sanity]

O'neal not only costed us our 1st being initially sent to Indiana (along with a massive expiring in Rasho), but it also costed us another 1st being sent to Miami. Marion was merely a rental and Marcus Banks was dead weight during that 'fix'.

I don't see how you can put any spin on O'neal not being a complete waste of salary/picks/time for this franchise

[SDM]

No one has given you an answer because no one here is a GM. No one knows what's available. However, we do have the benefit of looking around the league and comparing contracts.

What I can tell you though, definitively, is that the team has never accumulated either the assets or the cap space to trade for a star or get one in free agency. Go ahead and argue against this.

The reason the Colangelo era has failed to lure stars is not because this is a Canadian team or because there isn't anywhere to buy grits, it's because he has signed the likes of Fields, Kapono, Calderon, Bargnani, Kleiza, Hedo and Amir to the tune of a quarter billion dollars. This shows no sign of reversing, with Derozan's laughable deal kicking in next year. And on top of that, roster spots are devoured by guaranteed deals to the likes of JLIII and Maceo Baston.

That's why you should care about the money.

How many stars have been available over the course of the past seven years?

2006:
Nene (re-signed)
Ben Wallace (went to Chicago)

2007:
Rashard Lewis (went to Orlando)

2008:
Josh Smith (Restricted, stayed)
Andre Igoudala (Restricted, stayed)

2009:
Ben Gordon (went to Detroit)
Ron Artest (went to LAL)
Trevor Ariza (went to HOU)
Anderson Varejao (stayed)
Hedo Turkoglu (came...here...ugh)

2010:
Rudy Gay (stayed)
Joe Johnson (stayed)
LeBron James (Miami)
Dwyane Wade (stayed)
Chris Bosh (Miami)
Carlos Boozer (Chicago)
Amar'e Stoudemire (NY)

2011:
Arron Afflalo (stayed)
Nene (signed and subsequently traded, but not as a sign & trade)
Tyson Chandler (NYC)

2012:
Steve Nash (LAL)

So, looking back, how many real possibilities did we miss out on? I'd probably prefer to have Anderson Varejao over Hedo, but that might not have been a possibility. Other than that, not much else was going to happen. We have had cap space, but you should know stars in free agency do not come along very often.

Looking ahead to 2013, there is no doubt there are some stars available. Chris Paul, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Rodney Stuckey, and possibly even Dwight Howard. Do we have the cap space for any of these players? Possibly. Is there any guarantee of a) getting them and b) them being productive on this team? Not at all.

I don't know why you're dwelling on how money makes it impossible for us to acquire stars. It's not like acquiring stars is an easy thing to do. At best, you take a risk on a player with flaws and hope that he works them out (i.e. Demarcus Cousins). If you can get him in a trade, I think you do that. Hoping that free agency or trade gets you that one shining light year after year doesn't do much. I will, however, say the Kyle Lowry trade was one of the more impressive moves. He's a legitimately talented player.

You don't know why I'm dwelling on how money makes it impossible for us to acquire stars when we sign the likes of Kapono et all for a quarter billion dollars in a salary cap league? You don't see how having Jalen Rose (and having to trade a pick to get rid of him) and JO (and having to trade a pick to get rid of him) as the most expensive players on the team severely limits your ability to get better and attract better players?

Stop the defeatist nonsense. We don't attract stars because we don't have cap space to accept crappy deals for picks... like Cleveland did when they got LAC's #1. We also don't have the cap space to target free agents when they do become available because the year prior we re-upped the likes of Derozan, Bargnani, and Calderon and bid against ourselves for the likes of Fields and Hedo.

This is amazing. How can you guys not see that aside from talent, money is the single most important consideration for putting together a winning club? Like, is this bizarro land?

[ruckus]

Besides, if we have all these great value contracts, and we're right up against the salary cap, we should have a good team, right?

I wouldn't say we have a ton of great value contracts. We have mix of good value, fair value and poor value.

Plus, although the info may be outdated, hoopshype has our salaries at 26th out of a 30 team league. Only Sac, Cha, Pho and Hou have lower payrolls.

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[West Rouge]

Aww so are you saying BC know what hes doing?

[ruckus]

OK. Let's talk contracts. The big 3 that come to mind are Kapono, Hedo and JO. For all the talk that these players were overpaid, were we not able to move all 3 players for decent value? Kapono turned into Evans. Hedo into Barbosa and JO into the Matrix.

Excuse me? The Jermaine O'Neal trade to Miami was a GOOD ONE? Are you joking?

Kapono was traded for Evans, who was then not resigned. Hedo was traded for Barbosa, who was not resigned. We then turned the cap savings into Landry Fields.

I'm not saying the trade was good but, most people's point of contention for bad contacts is that they are not moveable. JO's massive contract was moved twice within the span of one year.


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[ruckus]

Aww so are you saying BC know what hes doing?

Far from it. However, the one thing that BC has shown he is capable of doing is managing the cap. That doesn't mean that his overall vision for this team is haphazard and poorly planned.

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[The_Hater]

Example:

Demar Derozan was a major trade chip in last offseason even though RAPS wanted to keep him.... now though, teams will not give nearly as much for him because he is considered overpaid. His trade value just halfed out.

Unless you are intimately familiar with an NBA franchise's inner workings, I really doubt you know what you're talking about. Demar's scoring and rebounding has gone up, he's shooting fairly well, and he's proven himself to be a hardworking player in the league. People are also taking notice. If anything, his trade value has gone up over the course of this year.

Come on, this isn't even debateable. It's only common sense that Derozan at 3 times the salary has far less trade value in a league with a salary cap.

Sure, DeRozan is a better player than he was last season but to argue that his trade value as actually gone up is foolish.

[416]

I know they say there's no such thing as a stupid question, but this is getting pretty close.

The more money you spend on mediocre players the less money you have to spend on players that are worth it.
The average cost of an NBA win is 1.8m dollars. More of those millions spent on players that can't come close to averaging enough wins vs their salary, makes it nigh on impossible to have a winning team.

I don't believe in this dollars per win/money ball nonsense. That's small market thinking. We are not a small market.

I'd rather be known as a team that goes all out to win instead of the team that tries to pick and choose free agents and still gets shot down in the end.


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Are you effing kidding me?

It's called VALUE. If a player is paid more than he's worth that's bad VALUE. Thus making him a hindrance instead of an asset. And if said hindrance isn't working out his VALUE is lower due to being overpaid and harder to TRADE. Thus shackling the team with that bad VALUE contract that no one wants. Having an entire team of these causes a team to become what the raps are. A crappy team going nowhere fast.

How you have made it to the age you have and not learned the value of a dollar is beyond me.

I know you can handle it, so going to be a devils advocate here.

Getting good value players is a good rule of thumb, but not the golden measuring stick that most make it out to be.

If that was true, you can compose a whole team with serviceable players on rookie contracts; it'll meet the criteria of players > value of contract. However this team won't probably go anywhere.

Some finance savvy folks will say that if you have assets > book value, then you can flip them for better assets. That is entirely true given that the market is liquid. However the NBA is not like the stock market where you can flip assets whenever you choose to. Illiquidity is a cost, and thus a premium has to be charged on that.

Then there is gaming. This really @#$%s up the fair value of assets. Colangelo trying to block a Nash trade to NY by offering Landry a bloated contract will mess up his value because the contract value isn't tied directly to the value of the asset (the player) anymore. This is one example where there are other factors than intrinsic value of the player dictating the value of the contract.

Also on the point of intrinsic value, I agree that this is the "truest" way to equate contract value with the player/asset. However without a crystal ball/hindsight, valuation in this manner will most likely be off. This is because intrinsic value tries to capture both the current value of the asset as well as the future value of the asset. Since it is too difficult to predict what the future value of any player is going to be, in practice, there is a mismatch between player and contract value.

The only alternative that is left then is comparative value. This method is using similar assets to value your own. The downside here is that, unless you are comparing your assets with another that is accurately valued, player/contract value will be misaligned once again.

And the list goes on to as why contracts are valued improperly. A GM's job on the line, injuries, cognitive biases, etc all play into this.

This is why it is difficult to offer contracts based on wins/dollar, in a vacuum it works, in practicality it only serves as a guideline at best.

[Terrible1]

As people have said, we don't care about the money but we do care about cap space. Bad contracts directly effect the moves we can make in the free agency and in trades. A bad contract can hamstring a team going forward.

[lobosloboslobos]

Come on, this isn't even debateable. It's only common sense that Derozan at 3 times the salary has far less trade value in a league with a salary cap.

Sure, DeRozan is a better player than he was last season but to argue that his trade value as actually gone up is foolish.

Talented players on rookie contracts are of course going to be ultra-tradeable. But DeRozan was going to get paid by someone without any doubt. You could argue nobody would make an offer as fat as ours, but is that really true given the deals other guys have gotten recently. last year guys consistently got paid a lot more than people here thought they would. why would it be different for DD? so you may not like the cost, and you may not like the player, but the signing seems to be quite in line with league standards, don't you think? possibly a tad high, though not if DD continues to improve, and besides as we know possibly it takes more to sign guys in canada. and since there aren't a whole lot of guys available to us who on the free market and since DD is young and improving (keeping in mind he is not being paid all-star money) it seems to me hard to argue that this was a terrible or extravagant contract, even if you don't like the player.

[Abba Zabba]

I'll agree that although cap management is important this board, as usual, does tend to go into hysterics over slight over pays.

On any given team you will find some contracts that are under pays (Anderson, Lowry, Ed, all 3 of our Rooks) and some over pays (Fields, Kleiza, Amir, Bargs, Calderone, DD).

Only Fields and Kleiza are drastic overpays at this point (unless Bargs never returns to his form from the last 2 years) and Anderson and Lowry are drastic under pays. In a perfect world i'd like more cap space but contracts are not what is killing this team. Constant winging over the extra 1.5 million a year that you thought DD didn't deserve is just pure meaningless whining.