Varejao Opting Out

[vct33]

I think that Varejao is a better player than you guys are giving him credit for. No he can't guard Howard, but I don't think anyone thought that he could before hand. What Varejao can do is do a good job against (normal) PF's. He's never going to be able to stick with the tweeners but he's still better than you guys are giving him credit.

No, he doesn't even do a good job against normal PF's. What he does is try to take charges, dive on the floor, poke at balls and make his hair flop around. What he doesn't do is guard anybody. All you RealGMers seem to love the Player Efficiency Rating as a measure of value. Well the PER of opposing PFs vs Varejao is 18.4. So opposing PF's perform more than 3 points above the average PER against Andy.

[TheOUTLAW]

Love the generalization. Fact is the Cavs were better both offensively and defensively with Varejao on the floor. He actually does do a good job but the Cavs defense is a helping defense which if the opposing team is passing the ball means that the bigs get some easy shots. However Varejao does tend to make things happen.

[vct33]

Love the generalization. Fact is the Cavs were better both offensively and defensively with Varejao on the floor.

Really? You think that's a testament to how good Varejao is or how bad everyone else on the team is? My vote is for the latter. The Cavs have the best player of all-time, another reasonable starter (Williams), a nice 6th man (West), a few 7th-9th men (Varejao, Ilgauskus, Sczcerbiak) and then the rest of the roster is 10th-12th or worse.

[TheOUTLAW]

Sure, if we can upgrade from Varejao it makes sense to let him walk, but the vast majority of big men that we can secure do not replace Varejao on the Cavs, we'd still need him and the other big men. So sure, it might just be about how bad the Cavs are in the frontcourt, but until we upgrade there, he's a huge part of the team.

[vct33]

I'd love to keep Varejao if we can get him for 4 years at about $18 million. It would allow us to use our exceptions on actually improving our team rather than to just maintain. However, for much more than that, you gotta let him walk and use the LLE or MLE to replace him. That sucks but that is just how it's got to be.

[TheOUTLAW]

He's worth more than that, and he knows it.

[vct33]

He's worth more than that, and he knows it.

He might get more than that but he's not worth more than that. He's a 7th man. There is no way around it. And he's really just a middle of the road 7th man. At least some young 7th men are loaded with upside but I don't even see that with Varejao.

He thinks he's worth more than that that's why he's opting out. If I'm Danny Ferry, I say to myself, "Thank God for that player option" and let him walk.

[TheOUTLAW]

He's a very serviceable 3rd big man. They ordinarily get more than that and frankly I think he's worth at least what he's making now.

[B Mac]

While I agree that if Varejao plays hard ball we should have no problem letting him walk... he is worth way more than 4 million a year.

[SportsBoy]

6 to 7 million a year.

No way he gets paid more than MO!

[vct33]

While I agree that if Varejao plays hard ball we should have no problem letting him walk... he is worth way more than 4 million a year.

He's not worth way more than that but I don't mind paying him a little more than that since he's our own FA. I don't have a problem with giving him $6 mil per as long as it doesn't prevent us from using the MLE to get a player that actually makes us better. What I don't want to happen is to have us overpay Varejao to keep him and then not use the MLE to avoid the additional luxury tax. Plenty of players who are better than Andy could be had for the MLE.