Wammy Giveaway wrote:Here's my problem with money in general:
"The more money you make, the more problems you get" - Christopher Wallace, The Notorious B.I.G.
Give a player too much money, what are the odds the player underperforms? I've seen it a lot: the player gets a bloated contract just because the team missed out on a franchise star player; they need somebody to market. So they just promote one of their glue guys to a contract way beyond his value, anything to help give the team some relevancy, but they're clearly fooling themselves. The player will surely fail to meet the expectations of the contract, his stats will go under his career averages, and now they have an Andris Biedrins: forced to keep the player for the next few seasons until he becomes an expiring contract good enough to trade, or buyout the contract completely and take a cap hit. Giving a max contract to a lesser player just so the team doesn't feel left out: bad business practice. I wonder if the Sterling-era Clippers practiced the same thing too, even with their preference of letting the other 29 teams price their restricted free agents for him instead of offering a contract themselves (since they loved lowballing given Sterling's penny pinching habits).
In my view, Tobias is just a role starter. His career stats per season don't scream All-Star. He doesn't possess that NBA personality - somebody who can fill up the highlight reels with lob-jams, posters, crafty carnival-like basketball plays, or defends with a pesky reckless attitude as if his life depended on it like a Ron Artest. He's a glue guy who compliments the starting lineup's style of play, nothing more than a spot to fill. If he were in the Golden State Warriors, Harris would be the Zaza Pachulia to the Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Draymond Green and Kevin Durant Fantastic 4: all superstars with All Star appearances, MVP and Finals MVP accolades, versus a hard-working player with a 6.9 PTS-5.9 REB-1.3 AST-0.7 STL-0.4 BLK career average that is close in line with bench players.
With respect, I disagree with huge chunks of this. First off—and most significantly—there’s pretty much nothing I care about less than “lob-jams, posters, crafty carnival-like basketball plays, or defends with a pesky reckless attitude as if his life depended on it like a Ron Artest.” Those aren’t high basketball IQ actions; those are plays done for the sake of appearance. I’m more invested in substance. Players that are focusing how something looks and the dramatics of what they do aren’t the type of players I—and I suspect the current Clippers—want.
Biedrins was a nice but immature player who got overpaid. He played over 2100 minutes once in the four seasons prior to signing his deal, struggled with conditioning and effort coming back from injury, and became a timid player. That’s very far from Tobias Harris, who has worked on facets of his game every offseason, played more every year, including 4 straight seasons of 2300+ minutes, and has shown toughness and leadership on and off the court.
I’m not sure what you mean by “role starter” either. If you’re implying that Tobias is a role player—he seems awfully multi-faceted (decent rebounder, above average scorer, outstanding three point shooter, smart passer)—to be a role player. I’d agree that he lacks something that he’s superlative in (other than maybe the three)—but he’s average to excellent in pretty much all areas, and that makes him a significantly above average NBA starter. He’s 28, and entering his prime. Zaza Pachulia with the Warriors is an old, breaking down player that gets 15 mpg (and really never was more than a 21-28 mpg player). His role on the Warriors is small--he was ninth on the team in minutes last year, and he had negligible impact on the team’s record . Tobias led the Clippers in court time after he joined the team. We were 17-15 in those games. I don’t see the comparison. At all.
I *do* see the point of not overpaying Tobias Harris. I don’t think he’s close to a max player. But, right now, he’s on Team USA (who I don’t think would ever have asked a player of Zaza Pachulia’s caliber to participate). The only players on that team not on rookie deals that are making less than Tobias are Boogie Cousins (who made the max earlier and is coming off a major injury, and took a low low deal to sign with the champs), Eric Gordon, Khris Middleton, and Isiah Thomas. I’d take Tobias over any of the last three, although I like Middleton a lot—and he’s likely to opt out next year and be a FA like Tobias. Neither of them are max players. Based on the last few seasons, both are players worth between $18 and $23 million a year to start with IMO. If either has a bigger year next season, that will go up. Poor or injury riddled seasons—value goes down (ask Avery Bradley). Our current management’s record with FAs is mixed—overpaid Gallo, Wesley, and Austin (although Austin was in that weird summer of $ where everyone got overpaid). “Worth it” deals for DJ and mixed for Jamal (first contract good, second contract bad). Good deals for Lou and JJ. Reasonable offseason pickups and payment. There’s nothing there that screams “Giving a max contract to a lesser player.” I’m cool with something reasonable; I suspect the Clippers (and Tobias) might be too.
