younggunsmn wrote:bruce I have no idea why you spend so much time and effort defending this move.
Zach Randolph has MAJOR NEGATIVE TRADE VALUE. Do you not understand this?
Add Jaric to the deal AT A MINIMUM to make it fair.
The grizz will be at 46+ million minimum, plus their 2 draft pick holds next summer, BEFORE they sign Rudy Gay. your spitballing is inaccurate. they effectively capped themselves out next summer.
The Clips would have been at 53 million salary committed in 2010 before the trade, now they will be at 36 million plus draft pick cap holds.
Enabling that huge of a swing has ENORMOUS trade value, far more than Zach Randolph is worth.
in the summer of 2011 they will also have to re-sign conley and marc gasol, with mayo following the next year. 2011 cap room argument is ludicrous.
This move is OWNER-DRIVEN, just like drafting a backup center 2nd overall over a trade down was OWNER DRIVEN, just like the Pau Gasol trade was OWNER-DRIVEN. Their owner is an idiot who meddles in their affairs far worse than Taylor ever did.
I loved their young core of mayo/gay/marc gasol before this offseason, but they have not added players who compliment those guys, they added a black hole and longtime cancer instead. I was rooting for this team until the horrible moves they made this offseason. At best they win 40 games, so what that won't make the playoffs in the west.
They are by no means capped out this year or next and my spitballing of this years cap was fairly accurate. In 2010 they won't be "max", but they won't pursue a max FA anyway. They will also have 2 contracts & various picks/young assets to work a s&t if necessary to make up for lost cap. Which I doubt they do as the owner is attempting to stay as flexible as possible.
This year they should be at: 48.8m
Next year they will be at: 50m (with rudy resigned @10m, & their 2 2009 picks)
In 2011: somewhere around 20m capspace(w\ a resigned conley, gasol, gay, 2 2009 draft picks, & mayo on rookie contract)
I never denied Randolphs negative trade value, but you have to take into account situational factors with regards to capped monetary value. I’m debating the situational aspects in regards to a players value vs salary cap.
First you must determine what a fair price for Randolph would be per year. I think most teams would be delighted for Randolph @12m/yr. That’s a fair estimate imo.
In 2009 he will cost 3m more
In 2010 he will cost 5m more
You must also determine the actual value of capspace in 2010 in relation to the value of player talent and contracts. There will be plenty of teams with cap space in 2010. This actually lessens the buying power of the cap space since more cap space is available through the league. So whatever the griz cap space ends up being in 2010 whether it be 10m, 5m, 1m. The actual buying power of that money is offset by the flood of available cash.
Now let us consider a couple of factors. Even when pursuing a 2nd tier FA the grizz will probably need to overpay by %10-20, just like MN. I think that’s a fair estimate. There is also the fact that there will be many other teams with said cap space. This again will lessen the buying power and produce more competition between teams and free agents. I don’t have a crystal ball but again I’d guess that the buying power of that cap space will decrease the value somewhere between 10-20%. The downturn in the economy may cancel out this effect, but who knows.
So here’s your example:
Free Agent A aquires interest of several teams. We will say he’s hedo level and for simplicities sake say the contract he wants is going to average 10m a year. Fair enough imo. The problem is that there’s more teams willing to make this sort of contract next year so that 10m, might become 11-12m between 2 favorable free agent destinations. But what if one of those teams is a less favorable free agent destination like MEM? That 11-12m becomes 12-14m, plus the long term contract the team was just locked into for 5 years. That contract also typically isn’t flat as it will increase each year thus further impacting future cap and flexibility.
So now we have a few numbers. Lets recap 2010.
2010 Randolph on court value: 12m (though I’m sure you could debate this)
2010 Randolph is overpayed: 5m (17m)
A free agent could cost: 12-14m in 2010
So if we compared Randolph to potential 2010 free agent. The Grizz are overpaying for Randolph somewhere between 3-5m vs talent they would receive if they kept the cap space, but they maintain the use of future cap flexibility. In 2011 cap space will once again become more valuable as less teams will have it and they will have plenty of it even with the resigning of their youth so it really isn’t a ridiculous argument.
So now we have 2 numbers:
2010 Randolph overpayment vs a fair contract value: 5m
2010 Randolph overpayment value vs a 2nd tier 2010 Free Agent: 3-5m
Then you need to factor in the value of what he fills on the team. They needed post scoring and they also have Thabeet to cover up some of his defensive liability. This is something that is nearly impossible to put value on. When you look at some historical need filling transactions in the NBA teams always tend to overpay. Kidd to DAL. PHX cap space for picks. ORL signing of Rashad. Those all in retrospect seem like vast overpayment because they have long term impact.
So in terms of filling the post scoring role even with the overpayment of around ~5m I don’t think it’s a bad fit at all. They could have done much worse and limited financial flexibility if they pursued Lee or Millisap.
All of that being said I never said that it would be a good move for other teams, but for a small market team with an obvious need it really isn’t that bad. This is one of those situations where it doesn’t matter what other teams perceived trade value of a player is and it isn’t really fair to judge the trade value on that fact.
I do think they could have bundled Jaric in the trade as I previously stated mostly because that would have been the best offer the clips would receive but for whatever reason they decided not to. I think they plan to use Jaric as a primary backup @ 1-3, which would cost them a similar amount to 3 primary backups @ 1-3. This saves them roster spots and potential long term contracts. They will end up taking shots with other types of players instead of committing 2m a year to 2-3 various backups on 2-3 year deals.
I'm not exactly sure why it is a problem or how you are relating to this trade being owner driven as you didn't list the benefits of it to the owner. I think the benefits are long term flexibility and you can't really blame him if he wants to make the team appeal to a new buyer.
On the clips end. They got an incredible deal and it sucks for the rest of the league that they get a get out of jail free card on his contract. Even with Jaric included it would have been a steal on their end. But the same thing was said when Randolph was in NYK. It was said they'd never get out from under his contract and somehow they did.