Capn'O wrote:SelbyCobra wrote:Capn'O wrote:I hope we don't get Hayward and FVV. Nothing against them as players but we have our young forwards (I consider RJ a forward) that we need to play and Hayward's going to get in the way of that. He's not the final answer. $25+ million for FVV is just too much. We're not going anywhere. Why have that money tied to us as we build up the team?
But more than that, Dolan has had a policy since his arrival that he would never lose out on a player due to money. It's a terrible policy. It's why we signed Allan Houston for 100 mil when nobody else was offering more than 70, it's why Isiah Thomas ran the Knicks up to a $140 million payroll when the cap was around $60 million, and it's why more recently we dropped insane deals on Joakim Noah and the short contract players last season. If we wanted a guy, just overpay him.
Here we are, sitting as the only team with enough cap space for the opportunity to pay these two players more than their market value outright. AKA, other than their own teams; playoff teams for which how they play this decision could potentially affect whether they make the first, second, or championship rounds of the playoffs. Our highest outcome is maybe scraping into the playoffs for a first round sweep and then being tapped out due to the contracts we've signed.
In a capped league, you - not occasionally but often - have to make a hard choice on numbers if you want to be in a position to keep moving forward. Look at the Warriors - the reason they were able to build a dynasty was they had Steph Curry on a ridiculous sweetheart deal for the early part of their runs and Klay and Dray on their rookie deal for the initial build. Once they even had to pay him superstar market value their window closed. There just isn't enough to go around to hold bad deals. Dolan's early philosophy was team suicide if you want to compete regularly. Not only does it saddle teams with payroll but it attracts grifters to the team who see that they can leverage this philosophy for a hot payday. We now have the chance to show the world that we've moved past tossing money around like drunken sailors in a whorehouse. Non-moves today would show the world that the Knicks are finally ready to move forward.
I get the sentiment here, but don't think it's this black and white. They're an in-between to me for a team like the Knicks, and FVV fits that perfectly, in my opinion.
While Steph's exploding salary certainly changed their window, it's easy to forget that when they won the championship in 2015, the Warriors highest paid player was David Lee, who took up 20% of their cap.
In fact, their top 3 highest paid players that championship year were Lee, Bogut, and Iggy, and they took up 54% (FIFTY-FOUR PERCENT!) of the cap. Lee was irrelevent playing less than 50 games, Bogut was a defensive anchor but played 23 MPG and averaged 6 points, and Iguodala didn't start a single game and averaged less than 8 points.
So even if FVV somehow becomes Jerome James, it's not a death knell to being highly competitive if the right coaching, development staff, and cap management is in place.
There's a number where I'd be ok with FVV but I think we're going to surpass it by a good margin. Just walk away in that case.
I think the highest number "I'd be ok with" I've thrown out in my pursuit-of-Fred posts has been $25M AAV. If the Knicks went above that with Brock Aller crunching numbers I would be more intrigued than "not ok" because the reality is our ability to precisely evaluate players monetary value is rudimentary compared to what guys like BA Abacus are doing.
My reaction would only be that at this point in my Knick fandom because of the peer-reviewed genius of Brock Aller, though. I don't know that we've had that level of cap oversight security I feel as a fan right now in the FO before.
