Bean Burrito / Nick Young Appreciation Thread.

[verbal8]

To be clear, I don't think anyone was making the argument that Young was at all comparable to pre-injury Arenas -- nor does he need to be in order to be of value. A lot depends on what kind of contract he commands this summer.

Edit: Nick is making $2.7M this year. I'm guessing when the new CBA shakes out that we'll be able to retain him for somewhere in the 4 yr/$16-18M range.

I think Nick Young is not too far off from Wesley Matthews. I think his deal was one of the few FA deals that was about right.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/play-index/pcm_finder.cgi?request=1&sum=0&p1=matthwe02&y1=2011&p2=youngni01&y2=2011

[fishercob]

Interesting, verbal. Hopefully the new CBA drives the annual cost and the length of the deal down.
If that's indeed the case, that 4/$16-$18M could be about right.

[nate33]

I'd take 4-years $18M and run. That's a great deal.

[fishercob]

Does it strike you as far-fetched? Everything we hear points to contracts being shorter and less guaranteed money.

If Wes got 5/$27M with an average of $5.4M/yr and roll the length and average each back 20%, you get 4/$17.3M. That seems like a good value, low risk of becoming any kind of drain on your cap. But given Nick's PER, history, etc., I don't see it as being a franchise-altering historically great value either.

[GhostsOfGil]

wishful thinking. if nick young continues playing like he is, he will be a front runner for the mip award. unfortunately that and free agency is a recipe for a bad contract. take a look at previous winners... most all of them ended up with pretty terrible contracts. off the top of my head i know hedo and bobby simmons were both in contract years when they won this award.. and we all know how that ended

http://www.nba.com/history/awards_mostimproved.html

[Kanyewest]

Interesting, verbal. Hopefully the new CBA drives the annual cost and the length of the deal down.
If that's indeed the case, that 4/$16-$18M could be about right.

Wes Matthews signed a 5 year deal for about $34 million. I would be surprised if the new CBA drove down MLE salaries by more than 33% per year. Not to mention that Nick Young may be the cream of the crop when it comes to free agents in the backcourt; off the top of my head the best free agent targets at shooting guard include JR Smith, Aaron Affalo, and Jamal Crawford.

[Kanyewest]

:o
wishful thinking. if nick young continues playing like he is, he will be a front runner for the mip award. unfortunately that and free agency is a recipe for a bad contract. take a look at previous winners... most all of them ended up with pretty terrible contracts. off the top of my head i know hedo and bobby simmons were both in contract years when they won this award.. and we all know how that ended

http://www.nba.com/history/awards_mostimproved.html

I've actually haven't heard Young get mentioned for the award nationally. Guys like Eric Gordon, Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, and Dorrell Wright have been mentioned. I can't see Young winning the award given that his improvement is only in ppg and not throughout the other categories or at least not as dramatic as guys like Love.

[nate33]

Some statistics:

Code: Select all

per game stats        PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  MIN  PER
young pre-trade      13.6  2.1  0.6  0.6  0.3  0.8 .527 .570 23.5 17.0
young post-trade     20.9  3.2  1.9  0.8  0.3  2.0 .534 .575 38.1 15.4

per 36 stats          PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  USG  PER
young pre-trade      20.8  3.2  0.9  0.9  0.5  1.3 .527 .570 21.7 17.0
young post-trade     19.6  3.0  1.7  0.7  0.2  1.9 .534 .575 21.0 15.4

Basically, Young's pre-trade and post-trade numbers are nearly identical on a per-minute basis. Post-trade, he's passing a bit better but also turning it over a bit more. He's also not getting quite as many shot opportunities per minute as he was pre-trade, presumably because he's sharing the ball with more offensively capable starters, and because defenses are keying on him more.

Overall, one has to be extremely happy with his output. At the same time let's realize that he's not really playing any better as a starter than he was as a backup. He deserves credit for maintaining his production despite going up against starting-caliber defenders, and despite having to deal with more fatigue, but I don't think it's accurate to state that he is more comfortable or more effective as a starter.

[GhostsOfGil]

ya ur rite, love and gordon have been playing great. i really hope ny does NOT win that award

[fishercob]

I stand corrected on the Matthew numbers. Yowzers.

I know I'm in the minority on this, but that seems like a lot of money to me to violate the Dat Rule (don't overpay for middling players). I know many here will get offended at the notion of characterizing Nick as middling and I don't intend to offend. That said, Nick is a lot younger than Deshawn, Songalia, Daniels, etc, so maybe you can afford to take a little more of a chance.

[Nivek]

MikeG over at APBRmetrics periodically posts a "Most Improved" leaderboard. As of this morning, Nick ranked 7th behind Derrick Rose, Eric Gordon, Jrue Holiday, Deshawn Stevenson, DJ Augustin and Russell Westbrook.

I think we can knock Rose off the list because he was already perceived to be really good. Gordon might have a similar issue in voters' minds. Holiday and Young will suffer a bit because their teams are bad. Stevenson could draw votes because he's been mediocre to bad for so long. However, his better play still isn't all that good, and he's getting just 18 minutes per game.

My guess is that the award goes to Gordon, Augustin or Westbrook.

[GhostsOfGil]

MikeG over at APBRmetrics periodically posts a "Most Improved" leaderboard. As of this morning, Nick ranked 7th behind Derrick Rose, Eric Gordon, Jrue Holiday, Deshawn Stevenson, DJ Augustin and Russell Westbrook.

I think we can knock Rose off the list because he was already perceived to be really good. Gordon might have a similar issue in voters' minds. Holiday and Young will suffer a bit because their teams are bad. Stevenson could draw votes because he's been mediocre to bad for so long. However, his better play still isn't all that good, and he's getting just 18 minutes per game.

My guess is that the award goes to Gordon, Augustin or Westbrook.

thanks for posting. this is great news in my eyes

[verbal8]

Interesting, verbal. Hopefully the new CBA drives the annual cost and the length of the deal down.
If that's indeed the case, that 4/$16-$18M could be about right.

Wes Matthews signed a 5 year deal for about $34 million. I would be surprised if the new CBA drove down MLE salaries by more than 33% per year. Not to mention that Nick Young may be the cream of the crop when it comes to free agents in the backcourt; off the top of my head the best free agent targets at shooting guard include JR Smith, Aaron Affalo, and Jamal Crawford.

I don't think the ownership has much leverage on the max deals, the best it can hope for their is taking a year or maybe two off the length. I think it will have a tough time significantly lowering the vet minimum(maybe they shave a spot or two off the fully paid roster. So I think a lot of the cuts in player salaries are going to come from the mid-level deals.

[Rafael122]

Yeah, there's no way I'd give Nick Young $34 million over 5 years. I'd go 4 years, maybe $22 million or something. You have to factor in McGee is going to be looking a an extension, and you always have to think long term with Wall. Make sure there's enough money lying around to surround him with talented players. You don't want to run into a situation with Cleveland, just picking out overpriced free agents and think it's all going to work.

[nate33]

I stand corrected on the Matthew numbers. Yowzers.

I know I'm in the minority on this, but that seems like a lot of money to me to violate the Dat Rule (don't overpay for middling players). I know many here will get offended at the notion of characterizing Nick as middling and I don't intend to offend. That said, Nick is a lot younger than Deshawn, Songalia, Daniels, etc, so maybe you can afford to take a little more of a chance.

While I subscribe to Dat's Law about not paying role players, I'd argue that Young is a bit more than a role player. If he continues to score 20 points a game with a TS% above 56%, he is a bonafide 2nd option scorer on a good team while also being a solid defender. Those guys are much harder to find than 20 minute per game one-dimensional role players like Stevenson and Songaila.

[Ruzious]

MikeG over at APBRmetrics periodically posts a "Most Improved" leaderboard. As of this morning, Nick ranked 7th behind Derrick Rose, Eric Gordon, Jrue Holiday, Deshawn Stevenson, DJ Augustin and Russell Westbrook.

I think we can knock Rose off the list because he was already perceived to be really good. Gordon might have a similar issue in voters' minds. Holiday and Young will suffer a bit because their teams are bad. Stevenson could draw votes because he's been mediocre to bad for so long. However, his better play still isn't all that good, and he's getting just 18 minutes per game.

My guess is that the award goes to Gordon, Augustin or Westbrook.

I'm going to guess Rose wins it - as he's perceived to have become one of the top few players in the NBA this season.

Trivia time:
Question 1: What players won the MIP award as members of the Bullets/Wiz?

Question 2: What former Bullets won the award when they were not members of the Bullets/Wiz?

[nate33]

Yeah, there's no way I'd give Nick Young $34 million over 5 years. I'd go 4 years, maybe $22 million or something. You have to factor in McGee is going to be looking a an extension, and you always have to think long term with Wall. Make sure there's enough money lying around to surround him with talented players. You don't want to run into a situation with Cleveland, just picking out overpriced free agents and think it's all going to work.

And what "talented players" do you expect to find that will be better than Young and cost less? (Again, this assumes that Young isn't a 15-game wonder and can actually maintain his 20 ppg average with good efficiency for the rest of the season.)

[nate33]

MikeG over at APBRmetrics periodically posts a "Most Improved" leaderboard. As of this morning, Nick ranked 7th behind Derrick Rose, Eric Gordon, Jrue Holiday, Deshawn Stevenson, DJ Augustin and Russell Westbrook.

I think we can knock Rose off the list because he was already perceived to be really good. Gordon might have a similar issue in voters' minds. Holiday and Young will suffer a bit because their teams are bad. Stevenson could draw votes because he's been mediocre to bad for so long. However, his better play still isn't all that good, and he's getting just 18 minutes per game.

My guess is that the award goes to Gordon, Augustin or Westbrook.

I'm going to guess Rose wins it - as he's perceived to have become one of the top few players in the NBA this season.

Trivia time:
Question 1: What players won the MIP award as members of the Bullets/Wiz?

Question 2: What former Bullets won the award when they were not members of the Bullets/Wiz?

Didn't we have a stretch when like 3 guys from Washington won the MIP in a very short time span? I want to say: George Muresan, Don McClean, and maybe Pervis Ellison.

[Rafael122]

Yeah, there's no way I'd give Nick Young $34 million over 5 years. I'd go 4 years, maybe $22 million or something. You have to factor in McGee is going to be looking a an extension, and you always have to think long term with Wall. Make sure there's enough money lying around to surround him with talented players. You don't want to run into a situation with Cleveland, just picking out overpriced free agents and think it's all going to work.

And what "talented players" do you expect to find that will be better than Young and cost less? (Again, this assumes that Young isn't a 15-game wonder and can actually maintain his 20 ppg average with good efficiency for the rest of the season.)

What I meant was keep the core of the group together, in this case Wall/Young/Blatche/McGee, but also have enough money left to go out and sign a free agent if need be. I wasn't saying we should replace Young though. I'd keep him at this point. If he keeps this up through the end of the season, yeah I'd have to keep him. You have to take that risk.

[Ruzious]

MikeG over at APBRmetrics periodically posts a "Most Improved" leaderboard. As of this morning, Nick ranked 7th behind Derrick Rose, Eric Gordon, Jrue Holiday, Deshawn Stevenson, DJ Augustin and Russell Westbrook.

I think we can knock Rose off the list because he was already perceived to be really good. Gordon might have a similar issue in voters' minds. Holiday and Young will suffer a bit because their teams are bad. Stevenson could draw votes because he's been mediocre to bad for so long. However, his better play still isn't all that good, and he's getting just 18 minutes per game.

My guess is that the award goes to Gordon, Augustin or Westbrook.

I'm going to guess Rose wins it - as he's perceived to have become one of the top few players in the NBA this season.

Trivia time:
Question 1: What players won the MIP award as members of the Bullets/Wiz?

Question 2: What former Bullets won the award when they were not members of the Bullets/Wiz?

Didn't we have a stretch when like 3 guys from Washington won the MIP in a very short time span? I want to say: George Muresan, Don McClean, and maybe Pervis Ellison.

Exactly right. All 3 pretty much went downhill after winning the award. I think Harvey Grant came close to winning it one year - also in that era.