Bean Burrito / Nick Young Appreciation Thread.

[nate33]

In hindsight. Wes Unseld was really a pretty good coach. He always seemed to get the most out of limited talent. Though I guess Jimmy Lynam was on board for some of those guys.

[Kanyewest]

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.

Actually, I think Deshawn was around the same age when he signed his extension with the Wizards. Stevenson came straight out of high school but he must have had a lot of wear and tear. As for the Wes Matthews contract, I agree that has turned out to be a VERY fair deal for Portland especially given Brandon Roy's injury woes and he's also outplaying Rudy Fernandez.

[BigA]

The labor issues are the wildcard to me. If that doesn't have a big impact, Nick continues to play about the way he is, and the team improves at a realistic rate (say, playing around .500 by the last 6 weeks), I'd say it's pretty likely someone will offer him a deal that the Wizards would be hard pressed to match. 4 years at $18 million is unrealistically low.

[Hoopalotta]

The labor issues are the wildcard to me. If that doesn't have a big impact, Nick continues to play about the way he is, and the team improves at a realistic rate (say, playing around .500 by the last 6 weeks), I'd say it's pretty likely someone will offer him a deal that the Wizards would be hard pressed to match. 4 years at $18 million is unrealistically low.

I agree - if he can more or less keep it up, I think we should be going under the assumption that he's going to get paid a pretty serious amount of loot. If he finishes out the year at about 18-19 points on nice percentages, he'd probably have gotten over $40 million on last summer's market. It sounds crazy, but guys like Outlaw and Gooden basically got full MLE type money, so I think someone would have dug a bit deeper and potentially on up to $45 million.

It seems like even if the MLE sticks around in some capacity, it's going to be peeled back considerably and is too low for Nick, so you're probably looking at only teams with cap space as being viable destinations.

I could see these teams potentially having interest:

Phoenix - No shooting guards on the roster if Mike Peaches opts out; should have some cash
Indiana - Doesn't jump out as an obvious need, but they'll have heaps of cash and presumably want younger players
Cleveland - Needs everywhere and interested in young players. If they're smart, they target one solid young player rather than a hodgepodge.
New York - if Melo is off the market and they don't want to wait till 2012; obviously they need a center, but there's enough available to depress the price. Dark Horse.
Minnesota - Ya' never know. They don't have their 2012 pick, so I think they spend and they have loads of bigs already.
Denver - It's quite possible that they'll have huge cap space available and will use it to forgo a traditional rebuild. Do they like Nick better than their guys? I think they might.
Chicago - Gaping hole of a need, but they don't have cap space.
Sacramento - not likely; only if they want to play Evans at point.
New Orleans - not a big chance here; no power forward if West opts out.

2-Guards on the Market:
J. Richardson - the only guy jumping out as being better than nick, but he's also higher mileage.
N. Young
J.R. Smith
A. Afflalo
C. Brewer
S. Weems
M. Thornton
Assorted Swingmen who can sorta play the SG - Battier, Reggie Williams, Azubuike, Mike Peaches

That's not a bad crop of two-guards, with a fair number of middling fallback options, but I'm thinking that we should only talk about Nick as a long term piece if we're prepared to go for something like an average of $7 million a year, even with the new CBA. If he keeps it up till the deadline, the FO needs to work under the assumption that someone's going to view him as a young core player and come in heavy for him in the first hours of the eventual signing period. To just expect to be able to lowball our way in at 4 years @ $20 strikes me as a naive assumption that's likely to backfire.

So I'd say it's either be ready to pay him or look to trade him at the deadline. Personally, I could really go either way with it.

[nate33]

Great breakdown, Hoops.

Tough to see Pietrus opting out. He's guaranteed $5M. Better off just to take that and wait until the dust settles on the CBA negotiations. I don't see Indy going after Young either, not when they already have two young SG's on the roster (George and Rush).

That really leaves only Cleveland, Minnesota and Denver. All 3 are serious threats.

The one good thing is that we don't really have to worry about offending Young with a lowball offer. Young stays here as long as we match.

EG's strategy is simple. Extend the qualifying offer, make a big public show about his intent to match any offer for Young, and then hope he can bluff everyone from even trying. There's really not much else EG can do.

[The Fax]

4yr/18mil would be a highway robbery. No way in hell Young's agent would accept that. On the other hand I think Young truly loves this city and could end up signing for less, but I highly doubt he'd give us that kind of a discount. If we can match Wes Matthews deal that would be ideal, although after seeing contracts like Mike Conley (5yr/45mil with a 15.1per as opposed to NY's 16.1) I'm thinking he's going to be asking for the 8-9mil/yr range.

[nate33]

4yr/18mil would be a highway robbery. No way in hell Young's agent would accept that. On the other hand I think Young truly loves this city and could end up signing for less, but I highly doubt he'd give us that kind of a discount. If we can match Wes Matthews deal that would be ideal, although after seeing contracts like Mike Conley (5yr/45mil with a 15.1per as opposed to NY's 16.1) I'm thinking he's going to be asking for the 8-9mil/yr range.

He won't make that much. I think the top end will be something like Travis Outlaw's contract: 5 years, $35M.

[hands11]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/gamelog?playerId=3243

Wow, what happen to the Nick appreciation. We just beat Utah for our first back to back win and first win over a winning team. Huge emotional high for the team. Maybe the highest it has been this year.

And Nick DAGGERED for the win. Nick has been flat out balln.

His mins, pts and shooting percentages are looking awesome month to month.
He started hot off the bench. His shooting percentage dipped in Dec with an increase of 10 minutes per game and now are back up in Jan with an increase in minutes of another 5 per game. Now averaging...

Jan numbers so far after 8 games are.

Min 38 FG 63-126 FG% .500 3Balls 20-42 3Ball %.476 22.5 Pts

Nick numbers are looking awesome and he still hasn't reached his peak of swag but even with that, he is a top 10...even top 7 SG. And only 4 games ago he hit for 43 points.

http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/player/_/stat/scoring-per-48-minutes/sort/avg48Points/position/shooting-guards

Contract talk ? To many things we dont know to make an educated guess there right now and we can't even offer him a contract now anyway.

What we do know is what is right in front of our eyes. NICK IS BALLn and is a bright spot for a team that has been hard to watch at times ( being kind ). For that reason, drink and enjoy.

FEED THE NICK

Next up. Three wins in a row and our first road win.

[no D in Hibachi]

Great breakdown, Hoops.

Tough to see Pietrus opting out. He's guaranteed $5M. Better off just to take that and wait until the dust settles on the CBA negotiations. I don't see Indy going after Young either, not when they already have two young SG's on the roster (George and Rush).

That really leaves only Cleveland, Minnesota and Denver. All 3 are serious threats.

The one good thing is that we don't really have to worry about offending Young with a lowball offer. Young stays here as long as we match.

EG's strategy is simple. Extend the qualifying offer, make a big public show about his intent to match any offer for Young, and then hope he can bluff everyone from even trying. There's really not much else EG can do.

Call me crazy but Cleveland, Minnesota and Denver (assuming no Melo) all reak. I can't even begin to believe a player with any aspirations would consider signing in Cleveland or Minnesota. The cities blow and the teams are in worse shape than the Wiz. Also, Arron Afflalo is turning out to be a pretty good player and Denver is committed to Ty Lawson and Afflalo as the backcourt of the future. Swapping out Afflalo for Young wouldn't be much of an upgrade and probably a downgrade in chemistry.

The way I see it no team with legit cap space will have serious interest in Nick Young. I believe the Wiz will offer a solid contract, but nothing that will crush the cap space. The worst the Wiz will have to match is the full MLE for Young (probably from Chicago), but if he keeps up his play for the rest of the season he'll certainly be worth the risk.

[nate33]

Cleveland and Minnesota reek, but they have deep pockets. If Washington offers $5M a year, and Cleveland offers $8M, Young will take the Cleveland offer.

[mhd]

Cleveland and Minnesota reek, but they have deep pockets. If Washington offers $5M a year, and Cleveland offers $8M, Young will take the Cleveland offer.

Exactly, I was advocating signing N1 cheap to a Thabo esque deal because I knew he was worth way more because he could defend 1 one 1 and hit 3s. Remember, Ernie wanted to trade Young for Rudy and was turned down.

[hands11]

FEED THE BEANS

[Kanyewest]

Cleveland and Minnesota reek, but they have deep pockets. If Washington offers $5M a year, and Cleveland offers $8M, Young will take the Cleveland offer.

Exactly, I was advocating signing N1 cheap to a Thabo esque deal because I knew he was worth way more because he could defend 1 one 1 and hit 3s. Remember, Ernie wanted to trade Young for Rudy and was turned down.

I know posters wanted to do it, but when was this on the table? From what I remember, the Wizards were in discussion of trading Butler for Rudy and/or Batum.

[Kanyewest]

4yr/18mil would be a highway robbery. No way in hell Young's agent would accept that. On the other hand I think Young truly loves this city and could end up signing for less, but I highly doubt he'd give us that kind of a discount. If we can match Wes Matthews deal that would be ideal, although after seeing contracts like Mike Conley (5yr/45mil with a 15.1per as opposed to NY's 16.1) I'm thinking he's going to be asking for the 8-9mil/yr range.

Agree. That's where I think Young's value is right now before taking the new CBA into account- a notch above the MLE; at least in my mind he projects to be an above average shooting guard. Yes there are limitations in Young's game but he is one of the better catch and shoot players in the league.

BTW, I did some research on the Mike Conley deal. Apparently, only $40 million are guaranteed, the additional $5 million comes in if the Grizzlies become a 50 win team AND they have playoff success. It's also the case where the Grizzlies may have been outbidding against themselves, but also willing to defer the money in a longterm package.

And of course, Young could command a salary much higher from teams who are willing to overpay to make a big move. All it takes is one GM to overpay or an organization thinking they can improve on a players deficiencies. For instance, Isiah Thomas was willing to give Jared Jeffries the MLE because he was delusional enough to think that they needed a LeBron stopper, and that he would somehow improve his offense.

[no D in Hibachi]

I believe there are several reasons why the Wiz will retain Young and why they won’t low ball him.

1. It’s Ted’s philosophy to build through the draft and retain core pieces if they demonstrate their value to the team. Look at the Capitals, for instance. They are very pro-active in retaining the players they draft and develop.

2. Nick Young is EG’s guy. He drafted him and was there for his entire developmental process with the Wiz. Sure he was floating him out as trade bait earlier, but that was before he became a revelation. More often than not GM’s who draft and develop players rarely let them walk in FA unless there are other issues, which does not appear to be the case with Young.

3. EG re-upped Blatche after his breakout year, which was only 32 games. Assuming it continues throughout the season, Young’s breakout performance has been all-star level play since Arenas left. Precedence indicates EG will value Young, like he did with Blatche, and re-sign him.

4. SG’s who stretch defenses are valued in the league. Korver, Kapono, Miller, Carroll, Morrow, and Damon Jones all got paid, and got paid well, just to be spot up shooters. Each of them received average salaries of $4M+. Young is more than just a spot up shooter as he plays defense immensely better than any of the players mentioned. To think he’d settle for $4M per year is naïve. Further, with the current salaries being doled out what better player are the Wiz getting with a 5/35 contract? That’s roughly the contract given to Outlaw, Gooden, and Amir Johnson. He’d be paid less than Stephen Jackson and Corey Maggette and a number of other wings.

5. It’s clear Wall and Young are developing great chemistry. Wall is the face of the franchise and the Wizards are committed to putting the right pieces around him. I’m not saying N1 is the greatest SG in the league, far from it, but who else in the NBA would be more perfect for Wall as his backcourt side-kick?

[dobrojim]

MIP winners for the Buzzards

Harv Grant
Pervis
Don MacLean

Big Gheorghe never won it.

[hands11]

While it is a bummer they still couldn't get their first road win, the Bean did his part and banged out a nice road game against the Bucks.

http://espn.go.com/nba/boxscore?id=310119015

37 min 9-19 FG 1-4 3FG 2-3 FTs 6 RBs 5 AST 1 STL 0 TO 21 PTS

If he would have hit on more 3 it would have been really great but Nick is banging it out.
6 Rebounds and 5 Assists ? That was the missing piece for him so that was nice to see.

Dray had his 2nd back to back solid production games. 7 rebounds was a little lite but 10-17 FG and 23 Pts was solid.

Wall had 10 assist in the first half and only 13 for the game so he faded and Lewis didn't step up enough. Same with McGee and his early foul trouble again.

The good news story for this team continues to be Nick. Right after that it is Dray finding his game again. But they need more consistency from Wall, McGee and Lewis.

Crappy game to let get away from them when it would have meant a lot to get that win. Three is a row and their first road win would be exactly the kind of confidence boost they needed. Now they get PHX at home where they play better.

Great game for Nick. He is Balln. His average keeps going up. Now at 16.6 pts in 29.5 Min and he finally got his mug on the stats page as the teams leading scorer.

Last 5 game average 40 Min. 26.6 Pts

He needs to get to the line more on the road.
3 home games 8 FTA average
2 road games 2.5 FTA average

http://espn.go.com/nba/team/stats/_/nam ... on-wizards

[nate33]

He needs to get to the line more of the road.
3 home games 8 FTA average
2 road games 2.5 FTA average

http://espn.go.com/nba/team/stats/_/nam ... on-wizards

He really isn't earning trips to the line in either venue. The reason he has more FTA's at home is because the team has played well enough to have a lead late, and the opposition has been forced to intentionally foul Nick.

I'm loving Young's passing though. His game last night was the complete package.

[hands11]

Looking for Super Bean to lite it up tonight against PHX.

30 plus pts with rebounds and assists.

[nate33]

I'm going to focus on the lone bright spot following the Phoenix game.

Nick Young's averages over the past 6 games:

26.3 points
.658 TS%
5.2 rebounds
2.8 assists
1.7 turnovers

Seriously, those are 2nd Team All-NBA caliber numbers. You gotta love how he has improved his rebounding and passing. And his scoring remains ridiculously efficient.