Josh Giddey - Conundrum Killer

[GuardianEnzo]

No way AK lets Giddey walk after this season. The only question is what the number winds up being.

[dougthonus]

He is also going to get more than $20m, so people should brace themselves for that. This 10-15-18m talk people have been saying comes across like they haven't kept up with what salaries are like in today's NBA. We have hit the point where $20m buys you low usage 5th starter or a good bench player. Caruso just got $20m on a long term deal as an injury prone 30 year old bench guy and no one even blinked at the contract.

I mean Giddey is a bench caliber player, so yes, that makes sense. FWIW, 20M on average makes you the 4th highest paid guy on a team. Giddey isn't the 4th best player on a good team.

In terms of how we will pay him, I think you are right. In terms of what I think he's really worth, I think it's about 14M, and that's with inflated NBA dollars taken into account. I view him as a non-starting caliber player.

[DrModesty]

He is also going to get more than $20m, so people should brace themselves for that. This 10-15-18m talk people have been saying comes across like they haven't kept up with what salaries are like in today's NBA. We have hit the point where $20m buys you low usage 5th starter or a good bench player. Caruso just got $20m on a long term deal as an injury prone 30 year old bench guy and no one even blinked at the contract.

I mean Giddey is a bench caliber player, so yes, that makes sense. FWIW, 20M on average makes you the 4th highest paid guy on a team. Giddey isn't the 4th best player on a good team.

In terms of how we will pay him, I think you are right. In terms of what I think he's really worth, I think it's about 14M, and that's with inflated NBA dollars taken into account. I view him as a non-starting caliber player.

I get it. You take the harshest view of Giddey you can justify. It does make your talk on contracts pretty pointless to engage with though.

[jnrjr79]

He is also going to get more than $20m, so people should brace themselves for that. This 10-15-18m talk people have been saying comes across like they haven't kept up with what salaries are like in today's NBA. We have hit the point where $20m buys you low usage 5th starter or a good bench player. Caruso just got $20m on a long term deal as an injury prone 30 year old bench guy and no one even blinked at the contract.

I mean Giddey is a bench caliber player, so yes, that makes sense. FWIW, 20M on average makes you the 4th highest paid guy on a team. Giddey isn't the 4th best player on a good team.

In terms of how we will pay him, I think you are right. In terms of what I think he's really worth, I think it's about 14M, and that's with inflated NBA dollars taken into account. I view him as a non-starting caliber player.

I get it. You take the harshest view of Giddey you can justify. It does make your talk on contracts pretty pointless to engage with though.

lol @ “Giddey is a bench player worth $14M/year” being “the harshest view of Giddey you can justify.”

[DrModesty]

I mean Giddey is a bench caliber player, so yes, that makes sense. FWIW, 20M on average makes you the 4th highest paid guy on a team. Giddey isn't the 4th best player on a good team.

In terms of how we will pay him, I think you are right. In terms of what I think he's really worth, I think it's about 14M, and that's with inflated NBA dollars taken into account. I view him as a non-starting caliber player.

I get it. You take the harshest view of Giddey you can justify. It does make your talk on contracts pretty pointless to engage with though.

lol @ “Giddey is a bench player worth $14M/year” being “the harshest view of Giddey you can justify.”

Give me one that is even harsher that doesn't make you sound like a total buffoon.

[dougthonus]

I get it. You take the harshest view of Giddey you can justify. It does make your talk on contracts pretty pointless to engage with though.

From a practical sense, tell me who you think pays Giddey more than 14M next off-season? If we force him to get an offer sheet he will come up empty. There just isn't expected to be many cap room teams, and no one is looking for a guy who's an inefficient scorer and bottom of the league defensively. He just doesn't check the boxes that teams need or have a natural fit in many places.

Maybe there are some teams that are like "well, we'll just take any talent we can find", but then that team has to evaluate Giddey as better than everyone else and have more than the MLE to spend, and then still, how high do they have to bid before it's worse than proactively signing Giddey?

Risk is really low IMO to force him to go to the market. If we did that with Pat, he was probably around a 12-13M dollar player instead of an 18M dollar one. Cleveland got Okoro for 8M a year whom was a similar caliber guy by doing this exact thing. There are some players whom are high risk to play this game with, but Giddey doesn't strike me as such a guy. He has very limited places that he would fit in.

[HomoSapien]

He's like if Rondo didn't have a brain. Doesn't love the game. If they extend him I'm probably hanging up the Bulls fandom.

What exactly is that based on?

[kodo]

He is also going to get more than $20m, so people should brace themselves for that. This 10-15-18m talk people have been saying comes across like they haven't kept up with what salaries are like in today's NBA. We have hit the point where $20m buys you low usage 5th starter or a good bench player. Caruso just got $20m on a long term deal as an injury prone 30 year old bench guy and no one even blinked at the contract.

I mean Giddey is a bench caliber player, so yes, that makes sense. FWIW, 20M on average makes you the 4th highest paid guy on a team. Giddey isn't the 4th best player on a good team.

In terms of how we will pay him, I think you are right. In terms of what I think he's really worth, I think it's about 14M, and that's with inflated NBA dollars taken into account. I view him as a non-starting caliber player.

He was literally the 4th best player on a 57 win team. And he wasn't some kind of anchor on that team, his +/- was right in line with Chet Holmgren & Jalen Williams.
Jalen: +5.4
Chet: +5.2
Giddey: +4.7

But I'm in the ballpark with you on price, he's simply not the kind of player that's ever your core top 2/3 on a contending team, he's roleplayer either as a starter/bench. Under $20M would be ideal because he's still a roleplayer.

[dougthonus]

I get it. You take the harshest view of Giddey you can justify. It does make your talk on contracts pretty pointless to engage with though.

lol @ “Giddey is a bench player worth $14M/year” being “the harshest view of Giddey you can justify.”

Give me one that is even harsher that doesn't make you sound like a total buffoon.

I think it would be easy to justify that "I do not want Giddey on my roster at any price".

He is too difficult to build around and compromises the rest of the way you build the roster forcing you into too many other bad decisions to try and offset his flaws.

[dougthonus]

He was literally the 4th best player on a 57 win team. And he wasn't some kind of anchor on that team, his +/- was right in line with Chet Holmgren & Jalen Williams.
Jalen: +5.4
Chet: +5.2
Giddey: +4.7

But I'm in the ballpark with you on price, he's simply not the kind of player that's ever your core top 2/3 on a contending team, he's roleplayer either as a starter/bench. Under $20M would be ideal because he's still a roleplayer.

Net rating is such a poor indicator of anything. If you look at EPM which regresses out all the noise, he's negative every year in the league except one where he was +.1. I don't think EPM is so great either, but it's leagues better than net rating. That team most definitely did not view him as their 4th best player.

The day the NBA net rating started getting published might be the worst day for statistical discussions of players to ever happen. It's just such a junk stat. It's like looking at total points without looking at scoring efficiency.

[DrModesty]

I get it. You take the harshest view of Giddey you can justify. It does make your talk on contracts pretty pointless to engage with though.

From a practical sense, tell me who you think pays Giddey more than 14M next off-season? If we force him to get an offer sheet he will come up empty. There just isn't expected to be many cap room teams, and no one is looking for a guy who's an inefficient scorer and bottom of the league defensively. He just doesn't check the boxes that teams need or have a natural fit in many places.

Maybe there are some teams that are like "well, we'll just take any talent we can find", but then that team has to evaluate Giddey as better than everyone else and have more than the MLE to spend, and then still, how high do they have to bid before it's worse than proactively signing Giddey?

Risk is really low IMO to force him to go to the market. If we did that with Pat, he was probably around a 12-13M dollar player instead of an 18M dollar one. Cleveland got Okoro for 8M a year whom was a similar caliber guy by doing this exact thing. There are some players whom are high risk to play this game with, but Giddey doesn't strike me as such a guy. He has very limited places that he would fit in.

I think half the league would instantly sign him if they knew it only took $14. You are just flatly misunderstanding his value and the NBA marketplace. That is a number where teams would sign him purely on the basis that he would be an instant positive asset you can trade for value, whether they want him or not.

[DrModesty]

lol @ “Giddey is a bench player worth $14M/year” being “the harshest view of Giddey you can justify.”

Give me one that is even harsher that doesn't make you sound like a total buffoon.

I think it would be easy to justify that "I do not want Giddey on my roster at any price".

He is too difficult to build around and compromises the rest of the way you build the roster forcing you into too many other bad decisions to try and offset his flaws.

See, you can't justify that take. Because there is a whole range of prices where you can just trade him for positive value.

[Jcool0]

He was literally the 4th best player on a 57 win team. And he wasn't some kind of anchor on that team, his +/- was right in line with Chet Holmgren & Jalen Williams.
Jalen: +5.4
Chet: +5.2
Giddey: +4.7

But I'm in the ballpark with you on price, he's simply not the kind of player that's ever your core top 2/3 on a contending team, he's roleplayer either as a starter/bench. Under $20M would be ideal because he's still a roleplayer.

Net rating is such a poor indicator of anything. If you look at EPM which regresses out all the noise, he's negative every year in the league except one where he was +.1. I don't think EPM is so great either, but it's leagues better than net rating. That team most definitely did not view him as their 4th best player.

The day the NBA net rating started getting published might be the worst day for statistical discussions of players to ever happen. It's just such a junk stat. It's like looking at total points without looking at scoring efficiency.

Posting EPM is just wasting everyone's time. No one stat is ever going to tell the complete story. Bulls are going to resign him, so they think of him as a top 5 player.

[SalmonsSuperfan]

He's like if Rondo didn't have a brain. Doesn't love the game. If they extend him I'm probably hanging up the Bulls fandom.

What exactly is that based on?

vibe check. he's gotten worse as his career has progressed.

[cocktailswith_2short]

He's pretty good and only 22 some fans need to come down off the ledge .there's no way you can accurately evaluate him in this dysfunction .

[jnrjr79]

I get it. You take the harshest view of Giddey you can justify. It does make your talk on contracts pretty pointless to engage with though.

From a practical sense, tell me who you think pays Giddey more than 14M next off-season? If we force him to get an offer sheet he will come up empty. There just isn't expected to be many cap room teams, and no one is looking for a guy who's an inefficient scorer and bottom of the league defensively. He just doesn't check the boxes that teams need or have a natural fit in many places.

Maybe there are some teams that are like "well, we'll just take any talent we can find", but then that team has to evaluate Giddey as better than everyone else and have more than the MLE to spend, and then still, how high do they have to bid before it's worse than proactively signing Giddey?

Risk is really low IMO to force him to go to the market. If we did that with Pat, he was probably around a 12-13M dollar player instead of an 18M dollar one. Cleveland got Okoro for 8M a year whom was a similar caliber guy by doing this exact thing. There are some players whom are high risk to play this game with, but Giddey doesn't strike me as such a guy. He has very limited places that he would fit in.

Following up on this - I read today that Brooklyn is expected to be the only cap space team this offseason.

[dougthonus]

I think half the league would instantly sign him if they knew it only took $14. You are just flatly misunderstanding his value and the NBA marketplace. That is a number where teams would sign him purely on the basis that he would be an instant positive asset you can trade for value, whether they want him or not.

Based on what?

You've not made any argument about the points raised. Where does a low efficiency player that compresses the court for all your other offensive players if the ball is not in his hands, and is going to be your most targeted guy on defense whom will get run off the floor by any serious team, fit in rotation wise on a typical NBA team?

Even if he is a great passer and good rebounder, he hurts you if the ball isn't in his hands on offense, always kills you on defense, and isn't good enough to be a primary on ball guy. He was traded away for a 30 year old bench player by a contending team last year and played out of their end game rotation (ie, they didn't think he was a top 5 player in their rotation and traded him for a bench guy). We have frequently benched him at end of games (ie, we also don't think he's a consistent top 5 player on our bad team when it comes to winning time).

A guy who is not a closing lineup guy is not worth 20M a year. Go look up every team in the league and average out the salary of the 6th highest paid player on the team if we assume Giddey is the next best guy as a non closer. I'd guess it's around 12M a year. It's certainly no where near 20M a year.

I'd also note over the last two years, Giddey has made no meaningful progress towards fixing his flaws, despite acknowledging the exact flaws that exist. I was one of the most pro-Giddey trade guys on the forum, but it's obvious watching him play for a year, that this isn't going to work. He's a not a closing lineup guy, and to me those guys don't make more than 15M.

Whether someone will pay him that much if it isn't us? Maybe, but let him test the market and find out then, and we can decide to match. The fact that someone might doesn't mean that we should or that he will have trade value if we do. To me, Giddey just isn't good enough to talk to pro-actively on a contract.

[dougthonus]

Posting EPM is just wasting everyone's time. No one stat is ever going to tell the complete story. Bulls are going to resign him, so they think of him as a top 5 player.

I agree that EPM is a waste of time, just less of a waste of time than net rating. I also agree we will sign him, but our front office is the 2nd worst in the league (Nico Harrison forcing me out of saying worst now that bastard) and has a habit of vastly overpaying guys they previous committed to, because of sunk cost theory.

Our actions based on a guy we made a previous "big splash" move around don't mean a whole lot to me, because the follow up move is always to double down.

[michaelm]

I think half the league would instantly sign him if they knew it only took $14. You are just flatly misunderstanding his value and the NBA marketplace. That is a number where teams would sign him purely on the basis that he would be an instant positive asset you can trade for value, whether they want him or not.

Based on what?

You've not made any argument about the points raised. Where does a low efficiency player that compresses the court for all your other offensive players if the ball is not in his hands, and is going to be your most targeted guy on defense whom will get run off the floor by any serious team, fit in rotation wise on a typical NBA team?

Even if he is a great passer and good rebounder, he hurts you if the ball isn't in his hands on offense, always kills you on defense, and isn't good enough to be a primary on ball guy. He was traded away for a 30 year old role player by a contending team last year and played out of their end game rotation (ie, they didn't think he was a top 5 player in their rotation). We have frequently benched him at end of games (ie, we also don't think he's a consistent top 5 player on our bad team when it comes to winning time).

A guy who is not a closing lineup guy is not worth 20M a year. Go look up every team in the league and average out the salary of the 6th highest paid player on the team if we assume Giddey is the next best guy as a non closer. It's probably about 12M.

I am actually Australian and agree with you. There was talk OKC saw him as a 6th man going forward and were prepared to re-sign him on that basis. If so he should have taken that role on a team which is very likely to be a contender for years to come.

[dougthonus]

See, you can't justify that take. Because there is a whole range of prices where you can just trade him for positive value.

Fair enough. On court, I think there are many teams that would have basically no interest in him given his stated desire to start / earn money / play big minutes / be a star, but if he were forced into a 10M dollar deal, you have to assume those feelings about himself would also change to some degree, and he would be forced into his role.

I think pure trade asset value range is probably 8-10Mish.