Josh Giddey 3.0

[League Circles]

Not to start a fight, what are the best guesses for this last minute deal? Absolutely no criticism of anybody's guess from me at least, how do you all think this turns out? Actual year, numbers, AVV, options.

My best guess is that the Bulls cave more on aav in order to get a guaranteed 5 year deal with no PO. It will either be flat or decreasing in year 2 before increasing (to help us with cap space flexibility next summer).

So I predict 5 years, 25.5 mil aav.

I'd also look to do 5 years, because I'd rather go all-in or not at all, but based on our initial deal being 4 years, and us being low on AAV, I doubt we'll land on 5 in the long run. I'd also rather do S&T than QO or 2-3 years, but I'm not the Bulls FO, and they don't think like I do

I think the Bulls will look at 4/100 or lower AAV with a 4th year PO.

Ahh, I didn't know it had been reported that we offered only a 4 year deal. In that case I agree a 5 year is unlikely.

I really can't imagine anything desirable is out there in a sign and trade. Most likely garbage picks and mediocre or bad salary coming back. I mean Josh Giddey is what a #6 overall pick that pans out actually looks like, so the Bulls would basically need to get the equivalent of like a top 3 pick in 2026 for me to be interested in a sign and trade. I know we think somewhat similarly on Giddey but obviously not on draft picks lol.

I think the Bulls would rather give him 4 years at a higher price price than 3 years with a 4th year PO at a lower price.

So I revise my prediction to 4 years, no PO, flat, at 25-26 aav.

[kodo]

I'd be surprised if Giddey does a 5 year because he thinks he's underpaid, at least potentially at his ceiling.
Players who think they're paid appropriately or overpaid do the long term deals.
Patrick Williams sprinted to sign his 5 year, he signed hours into the FA summer.

[League Circles]

Funny to remember that Michael was making way more than Giddey will get **** 30 years ago lol.

[dougthonus]

Funny to remember that Michael was making way more than Giddey will get **** 30 years ago lol.

Actually 30 years ago, Michael Jordan was making 3.85M a year.

29 years ago he was making 30M a year.

Jordan's salaries are pretty funny though. His career earnings out side of 96/97 and 97/98 are 30.7M total for 14 years. His numbers in those two years are 30.1M and 33.1M.

His annual earnings from Nike today I think are ~400M per year (but have ramped up a ton recently). Not sure how much he's made from endorsements in his life, but his basketball earnings are under 100M. Frobes has his net worth at 3.8B but that seems really low to me given he made about 1.8B on the Hornets sale and from what I could tell his Nike earnings were over a billion in just the last 3 years, but who knows.

[Infinity2152]

Man I think we're coming together more than ever. I think all these are reasonable. I feel most guys are more worried about the risk of being tied to a bad contract than whether he actually makes an extra 2 or 3 mill or even 5 more a year and that's totally understandable.

The cap is going up a lot every year. In my opinion, signing a young guy at his present market value for 5 years is the best deal you can make. That guy pretty much has to regress for that contract to get worse, unless it gets higher with the cap. A flat contract looks better every year as a matter of course with an increasing cap. If he gets better, the difference is even more extreme. Kind of like a built-in hedge for the risk, even though the risk is still there.

Of course, present market value is up for debate, but the principle remains the same.

[Infinity2152]

Man I think we're coming together more than ever! I think all these are reasonable. I feel most guys are more worried about the risk of being tied to a bad contract than whether he actually makes an extra 2 or 3 mill or even 5 more a year and that's totally understandable.

The cap is going up a lot every year. In my opinion, signing a young guy at his present market value for 5 years is the best deal you can make. That guy pretty much has to regress for that contract to get worse, unless it gets higher with the cap. A flat contract looks better every year as a matter of course with an increasing cap. If he gets better, the difference is even more extreme. Kind of like a built-in hedge for the risk, even though the risk is still there.

Of course, present market value is up for debate, but the principle remains the same.

[dougthonus]

Man I think we're coming together more than ever. I think all these are reasonable. I feel most guys are more worried about the risk of being tied to a bad contract than whether he actually makes an extra 2 or 3 mill or even 5 more a year and that's totally understandable.

I don't think anyone has ever been far apart on numbers. It's mostly the irrelevant rhetoric like slamming one side of the negotiation vs the other side, and pretending that there is some morally important outcome or right/wrong vs two generationally wealthy sides with generationally wealthy professional negotiators representing them in a business transaction.

That vast majority of my posts in this thread have been about people demonizing the Bulls negotiation style while ignoring that Giddey's doing the same thing, and both are probably correct to do what they are doing.

The cap is going up a lot every year. In my opinion, signing a young guy at his present market value for 5 years is the best deal you can make. That guy pretty much has to regress for that contract to get worse, unless it gets higher with the cap. A flat contract looks better every year as a matter of course with an increasing cap. If he gets better, the difference is even more extreme. Kind of like a built-in hedge for the risk, even though the risk is still there.

I agree with this sentiment though I think it depends what you mean by "a lot". The increase is projected at 7% next year. The new national TV deal kicks in this year. Local TV money is declining, viewership seems to be declining. I would not be surprised to see more stagnation after that, but the NBA has been really awesome at finding ways to generate revenue, much better than other leagues, and seems to have amazing negotiation skills, so I wouldn't put it past them to pull something out of thin air with a massive European or China or Russia deal or who knows what.

In terms of impact on the cap, it isn't quite as straight forward as you claim:
8% raises - becomes a bigger percentage of teh cap most likely (this is probably the most common structuring of long term deals)
5% raises - (other team signs him type structuring) - probably not something we'd do in this case, but probably closer to break even
Flat/Descending - will decrease as a percentage - this is what we talk about most, and it might be what we do, but it's not the standard way teams have operated in the past (though does seem to be more and more common now)

Obviously, we'll see what the Bulls do. I think if we could do a flat or descending structure on a 5 year contract, I would increase my AAV a decent amount, because it gives me a lot of potential upside on the back end of the deal which is where I think it is most important. Ie, nothing special is happening the next two to three years anyway. I hope we have something special going in years 4-5 from now, so if this contract looks amazing in years 4 and 5, that's when the numbers would mean the most to me towards stacking other deals into a contender.

[Infinity2152]

Man I think we're coming together more than ever. I think all these are reasonable. I feel most guys are more worried about the risk of being tied to a bad contract than whether he actually makes an extra 2 or 3 mill or even 5 more a year and that's totally understandable.

I don't think anyone has ever been far apart on numbers. It's mostly the irrelevant rhetoric like slamming one side of the negotiation vs the other side, and pretending that there is some morally important outcome or right/wrong vs two generationally wealthy sides with generationally wealthy professional negotiators representing them in a business transaction.

The cap is going up a lot every year. In my opinion, signing a young guy at his present market value for 5 years is the best deal you can make. That guy pretty much has to regress for that contract to get worse, unless it gets higher with the cap. A flat contract looks better every year as a matter of course with an increasing cap. If he gets better, the difference is even more extreme. Kind of like a built-in hedge for the risk, even though the risk is still there.

I agree with this sentiment though I think it depends what you mean by "a lot". The increase is projected at 7% next year. The new national TV deal kicks in this year. Local TV money is declining, viewership seems to be declining.

If you were to do a standard team deal with 8% raises, I would speculate there is a good chance you are increasing the cost as a percentage of the cap over time over the next 5 years. If you are doing a 5% (new team FA) raises deal then I think you are probably going to be around break even or a bit ahead.

Obviously if you structure flat or descending, you will decrease your percentage of the cap, so the structuring of the deal will change how that works out, and it definitely isn't guaranteed that you're going to get a decreasing percentage of the cap going forward by any meaningful amount or at all.

The default structure is typically max raises. I think the forum has been talking a lot about "flat" contracts or descending contracts, and those become more common in shorter deals, so that may be where the Bulls would land, I would prefer that structure myself, but who knows what will actually happen.

I'm actually agreeing with most of what you're saying, lol. Yes, I consider a cap increase of 7% average over five years pretty huge if what we're talking about is a AAV difference of a few mill on a five year contract, and the first 7% increase is starting on a $154.7 mill cap. The increase in just that first year is $10.8 mill and it gets larger every year for five years. We've also had 10% increases the last two years, so who knows? But an average of 7% year over year for 5 years is pretty huge, imo. Giddey's contract would be maybe 15% of the cap at $28 mill in a few years?

And yes, I'm talking specifically with flat contracts, not increasing contracts. With all the cap space we're currently projected to have, doesn't seem to make much sense to backload any contract over 3 years, when we have to pay Matas. That's one of the things if I was the Bulls I might give up a little AAV to make it a flat contract. front loading it would be even better, we have a ton of space this summer, and Giddey will be cheapest when it's Matas contract comes up.

Slamming either side of the negotiation OR supporting either side is irrelevant, but both sides are guilty of that. Nobody knows what's really going on.
Giddey not being signed yet is bringing uncertainty, and a lot of people are frustrated by no apparent movement. I think people have a right to be frustrated and express their frustrations without being called names (and I'm not saying you're doing this specifically).

But there seems to be an attack on anyone who thinks the management could do better, for instance, starting with a higher number. It's all meaningless and conjecture, but it could be true, it might not be.

[dougthonus]

I'm actually agreeing with most of what you're saying, lol. Yes, I consider a cap increase of 7% average over five years pretty huge if what we're talking about is a AAV difference of a few mill on a five year contract, and the first 7% increase is starting on a $154.7 mill cap. The increase in just that first year is $10.8 mill and it gets larger every year for five years. We've also had 10% increases the last two years, so who knows? But an average of 7% year over year for 5 years is pretty huge, imo. Giddey's contract would be maybe 15% of the cap at $25 mill in a few years?

And yes, I'm talking specifically with flat contracts, not increasing contracts. With all the cap space we're currently projected to have, doesn't seem to make much sense to backload any contract over 3 years, when we have to pay Matas. That's one of the things if I was the Bulls I might give up a little AAV to make it a flat contract. front loading it would be even better, we have a ton of space this summer, and Giddey will be cheapest when it's Matas contract comes up.

If you look at cap increases, they are mostly tied to major deals, mostly when the national TV deal spikes up.

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/cba

There is some weird noise because the league lost a crap ton of money in the COVID year, and so 2020 and 2021 were way down vs a normal increase, then when all the ticket sales came back they increased at 10% in 22 and 23, then back to 3% and change, but if you look at the 8 years between TV deals, the average growth was about 5%.

All of the new TV deal will be factored in after this year (or at least it is projected to be), so I would guess 5% cap increases seems like a reasonable guess for what happens after that money is factored in, so if we were to sign Giddey to a 5 year deal, I would best guess finger in the air say the cap will increase by 7%, 5%, 5% 5% over the four years after this first year on the new deal.

Obviously it won't be a linear 5%, will probably be something wonky like: 7% 2% 8% 4% 6%

[Infinity2152]

I'm actually agreeing with most of what you're saying, lol. Yes, I consider a cap increase of 7% average over five years pretty huge if what we're talking about is a AAV difference of a few mill on a five year contract, and the first 7% increase is starting on a $154.7 mill cap. The increase in just that first year is $10.8 mill and it gets larger every year for five years. We've also had 10% increases the last two years, so who knows? But an average of 7% year over year for 5 years is pretty huge, imo. Giddey's contract would be maybe 15% of the cap at $25 mill in a few years?

And yes, I'm talking specifically with flat contracts, not increasing contracts. With all the cap space we're currently projected to have, doesn't seem to make much sense to backload any contract over 3 years, when we have to pay Matas. That's one of the things if I was the Bulls I might give up a little AAV to make it a flat contract. front loading it would be even better, we have a ton of space this summer, and Giddey will be cheapest when it's Matas contract comes up.

If you look at cap increases, they are mostly tied to major deals, mostly when the national TV deal spikes up.

https://www.spotrac.com/nba/cba

There is some weird noise because the league lost a crap ton of money in the COVID year, and so 2020 and 2021 were way down vs a normal increase, then when all the ticket sales came back they increased at 10% in 22 and 23, then back to 3% and change, but if you look at the 8 years between TV deals, the average growth was about 5%.

All of the new TV deal will be factored in after this year (or at least it is projected to be), so I would guess 5% cap increases seems like a reasonable guess for what happens after that money is factored in.

5% would be fine to use. 5% of the total cap increasing over the next 5 years would still be pretty huge compared to the $4-6 mill difference they probably end up at. Again, on a flat or declining contract.

The length of the contract would be the priority. We're a young team with few valuable assets. We're projected to have plenty of cap. We have no immediate plans to use that space (I hope). If this was a vet championship team, I'd look at it differently. The Bulls will have to take some swings if they want to really improve over the next few years. Think I'd be making the same argument with any promising young player at this point with our team where it is. We don't have to spend to acquire Giddey, we already did that. Let's try to shine him up and maximize his value, invest in him. There is some risk.

Same goes with the value of maintaining the positive relationship between Giddey and the organization. Could care less if the Bulls damage their relationships with Coby, Vucevic, Williams, Huerter, etc. I do hope Giddey and Matas are parts of our future and core and I want them to be happy and players that want to be here. We can disagree as to whether players feelings, loyalty, etc matter. These guys are going to get paid any team they play on, it's about more than just the money with many guys. I want those guys to want to be here and want to re-sign if everything looks great.

Not saying that's the only thing, or even the most important thing. Just saying that it does matter. And it could affect the team. It could. Not that it will.

[DuckIII]

Are we making best guesses on a final deal? I’m thinking a significant compromise on both sides for years, dollars and guarantees. I’m ignoring the potential for incentives in this prediction:

3/66, third year being a player option. Giddey bets on himself but with protection, Bulls get two years to see what Giddey/Matas/Noa look like together.

[Infinity2152]

Man, I'm not going to lie. Even the thought that Giddey might regress is depressing. I think we need him to be legitimately great, not good, not even very good, for us to even have a season. We could contend for a top pick, though.

Every NBA team has skilled NBA athletes. It takes teamwork, cohesion and leadership to win games. Coby's a free agent. Vucevic is on the trade block. Matas is 20 and hasn't even started a full season. Most of the team is expiring or on short term contracts. I can't think of one team, barring injuries and/or Giddey being great, where we have the best player on the court any given night.

If Giddey plays great we could look like a promising young team, build cohesion, flow, chemistry. Maybe Vucevic plays well and we offload him. He gets hurt, regresses, isn't the best Giddey he can be, we could look like a rec league team out there. Who's going to run the show? Donovan from the bench?

Coby would seem the logical choice and a Coby White putting up numbers for an upcoming free agency is not the guy I want running my offense and feeding Matas and Noa. Ayo and Tre Jones probably play point, but I think Coby would take over the offense.

[sco]

Man, I'm not going to lie. Even the thought that Giddey might regress is depressing. I think we need him to be legitimately great, not good, not even very good, for us to even have a season. We could contend for a top pick, though.

Every NBA team has skilled NBA athletes. It takes teamwork, cohesion and leadership to win games. Coby's a free agent. Vucevic is on the trade block. Matas is 20 and hasn't even started a full season. Most of the team is expiring or on short term contracts.

If Giddey plays great we could look like a promising young team, build cohesion, flow, chemistry. Maybe Vucevic plays well and we offload him. He gets hurt, regresses, isn't the best Giddey he can be, we could look like a rec league team out there. Who's going to run the show? Donovan from the bench?

Not that I root for bad seasons, and I'm with you rooting for Giddey to be great.

Honestly, I think that Jones would be better in some ways as our PG (not overall). He's not the passer, scorer, 3pt shooter (feels weird to say) or rebounder that Giddey is, but he's a decent play maker and a very good defender (that Giddey isn't). Depending on his development, you might then be able to start Noa, and have a line-up of Jones/Coby/Matas/Noa/[anybody but Vuc] after the ASB.

[Infinity2152]

Man, I'm not going to lie. Even the thought that Giddey might regress is depressing. I think we need him to be legitimately great, not good, not even very good, for us to even have a season. We could contend for a top pick, though.

Every NBA team has skilled NBA athletes. It takes teamwork, cohesion and leadership to win games. Coby's a free agent. Vucevic is on the trade block. Matas is 20 and hasn't even started a full season. Most of the team is expiring or on short term contracts.

If Giddey plays great we could look like a promising young team, build cohesion, flow, chemistry. Maybe Vucevic plays well and we offload him. He gets hurt, regresses, isn't the best Giddey he can be, we could look like a rec league team out there. Who's going to run the show? Donovan from the bench?

Not that I root for bad seasons, and I'm with you rooting for Giddey to be great.

Honestly, I think that Jones would be better in some ways as our PG (not overall). He's not the passer, scorer, 3pt shooter (feels weird to say) or rebounder that Giddey is, but he's a decent play maker and a very good defender (that Giddey isn't). Depending on his development, you might then be able to start Noa, and have a line-up of Jones/Coby/Matas/Noa/[anybody but Vuc] after the ASB.

I think we could survive with Ayo and Tre at point, but we're not outclassing any team. Our top 2 players are then Coby and Matas. I do think Coby would just demand the ball a lot, and nobody has seniority over him. Plus he's technically a PG too and a ballhandler. With no leadership, who's the alpha?

Don't think Coby's a bad player or bad guy at all. But Tre Jones has been here 5 minutes, and Ayo was pretty bad last season and benched. I could see a lot of ball dominating by Coby even with them on the floor. Hard to argue he's the best scorer left.

Was watching a video yesterday of Kenyon Martin yesterday talking about the summer they traded Marbury for Jason Kidd. Six players in double digits, solid players. Team bottom 7 in offense and defense, missed the playoffs. Season starts, mostly same players, completely different team, 54 wins I think. Said Kidd didn't talk to them about anything. He watched the players and made everything so much easier. He was still 'ason Kidd, with no J at the time, lol. Watched the Bulls run second half of the season, just hope we got something special.

[dougthonus]

Man, I'm not going to lie. Even the thought that Giddey might regress is depressing. I think we need him to be legitimately great, not good, not even very good, for us to even have a season. We could contend for a top pick, though.

Every NBA team has skilled NBA athletes. It takes teamwork, cohesion and leadership to win games. Coby's a free agent. Vucevic is on the trade block. Matas is 20 and hasn't even started a full season. Most of the team is expiring or on short term contracts. I can't think of one team, barring injuries and/or Giddey being great, where we have the best player on the court any given night.

If Giddey plays great we could look like a promising young team, build cohesion, flow, chemistry. Maybe Vucevic plays well and we offload him. He gets hurt, regresses, isn't the best Giddey he can be, we could look like a rec league team out there. Who's going to run the show? Donovan from the bench?

Coby would seem the logical choice and a Coby White putting up numbers for an upcoming free agency is not the guy I want running my offense and feeding Matas and Noa. Ayo and Tre Jones probably play point, but I think Coby would take over the offense.

Hard to get a gauge on this team next year for me. Coby was really great (maybe unsustainably so) at the end of last year, but full year of Collins/Huerter/Tre, Okoro is an add IMO, and Matas may improve. The East is also a disaster. Who knows.

I don't think this team has any championship equity, and it's not on a multi-year plan that has obvious potential, but I could see us getting to the 2nd round in a best case scenario due to East weakness.

[_txchilibowl_]

I'm not as high on Giddey as some it would seem. I see a skilled but limited player who's end of season stats make him look better than he is. An ultimate glue guy turned compiler of sorts who took advantage of his high usage opportunity.

Having said that, I don't feel like a 25 million AAV contract is out of line for what he provides. Even in a reduced role, which I see as ideal, he can still provide value at that number. He just isn't a catalyst of a great team, IMO.

[Infinity2152]

Not claiming to have a crystal ball. Maybe it's a coincidence Huerter, Collins and Jones all looked much better when they got here and ran with Giddey. Or all 3 were just in bad systems with no opportunities. Matas looked better second half after Giddey took over. Coby, the whole team in general. Some of this could be fallout from Lavine leaving.

But I leave room to speculate they played better offensively because we finally had a healthy player who could push the ball and run the system. When I was talking about that team Kenyon Martin was on that J Kidd joined 6 players averaged double digits. They weren't bums, and had talent. Really didn't play as a team, Marbury was the point.

Forget the last season numbers. Forget if he's a number 1 or number 2. If he can just maintain 15, 7, and 7 for his career and up his efficiency some and defense, that's a valuable number 3 and a great number 4. Lot depends on the best two players, but I think he could be the third best player on a contender, especially if he doesn't have to be the third highest scorer.

I hope he can eventually make it to solid number 2. But I'd be very happy if his peak is good #3 or #4 and he's consistent with it.

[pipfan]

I like Giddey and believe in him. I REALLY wish he was better on D, but he showed a bit towards the end of the year. I just don't like keeping both him and White (who I like also). Having 2 weak defenders (let's ignore Vuc for now) hurts the team's ceiling.

I have tried, but it's hard to find a trade for Coby that's worth it for both teams.

[coldfish]

I'm just glad the Bulls aren't being "hey we traded for you and you had a few good weeks, here is a max contract!" about this.

[sco]

I like Giddey and believe in him. I REALLY wish he was better on D, but he showed a bit towards the end of the year. I just don't like keeping both him and White (who I like also). Having 2 weak defenders (let's ignore Vuc for now) hurts the team's ceiling.

I have tried, but it's hard to find a trade for Coby that's worth it for both teams.

I agree, although I really want Vuc gone to see if they could co-exist without killing our defense. Even just going with Smith would give us a much better sense of what a team built around Giddey/Coby/Matas can achieve.