The Extension No One Is Talking About*

[evildallas]

*Except me

Marvin Williams can sign an extension this summer, but no one is talking about it. There was even an article discussing the 2005 draft class of Deron Williams, Chris Paul, and Andrew Bogut signing deals. Marvin didn't even get a mention. His qualifying offer for 2009/2010 is 7.35M which is the starting salary on a 5yr/45M deal (10% raises) that was the early extension offer for Josh Smith last season. The team is focused on Josh Smith and Josh Childress because they can lose them now. This leads me to several questions:

Do you discuss extension now or do you just wait and see until next off season on Marvin?
If now, what do you offer?
Do you think he signs or prefers to let the season play out?
Does resigining Josh Childress mean not being able to match RFA offers for Marvin?
Is it better (long term for the Hawks) to reach a long term deal with Marvin now rather than Josh Childress?
Does Bogut need to sign a non-max deal (which is expected) in order for Marvin to sign early?

[LHughes/JSmooth]

I hope we sign Marvin to a new deal, and I think it would be cheaper and best to sign him this year to an extension and see what we can get out of a Chill sign and trade or just let Chill walk, because Marvin has more upside (if your a hater of his or not, it's true). It would be cheaper as well to sign him this year, then wait next year when other teams talk to him, and also the risk of a break-out year which he would demand more money from.

[D21]

Right, sign him now. Just imagine he starts to hit 3's this year and we are dead next summer

Seriously, it's hard to know. I would say that the Smith situation (with everybody thinking at the start of the season that no team would be able to offer him a max (or almost) this summer and now, we see it is possible and it can increase his cost if we have to match an offer) lead to not repeat the same mistake.

Meanwhile, IMO it is more a future roster problem than a money problem. As I already said, Claxton will be out soon (we don't have to panic for only one year at high payroll if we want to keep this core), and if we keep Bibby, it will certainly be for 5M$/yr less than what he gets now, so Bibby + Claxton could give 10M$ of room in the next two seasons.

So, the main thing is on the roster. Do we want to continue to build around Smith+Marvin+Childress ?
No problem if he can start to hit 3s and so create more space on the floor. If he continue to improve and specially that, we can trade Childress.
If not, I would prefer to keep Childress who could ask for less, and trade Marvin who can give more trading value than Childress.

Now, if owners want to spend money and continue to use MLE some years to add help, we can keep both easily. It's just that at this moment, we need help, and part of this help is due to lack of something in our players.

[SendEm]

Marvin Williams is a big time disappointment. Chris Paul and Deron Williams would have looked so much better. It's best to cut the losses and trade him to a team that wants to invest in his so called "potential."

[conleyorbust]

Right, sign him now. Just imagine he starts to hit 3's this year and we are dead next summer

Seriously, it's hard to know. I would say that the Smith situation (with everybody thinking at the start of the season that no team would be able to offer him a max (or almost) this summer and now, we see it is possible and it can increase his cost if we have to match an offer) lead to not repeat the same mistake.

Meanwhile, IMO it is more a future roster problem than a money problem. As I already said, Claxton will be out soon (we don't have to panic for only one year at high payroll if we want to keep this core), and if we keep Bibby, it will certainly be for 5M$/yr less than what he gets now, so Bibby + Claxton could give 10M$ of room in the next two seasons.

So, the main thing is on the roster. Do we want to continue to build around Smith+Marvin+Childress ?
No problem if he can start to hit 3s and so create more space on the floor. If he continue to improve and specially that, we can trade Childress.
If not, I would prefer to keep Childress who could ask for less, and trade Marvin who can give more trading value than Childress.

Now, if owners want to spend money and continue to use MLE some years to add help, we can keep both easily. It's just that at this moment, we need help, and part of this help is due to lack of something in our players.

Marv is a catch 22. We don't want to extend him without knowing whether he can nail the 3 and be a stopper on the perimeter but if he ends up improving in those areas to the point where we feel comfortable with his ability, his value is going to skyrocket.

In theory we could wait it out and trade Chil if it looks promising but I'm wondering if Chil's value doesn't get bidded up a little bit to the point where he will be considered a little overpaid next season and see his trade value fall (then he will be a limited player w/ 4 yrs on a decent sized contract, the psychology is different when you are making the terms yourself).

I just don't want this team to get into a Bobby Simmons type situation with our role players. Much gets made out of the Redd's contract but the truth of the matter is, every team needs a player of that calibre (or better) and they don't come cheap. If the Bucks hadn't spend a combined $16m on Dan Gadzuric and Bobby Simmons they could have looked for another stud, the team would be winning, and Redd wouldn't be percieved as overpaid (even though I don't love his game).

We have Joe and Josh as our primary dudes and possibly Al down the line. We need to make sure that the peices around them fit and we might not be able to do that if we have Chil and Marv locked up for a combined $16m... or maybe we will. They just have to be able to fill the roles we need them to and as of today, they don't.

[CWell]

eww why the hell would we want to keep THAT?trade him! he's not in our future and it's not hard to find a SF,i'd take Brandon Rush over him.No way in hell i'd extend him.

[D21]

Conleyorbust, I agree, but I don't see why if we have to trade one of the two, so much people are so sure that it have to be Childress. Don't get me wrong, I love how he plays, and know he's got more potential than Childress, but if the goal is to make the perfect roster, there a possibility Childress can fit better than Marvin depending who are the other players, and even if he won't improve like Marvin can, he will certainly cost less, and as I said, we can get more by trading Marvin than Childress.

It's sad because I like all these three guys (both Joshes and Marvin), but it continues to look like one of these three guys will have to go one day.

[evildallas]

In theory we could wait it out and trade Chil if it looks promising but I'm wondering if Chil's value doesn't get bidded up a little bit to the point where he will be considered a little overpaid next season and see his trade value fall (then he will be a limited player w/ 4 yrs on a decent sized contract, the psychology is different when you are making the terms yourself).

I just don't want this team to get into a Bobby Simmons type situation with our role players. Much gets made out of the Redd's contract but the truth of the matter is, every team needs a player of that calibre (or better) and they don't come cheap. If the Bucks hadn't spend a combined $16m on Dan Gadzuric and Bobby Simmons they could have looked for another stud, the team would be winning, and Redd wouldn't be percieved as overpaid (even though I don't love his game).

That's my big concern about Josh Childress. He's nice, but not great. Bobby Simmons and Nocioni are great examples of guys who were rewarded for their contributions to the point they eat too much cap, are hard to trade, and everyone points at those positions as a place the team needs to improve.

I also believe his PER is inflated by the way he's used on the court by Woodson. It minimizes his negatives and increases his chances to get offensive rebounds and shoot a high percentage. While he's on the court we often play with Al or Josh Smith away from the basket in hopes of drawing their bigs out, hurting their PERs.

[conleyorbust]

In theory we could wait it out and trade Chil if it looks promising but I'm wondering if Chil's value doesn't get bidded up a little bit to the point where he will be considered a little overpaid next season and see his trade value fall (then he will be a limited player w/ 4 yrs on a decent sized contract, the psychology is different when you are making the terms yourself).

I just don't want this team to get into a Bobby Simmons type situation with our role players. Much gets made out of the Redd's contract but the truth of the matter is, every team needs a player of that calibre (or better) and they don't come cheap. If the Bucks hadn't spend a combined $16m on Dan Gadzuric and Bobby Simmons they could have looked for another stud, the team would be winning, and Redd wouldn't be percieved as overpaid (even though I don't love his game).

That's my big concern about Josh Childress. He's nice, but not great. Bobby Simmons and Nocioni are great examples of guys who were rewarded for their contributions to the point they eat too much cap, are hard to trade, and everyone points at those positions as a place the team needs to improve.

I also believe his PER is inflated by the way he's used on the court by Woodson. It minimizes his negatives and increases his chances to get offensive rebounds and shoot a high percentage. While he's on the court we often play with Al or Josh Smith away from the basket in hopes of drawing their bigs out, hurting their PERs.

Right, you look at his shot splits and he's taking 75% of his shots inside on dunks, layups, or tips... he also takes a relatively few amount of shots. That means that most of his looks are the transition looks, the ones he gets off offensive rebounds, or the ones he gets when a driver finds him after drawing his defender. Now Chil does a great job of getting open, grabbing boards, and finishing once he does, but more than any other player, he is put in a position to get shots that have the best chance of landing.

If we could design some sets where everyone on our team only had to take 25% jumpers, we'd be in a much better position, but someone has to take them and with the way we run our offense it is too often Smith.

I wouldn't be suprised to see his production on another team slide down to what it was during the period where Joe was injured and Josh was the go-to on offense. That season, 37% of Chil's shots were jumpers and he shot just above 50% and significantly lower towards the end of the season while Joe was actually out.

[td00]

There are a lot of factors to determine if Marvin should be extended.

How can you consider this before the 'Joshes' are resolved? Talk about something that shouldn't even be considered at this time. There are so many ifs on this team right now........

- Will both Joshes be on this team next year?
- Can Woodson continue to improve this team with the current roster?
- Can Marvin improve his game? He needs rebounding and 3 pt improvements at minimum. I haven't even mentioned becoming a defensive presence.
- Is there anyone else out there who can do what Marvin does? Where does Marvin rank as far as starting SFs go?
- Is Bibby's tenure a factor here?

I see the Milwaukee dilemna that conley speaks about, and agree with his review. Marvin will have to improve a lot this year to warrant a larger and longer contract.
Would Woody consider moving Marvin to the PF slot? Are his skills better suited for the 4? Improvements would be needed there as well. I bring this up because signing Smoove might be a bigger challenge than we have heard.

[killbuckner]

The question is what contract would it make sense for Marvin to sign. I think he has strong incentive to not extend now, he can probably double his salary with a great year but its hard to see how he could fall below the MLE even if he sucks it up this season. (This is just another advantage to coming into the league young, people will still sign you to your first FA contract based on potential)

And just as an aside, with so many teams trying to clear caproom in the 2010 offseason for a run at lebron, Wade, or Bosh I do wonder if someone like Marvin might be inclined to take the 1 year QO and hit FA when a lot of teams are under the cap, hoping that he can swoop in and get paid if they strike out on the big dogs. Its pretty rare that players will take the QO, but a 1 year 7.5 million dollar contract and then unrestricted free agency in a season with a lot of teams under the cap might be the right situation to try it.

[MikeRice]

I am hoping that now, with BK gone, we will not feel the need to justify picking Marvin Williams by resigning him. I just don't see the potential everyone talks about. I would MUCH rather have Childress, he shoots a high percentage, doesn't need the ball to score and is an overall better defender. Marvin just plain and simple isn't very good, he looks awkward on the floor and waddles when he walks. I don't see why everyone was so high on him coming out of college. Also, maybe with BK gone we don't have to hear about passing on Chris Paul every time the Hawks are mentioned on ESPN. We do not need to try and justify this pick, just cut ties and move on... it will be better for both parties involved.