nate33 wrote:Kanyewest wrote:There's still doubt in my mind whether a another team will even offer Haywood 5 years/$50 million. Haywood will be 31 going into the 2010-11.  Haywood also doesn't put up aggregate numbers which are traditionally rewarded; he doesn't average a double double like Andrew Bynum or David Lee or 2-3 blocks over the course of the season.  And Haywood is on a good team where he won't be able to pick up gaudy numbers.  
These are the per game averages of select NBA centers in the last year of their previous contract, followed by the terms of the new contract they signed in the following summer:
Code: Select all
Player        PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  PER
dalembert,sa  8.2  7.5  0.5  0.6  1.7  1.6 .524 .543 14.4
5 years, $55M
Player        PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  PER
kaman,chris  10.1  7.8  1.1  0.5  1.5  2.0 .451 .502 12.9
5 years, $58M
Player        PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  PER
dampier,eric 12.3 12.0  0.8  0.4  1.9  1.8 .535 .573 20.1
7 years, $73MIf Haywood plays exactly like last season on a per-minute basis, only he actually gets 33 minutes a game, his numbers would look like this:
Code: Select all
Player        PTS  REB  AST  STL  BLK   TO eFG%  TS%  PER
haywood,bren 13.0  8.8  1.1  0.5  2.0  1.7 .528 .582 18.5 
Good breakdown, nate - and it does make me worried that we'll be looking at a $10M/year contract for Haywood, which would significantly reduce our flexibility with other players.  And don't get me wrong - I believe he is far more valuable than those 3 guys, and more valuable than all but about 5 or 6 Centers in the NBA.  But I doubt (naively optimistic?) that he'll get an offer like those guys, for the following reasons:
*  Age - as mentioned, they were all younger/up-and-coming players who held out the promise of "potential" and "development."  Haywood is what he is - which is very good, IMO - but doesn't have the alluring appeal of the potential breakout player.
*  Economy - with the downturn and the first-ever reduction in the cap, teams will be more careful about throwing money around.  Especially when they consider that they won't be able to outrun the cap through annual increases, they may be reluctant to give out so much money to non-All Stars.
*  Precedent - It's pretty much a consensus that all of those contracts were foolish deals.  If I'm Ernie, I hope Brendan's agent brings those up.  If nothing else, he could say - "Do you want to be thought of 4 years from now the way those guys are today?"
*  OK, that might be a bit confrontational and could alienate BTH and/or his agent.  But hopefully other teams see those deals and think twice about offering a similar deal to Haywood.
*  Control - each of those deals were given by their current teams.  Time will tell if a competitor would offer a similar deal.  But for those who complained that EG was "bidding against himself" for DS - what about these deals?  Hopefully, EG will maintain some sanity.
*  Star Power - another GM would have a hard time selling Brendan Haywood as the big-ticket addition worth blowing cap space on.  So even if he believes Haywood is the best value among available FAs, he might not be able to sell it to the fans.
All that said, it only takes one GM to explode the market.  If a GM strikes out with the big names (James, Bosh, Wade), he could get desperate and throw $10M at Brendan.  Which is why I'd prefer to see EG hammer out a deal this summer.  But even if he goes to Free Agency, I'll be surprised if he gets $10M/year.
"A society that puts equality - in the sense of equality of outcome - ahead of freedom will end up with neither equality nor freedom.  The use of force to achieve equality will destroy freedom"  Milton Friedman, Free to Choose