Arenas for Vince or dump Arenas for cap space?

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Jonathan, acquiring Battier with this bunch would be a very wise thing to do. He shouldn't be that hard to get, either. Houston cannot play Ariza, Budinger, Jeffries, and Battier enough minutes at SF. Martin will play the bulk of the minutes at SG and Scola at PF. Ariza started ahead of Battier once Martin became a Rocket.

Hinrich/Battier might work if the Wizards want Nick Young to get minutes at SG.

[nate33]

I'd dance a jig if we managed to trade Hinrich for Battier. I'm not so sure I'd sign Battier as a free agent next year though. This team is still a few years away from truly contending and Battier will be 33 years old at the start of the 2011/12 season.

[Hoopalotta]

For Dray's cap hold directly preceding the 2013 season and assuming he's not given an extension - it's at 200% of his previous salary, no?

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q31

I've got him as:
Larry Bird, except when coming off rookie scale contract
Below the average salary = 200% of his previous salary

If that's true, and assuming we only did something like a BOYD expiring deal with our cap space for the 2012 season (ie. no additional 2013 salary at all), I'd have us as being at about $46 million committed at the start of the signing period (qualifying offer to Javale and just over $7 million cap hold on Dray). That's assuming just over $4 million to the 2011 and 2012 draft picks.

[barelyawake]

Chaos, you get the part about our win total from last year was based on a team that no longer exists right? If we played with the team we currently have, minus Arenas and Wall, we would have won maybe fifteen games last year. So, adding x number more games to a team by getting Wall doesn't apply. We lost three starters.

Nate, your fears are well founded and exactly what I've been saying. Having no leader except guards is a recipe for disaster.

And lol at the idea that we are the bay boy pistons or that our front court is anywhere close to their talent level. You guys keep increasing this delusional overrating of what we have. And it's going to help ensure that management assembles a team with no shot at a championship as we keep, year after year, discussing potential.

[Silvie Lysandra]

Chaos, you get the part about our win total from last year was based on a team that no longer exists right? If we played with the team we currently have, minus Arenas and Wall, we would have won maybe fifteen games last year. So, adding x number more games to a team by getting Wall doesn't apply. We lost three starters.

The only real loss I see there is Haywood. Jamison and Butler going away was addition by subtraction - if you aren't able to realize that Blatche has been a better basketball player than Jamison since at least the beginning of this year, and that Butler has been a chucker and team cancer for two seasons (and essentially wrecked a quality Dallas team), I don't know what to tell you.

Had Jamison and Butler not been on the team at all, I'd argue we'd have played at a playoff pace - both those guys were enormous net negatives. The major problem post trade was that we had no Gil, no Howard and no depth, (as much as we liked Singleton and Thornton's energy, those guys are barely rotation players in the NBA), not that Blatche and McGee were putting up empty stats.

You guys keep increasing this delusional overrating of what we have. And it's going to help ensure that management assembles a team with no shot at a championship as we keep, year after year, discussing potential.

You've been the most delusional proponent of the "all our young talent sucks and we need to tank for 3 more seasons" idea, and I tell you, it's absolute madness. Our super-raw center? This is the company he currently resides in.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... =ws_per_48

And the guy is still learning how to play basketball.

We already know what Andray Blatche's stats (granted, for a short stretch of games in which he actually played his natural position) put him in.

Even Young's PER is deflated because of his well-below positional average rebounding and assists.

The fact is, you are ridiculously, tremendously underrating the talent we already have on this team. You act like without Arenas and Wall, we're the Nets or something (who were a truly inexplicable case - Vince Carter should not drop them 20 wins).

Let me reiterate - your position is a wholly unrealistic Chicken Little, sky-is-falling, doom-and-gloom prediction of all our youth sucking, our draft picks sucking, and Arenas sucking, all to justify another 2 or 3 years of tanking for a franchise player that may or may not even be there, or that we may or may not be in a position to draft, while risking the development of said youth (losing begets losing), risking the desire of youth who does develop to remain with a team that seems uncommitted to winning, and completely destroying our ability to make a case for our team in free agency over a big-market team (If a star FA wants to win a title, would they rather come to a young 40ish win team with cap space, or a young 20 win team with cap space who just landed the #5 pick in the draft?)

Tell me, is there a Duncan or Shaq waiting in the wings that will totally alter the fortunes of our franchise? I don't even see any Dwight Howards or Pau Gasols coming down the pike. How many years are we supposed to tank before that franchise C rides in on a white horse to save us?

And then, is this savior big man even worth pursuing this absolutely insane "development" (or rather, non-development) strategy of ignoring our current assets to find someone who may not even exist right now? Your position goes way beyond trading Arenas - it basically said that our current youth is worthless outside John Wall, and I vociferously disagree with it.

[Hoopalotta]

I strangely find myself sympathetic to separate, specific elements of Barley and Chaos's arguments.

[barelyawake]

Again, I've made my positions known, and I don't wish to argue for a tenth time how you are mischaracterizing completely what I've said. Let's keep this to your argument.

So, in your world, it's ok to equate this current team (which has a rookie and thorton at sf) to our old team, because Butler in your opinion was a net negative. That team had your precious Blatche and McGee coming off the bench. This one has Yi. That certainly equates, right? That team had mike miller too. And then Livingston and Howard. And again, it had Haywood. My favorite part of your post was the part where you said that the team last year had no depth. I guess I missed when that changed.

Do I think all of our players are busts? No, I simply believe many are roleplayers whom you don't base an NBA franchise around. That and we have several young players -- whom, I hate to break it to you, are not going to be as good as Butler fresh out of the box.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

barely, John Wall's going to make other players better similar to how Steve Nash has done for Amare and Shawn Marion. Young, McGee, and Blatche all got better when the Wizards acquired Wall. So did Gilbert, if he stays.

[Silvie Lysandra]

So, in your world, it's ok to equate this current team (which has a rookie and thorton at sf) to our old team, because Butler in your opinion was a net negative. That team had your precious Blatche and McGee coming off the bench. This one has Yi. That certainly equates, right? That team had mike miller too. And then Livingston and Howard. And again, it had Haywood. My favorite part of your post was the part where you said that the team last year had no depth. I guess I missed when that changed.

Miller sucked too - no defense, terrible passes, and refusing to make use of his biggest strength - his shooting efficiency.

I wouldn't be suprised if Martin, Booker, Thornton or Young gave us more at SF than Miller did. Obviously Butler was terrible. Livingston was okay for a short stretch; I felt he was overrated (great passer, great size, but average shooter and average defender at best). We only got like 10 games of Howard.

So in reality, our only major loss was Haywood, and in exchange, we get potentially a major upgrade at SG, while having maybe a moderate downgrade at worst at PG depending on how good Wall is. We get a significant upgrade at PF - Blatche is better than Jamison in every conceviable way.. McGee is anywhere to a moderate to major offensive upgrade at C, and anywhere to a moderate to major defensive downgrade at C.

All with potentially excellent D to boot.

You also seem to be arguing that our talent is *that* much worse than the Hornets before they got Chris Paul, the Heat before they got Wade, the Nuggets before they got Melo, etc, etc.

Do I think all of our players are busts? No, I simply believe many are roleplayers whom you don't base an NBA franchise around. That and we have several young players -- whom, I hate to break it to you, are not going to be as good as Butler fresh out of the box.

[/quote]

Both Mcgee and Blatche blow Butler out of the water in Win Shares and PER, Blatche has the same ORTG on a bad team while playing most of the season out of position, same DRTG, etc, etc.

Butler was barely better than Nick Young last year.

[nate33]

For Dray's cap hold directly preceding the 2013 season and assuming he's not given an extension - it's at 200% of his previous salary, no?

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q31

I've got him as:
Larry Bird, except when coming off rookie scale contract
Below the average salary = 200% of his previous salary

If that's true, and assuming we only did something like a BOYD expiring deal with our cap space for the 2012 season (ie. no additional 2013 salary at all), I'd have us as being at about $46 million committed at the start of the signing period (qualifying offer to Javale and just over $7 million cap hold on Dray). That's assuming just over $4 million to the 2011 and 2012 draft picks.

I have our cap number at $50M in the summer of 2012 (you have to add 2 minimum salary vets to the roster shown on my spreadsheet). We could theoretically shave off about $2.5M more by dumping N'Diaye, Seraphin and Booker, and replacing them with minimum salary cap holds. I'm assuming If we assume a 3% increase per year in the salary cap (which is unlikely with the new CBA), the cap limit will be in the neighborhood of $61.5M.

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1022747&start=795#p24490348

The only way to have max salary in 2012 is if Arenas is traded, or if he decides to pull a Richard Jefferson and opts out of the last two years of his contract in exchange for an extension. We could also work out some kind of sign and trade with Blatche or McGee if we're angling for an elite big man like Howard (or potentially Oden).

[fishercob]

I'd argue this was the case the moment we drafted Wall.

Wall is being considered a once in a generation PG prospect. In addition, he was a top pick in the draft. Well, let's see first, the impact elite PG prospects have on their teams as *rookies*, and second, the impact quality #1 picks have on their teams as rookies.

PGs:

2005 Hornets: +18 games from last year
2005 Jazz: +15 games from last year
2008 Bulls +8 from previous year
2009 Bucks +12 from previous years.

For goodness sake the Bobcats were +7 after they drafted Felton!

The only exceptions were Russel Westbrook (who was considered a major project at the time, and not even a pure PG), on a team that had Durant, Green, and literally nothing else, and Stephon Curry, whose team was devastated by injury like no team in recent memory. We have *far* more talent than those teams even without Arenas.

Meanwhile, let's look at #1 picks that panned out

Yao Ming + 15
LeBron James + 18 (Wade, Bosh, and Melo would be #1s in other years, so will include them just because - +17, +7, and +27 respectively)
Dwight Howard + 15
Bogut + 10
Bargnani (arguably a bust bust still +20)

Durant is an interesting case - he's minus -10, but SEA/OKC had blown it up, trading Allen and Lewis. Obviously Oden didn't play.

Rose + 8, as above.

Obviously Griffin didn't play, but Evans, as the only impact rookie from last year's class, was +8, and they had started strong, and might have better if Martin was healthy.

So based on the track record, if we are in the high lottery yet again, we either got racked by injuries, or we have much bigger problems than Arenas making us too good, because it means Wall isn't ready and/or Blatche and McGee have stagnated or regressed.

Impact rookies make immediate and significant improvements in team win totals and even if it doesn't vault them into the playoffs, it does take them well over the 30 win mark in most cases.

So basically, the scenario where dumping Arenas puts in the high lottery, assumes Wall, Blatche, McGee, Booker, Seraphin, and even Young are busts.

Chaos, this is well researched an thought-provoking. I think it's a little bit of creative accounting though. Rather than the win improvement, let's look at the actual rookie W-L records of the teams of everyone you name in the above post. The team's top-5 total minute getters are in parens.

Elite Point Guards:
Paul 38-44 (Paul, D. West, PJ Brown, D. Mason, S. Claxton)
Deron Williams: 41-41 (Okur, Kirilenko, Williams, Harpring, Collins)
Rose: 41-41 (Rose, B. Gordon, Ty. Thomas, Noah, Deng -- followed by Hinrich, Nocioni, Salmons, Gooden and Hughes)
Jennings: 46-36 (Jennings, Delfino, Bogut, Ilyasova, LRMAM)

Notes: Milwaukee had the #2 defense in the NBA last year. Utah lost Boozer to a major injury.

"Exceptions"
Westbrook: 23-59 (Durant, Green, Westbrook, Collison, Watson)
Curry: 26-56 (Curry, Ellis, Maggette, Morrow, Watson)
Even Ray Felton: 26-56 (Felton, B. Knight, Grezec, Jum. Jones, G. Wallace)

Notes: The W's were ravaged by injury, as you noted, as were The Bobs.

Top Picks that Panned Out
Lebron: 35-47 (Lebron, Boozer, Z, Kevin Ollie, Erik Williams)
Wade: 42-40 (Lamar Odom, Eddie Jones, R. Alston, Brian Grant, Wade) caron and haselm
Carmelo: 43-39 (Melo, Dre Miller, Nene, V. Lenard, Camby)
Bosh: 33-49 (V. Carter, D. Marshall, Bosh, Mo-Pete, Jalen Rose)
Howard: 36-46 (S. Francis, Howard, Grant Hill, Battie, Turkoglu)
Bogut: 40-42 (Redd, TJ Ford, B Simmons, Magloire, Bogut)
Bargnani: 47-35 (Bosh, A. Parker, TJ Ford, Garbajosa, Nesterovic) -- Bargs 6th
Durant 20-62 (Durant, E. Watson, J. Green, Collison, D. Wilkins)
Tyreke Evans 25-57 (Evans, Udrih, J. Thompson, Casspi, Hawes)

Notes:
Lebron played with a very good front court with Z and Boozer. Wade wasn't a big reason for Miami's relative success, and Caron and Haslem were right behind him in minutes. Melo played with some very good veterans, as did Howard. Bogut, like Wade, played only the 5th most minutes on his team, and Bargnani didn't even crack the top 5.

Analysis
Firstly, I'm not making the argument that my list is in some way "complete." It's just more complete. The players you mention are a little arbitrary, as there's no stated criteria etc.

It would indeed appear that young rookie PG's have more of an impact than young rookie bigs (not a surprise) .

The two teams with the highest records on your list were Bargnani's (47 wins) and Jennings' (46). Bargnani was low-impact guy on that team, so I'd toss him out. As noted above, the Bucks were the second best defensive team in the NBA last year. I'd be very surprised if the Wizards were top 10 in either ORtg or DRtg, so I'm choosing to toss Jennings.

Let's toss out Wade's 42-win Heat and Boguts 40-win Bucks for their low minutes. Let's also toss out Felton's Bobs beacuse he isn't very good and Curry's W's b/c I won't even allow myself to think about us having more bad injury luck. So then we're left with:

Paul (38), Rose (41), Williams (41), Westbrook (23), Lebron (35), Carmelo (43) Bosh (33), Howard (36), Durant (20) and Evans (25)

I'd remove Melo's team because they were laden with talented veterans, so after that we have nine data points between 25 and 41 wins. So I think it's a safe assumption that we'll pick no worse than 15th, and likely somewhat higher.

The question is does Wall make us more like Rose or Williams' team, or does our "top-heavy" roster make us more like Lebron's Cavs? You can draw parallel's to any of those teams including the Kings, Sonics and Thunder that won 25, 20 and 23. Those teams were young and talented, but unsettled in their play styles and had yet to turn a corner.

The next piece of analysis that I;d find interesting is to see where certain records were likely to land us in the draft as well as the historical quality of that draft position. But ultimately, I don't think it's a slam dunk that without Arenas we avoid the high lottery (again, see Kings and Thunder for decent comps). But with Gil in tow I think we're likley to be somewhere in the 7-14 range, which is a bit of an upward adjustment than what I had previously thought.

[nate33]

More good info. Thanks fishercob.

One thing worth noting is that we stand to benefit in the win column for a few reasons other than the addition of Wall.

1. This will be the second year under Flip's system. There's usually a one-year adjustment period with a new coach.
2. Blatche appears to have just broken out. It's reasonable to expect 82 games of "good Blatche" rather than just the 32 games we had last year.
3. McGee will probably show considerable improvement. The third year for a big man is usually a big year.

Of course, there's also Gilbert Arenas. But the premise of this analysis is to determine how good we'd be without Arenas in the lineup.

[Ruzious]

Had Jamison and Butler not been on the team at all, I'd argue we'd have played at a playoff pace.

I don't know what to say to that other than - I need to take a break from this place.

[Silvie Lysandra]

The question is does Wall make us more like Rose or Williams' team, or does our "top-heavy" roster make us more like Lebron's Cavs? You can draw parallel's to any of those teams including the Kings, Sonics and Thunder that won 25, 20 and 23. Those teams were young and talented, but unsettled in their play styles and had yet to turn a corner.

It's interesting, because Wall and Durant were -10 for their teams, were Westbrook was +5 in terms of on/off. I disagree with your description of "young and talented" for the Thunder in 2007, or even 2008 - it was basically Durant, Green playing out of position, and Saer Sene-type scrubs. The Kings are probably a better example - a lot of nice pieces, but no real consistency. Neither team had no young piece like Blatche, whose team was better with him on the court than off the court despite him being out of position (can't stress this enough), and as the #1 option posted a half-decent on/off rating despite playing with teammates that were *worse* than what Evans and Durant had to work with. Now we're adding Wall to the mix, an elite prospect at a position as you have confirmed, produces immediate dividends in terms of win total. If we get anything above the norm from the rookies, and at least some improvement from Javale, then it will be hard to win less than 30 games even without Arenas (also, another thing you have to consider is what we get back for him - if we trade Arenas to the Knicks for Curry + Chandler, that's not enough of a talent dump to get us to a lower-echelon team).

I think Gil puts us in the 36-48 range; if Blatche makes an enormous leap from his production as a starter, (basically boosting his TS% from 53% to 55+%, lowering his TOs, and going from a slightly-above average defender to an above-average to elite defender), if McGee gives us a consistent inside scoring threat, a decent amount of rebounds and is better than abysmal in help defense and rotations (think a 7'1 Amare with the longest standing reach in the NBA), Arenas returns at least to 85% of his peak, and we find a SF somewhere in the mix, then a huge season can happen.

Also, I was throwing out certain ones, like Bargs and Curry, I hadn't made that clear enough. And even though that Denver team had quality veterans, they had also won 17 wins the previous year.

Had Jamison and Butler not been on the team at all, I'd argue we'd have played at a playoff pace.

I don't know what to say to that other than - I need to take a break from this place.[/quote]

What part of "Jamison and Butler were terrible last year" don't you understand?

Butler probably made us 5-10 wins worse than we would have been alone, and Jamison was his usual high offense low defense self, and Blatche had already surpassed him.

An average SF + starting Blatche 82 games would have upgraded both positions.

[LyricalRico]

Had Jamison and Butler not been on the team at all, I'd argue we'd have played at a playoff pace.

I don't know what to say to that other than - I need to take a break from this place.

Yeah, I know how you feel dude.

[LyricalRico]

I'd remove Melo's team because they were laden with talented veterans, so after that we have nine data points between 25 and 41 wins.

One thing worth noting is that we stand to benefit in the win column for a few reasons other than the addition of Wall.

1. This will be the second year under Flip's system. There's usually a one-year adjustment period with a new coach.
2. Blatche appears to have just broken out. It's reasonable to expect 82 games of "good Blatche" rather than just the 32 games we had last year.
3. McGee will probably show considerable improvement. The third year for a big man is usually a big year.

Very interesting stuff. The analysis done by Chaos/fisher now has me thinking that I was underrating Wall's potential impact. And as much as I still think Blatche and McGee have room to grow, I can't disagree with nate that they will be better. So after re-thinking it, this could be a 30+ win team without Arenas, basically slightly worse than the recent Bulls teams with Rose and no other "star".

Put a healthy and reformed Arenas on those Bulls teams and you might have something. Then again, you might not (the Bulls had Gil-lite in Ben Gordon and still were a .500 team). But I can kind of see why others think we can keep Gil and win sooner rather than later. Still, for those who are concerned about Gil's locker room behavior, the thought that this team can already be competitive without Gil is actually an argument in favor of trading him because you don't want him to ruin what could be a pretty good thing.

I'm definitely still on the "trade Gil" side of the fence, but I'm closer to the fence than I was before. Keep up the analysis!

[montestewart]

Had Jamison and Butler not been on the team at all, I'd argue we'd have played at a playoff pace.

I don't know what to say to that other than - I need to take a break from this place.

Take sun screen and plenty of water.

[AceDegenerate]

Had Jamison and Butler not been on the team at all, I'd argue we'd have played at a playoff pace.

I don't know what to say to that other than - I need to take a break from this place.

People are not seriously still trying to overstate Jamison's impact on this team in the past 7 years are they? It is NO coincidence that this man was traded to the #1 team in the league for NOTHING, and that team played WORSE with him than without him.

Antawn Jamison's effect on any team (unless he is a 6th man) is a NET Negative. His effect in the locker room is COMPLETELY overstated as well.

[Hoopalotta]

I have our cap number at $50M in the summer of 2012 (you have to add 2 minimum salary vets to the roster shown on my spreadsheet). We could theoretically shave off about $2.5M more by dumping N'Diaye, Seraphin and Booker, and replacing them with minimum salary cap holds. I'm assuming If we assume a 3% increase per year in the salary cap (which is unlikely with the new CBA), the cap limit will be in the neighborhood of $61.5M.

viewtopic.php?f=35&t=1022747&start=795#p24490348

The only way to have max salary in 2012 is if Arenas is traded, or if he decides to pull a Richard Jefferson and opts out of the last two years of his contract in exchange for an extension. We could also work out some kind of sign and trade with Blatche or McGee if we're angling for an elite big man like Howard (or potentially Oden).

Hmmmm, the discrepancy is because I mistakenly didn't have Javale at 300% of his 2011 salary and was just plugging in his qualifying offer instead.

About $49 million without Hamady and assuming the 12th and then 18th picks. Not wildly exciting if the cap crimps down and it means we didn't do anything long term the year before either. It's basically "lockout year or bust" as far as leveraging that space if we're keeping Gil unless.......we start juggling expiring contracts, which is counter productive IMO. After the lockout, there's not time for any of this "gosh, we sure do fancy those Oklahomans and their patient resolve, but also we're considering that...." half measure business. The FO better know what it wants to do.

"Hmmmm", indeed.

[Induveca]

Hoopalotta,

I suspect the front office's mantra right now is something along the lines of:

1. Improve the quality of the organization with talent, both on the court and upstairs.
2. Put out a quality product.
3. Increase brand loyalty through transparency, interaction with the fans and operating with the utmost integrity, and most importantly success on the court.

I can say these things as I had the benefit of sitting in staff meetings with Leonsis back in my late teenage/early 20s as a dot com uber-geek. The guy is all about integrity and transparency, always has been.

You can rest assured if he hammers a point home in public in something related to his business, it was calculated (take a cue from Leonsis David Kahn....) and in the interest of building trust with the customer (aka wiz fanbase).

I honestly think most intelligent businessmen would take a look at the NBA free agent process, and see there are roughly 400 or so players out there, and 10 of them are true game changers for a franchise and only attainable in something related to free agency (outright signing or trade). Then you take into consideration there are 30 teams in the NBA, personal preferences of the player in terms of city/locale, the fact that a player's existing team has far more incentives to resign them. To even attempt to break that down into some sort of algorithm showing a team's chances of landing one of those top 10 guys in a year where he is a free agent with all of those subjective variables in place is pointless. What is boils down to is one word......

LUCK

You don't plan your business based on hoping LUCK defines your success. People who wish to be successful in anything need to realize you make your own luck. Working hard, and enjoying success inevitably leads to more success. Whenever you "wait" for some projected occurrence you are basically leaving yourself to the whims of luck and chance. Bad formula for success. He'll opt to win now and lean heavily on his mantra......

"SUCCESS BREEDS MORE SUCCESS". Honestly I can't remember if that was his or Steve Case's quote but they definitely bantered it around in meetings. Compete and have even marginal, sustained success and you attract players and become a destination for these said free agents. Losing more won't make that happen.