Cruel_Ruin wrote:Scoot McGroot wrote:Cruel_Ruin wrote:Its great that Indy is showing loyalty to its guys, but this could really hurt them. The Pacers are built as a team that has depth from top to bottom with a great defense, and are going to need some cap flexibility in order to keep those higher end support players around them since PG and Hibbert aren't true superstars. Whats going to happen when Danny Granger needs an extension? David West? Lance Stephenson has showed some promise, what about his extension? This team could get prohibitively expensive very quickly and it would be a shame to see such a promising team blown up because of overvaluation of some of their guys.
West is signed until he retires already. Then, it was either sign George and let Danny walk or let George walk to sign Danny. Pretty easy choice, huh? For Lance, it looks like we can offer up a deal of first year from $5-7.5m depending on if George makes all-NBA or not and how much the cap rises. If he walks, we'll make the same offer to Danny. If he walks, too, we'll hit free agency with a full MLE to offer for a SG or SF to play with George and recent 1st rounder Solo Hill. There's cap relief set up and options to maintain the roster.
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I think keeping Granger is key, personally. He’s a talented player that fits into the Pacers system really well. I think he’ll play great with PG and Hibbert. Plus I think he’s the X-factor for defeating Miami. Right now I have the Pacers at #2 in the East, and Granger not only adds an extra defender to use on Lebron, a Granger/George wing combo is probably the best-equipped duo in the NBA to go head-to-head defensively with Wade/Lebron. Considering Indiana is already a matchup nightmare for Miami, a theoretical matchup to me is a toss-up.
As a GM, you want to give this team as many chances as possible to get to the finals with the current group as constructed. Next year is fine salary-wise, but the year after gets dicey. To be fair, I don’t know how far into luxury tax territory Simon would be willing to go into. But lets say he asks Bird to keep the team below the luxury tax line. I think if you signed Paul George for $3 million per year less, you could afford both Granger and Stephenson.
Next year, you have PG’s extension kicking in (as it is right now, lets say its $14 million; I haven’t done the number crunching so I’m not sure exactly how his 18 million per year average will spread out). But that leaves the Pacers at roughly $62 million in total salary, with $9 million of breathing room before having to sign Scola, Stephenson, and Granger. But if PG was signed for $3 million less annually and you had $12 million to work with, you could perhaps make it work if Stephenson takes about $3 million per year, Scola takes the vet minimum and Granger takes a hometown discount at $8 million per year.
Lots of variables in that scenario but I feel like the Pacers are throwing that option out the window, which would be sad to see IMO.
That would all be nice, but if we let George hit free agency, he'll get the exact same offer that we made him, but just 4.5% raises instead of 7.5% raises. Same 25% or 30% max offer though. (Word is he took a tax under the 30% max from Indy). In no world were the Pacers going to get him to take 10-15% less than the rest of the market would pay him, though. It's not like Indy offered significantly more than any other team would consider. They merely offered exactly what any over team would offer.
As for Danny, it remains to be seen if he'll be healthy and how he'll contribute. He could be a great offensive player for is again, or he could be a borderline role player with bum knees. Either way, he hasn't been the "franchise player" for a while now for us. Last year, Paul overtook him, and Paul was projected to overtake him even before last year. No reason to put bad feelings between the team and their budding young star (George), though.
Scola has a partial guarantee already for 2014. But your plan now requires 3 guys to take massive hometown discounts in Paul, Danny, AND Lance. Lance will be MLE+ in offers from elsewhere, as will Danny. Paul is a max player. If we don't offer it to him, someone else will. Ideally, it'd be great if they'd take less, but hats the same as asking them all to sign for the minimum, and then go out and get Lebron for the minimum, as well as Rondo in a year or two, all for the minimum. That's all be great, but it's just never going to happen.
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