How concerned should I be about DJ?

[Quake Griffin]

OG?

anybody?

[Forte IV]

I'm sure Ballmer will match anything and could care less about a luxury tax. He's the richest owner in the NBA. He just bought the team for 2 billion. Money isn't an issue.

[Neddy]

and we can offer him the most money anyhow. Im not worried. if we end up not resigning DJ, Im sure Doc and Steve have something better planned as well.

[Sofia]

His Max is $17m, yeah? If the cap goes up to $75/80m as projected, it's only the equivalent of about $14.5m per.

I don't see it as a killer for a guy who can compete for DPOY for length of the contract.

[Roscoe Sheed]

I'm sure Ballmer will match anything and could care less about a luxury tax. He's the richest owner in the NBA. He just bought the team for 2 billion. Money isn't an issue.

even so, the Clips should not overpay him. He is not worth more than $10 mill a year. I'd go as high as $12 m. but not any more than that unless he develops some semblance of an offensive game. He still can barely do anything more than dunk and his free throw shooting is still atrocious.

[Akklaim1]

I really don't like this part of the new CBA where you can't go for a 5-year extension on a player that's about to be an UFA.

[Forte IV]

I'm sure Ballmer will match anything and could care less about a luxury tax. He's the richest owner in the NBA. He just bought the team for 2 billion. Money isn't an issue.

even so, the Clips should not overpay him. He is not worth more than $10 mill a year. I'd go as high as $12 m. but not any more than that unless he develops some semblance of an offensive game. He still can barely do anything more than dunk and his free throw shooting is still atrocious.

Big men get paid. Especially ones who lead the league in rebounding and average over 2 blocks a game. And are just about to enter their prime. Anyone is fool to think he'll get anything less then $15 mil a year.

[NBAfan3024]

So what are the chances he signs for less than 11-12 million per?

[Forte IV]

So what are the chances he signs for less than 11-12 million per?

Negative 10,000 honestly

[Roscoe Sheed]

I'm sure Ballmer will match anything and could care less about a luxury tax. He's the richest owner in the NBA. He just bought the team for 2 billion. Money isn't an issue.

even so, the Clips should not overpay him. He is not worth more than $10 mill a year. I'd go as high as $12 m. but not any more than that unless he develops some semblance of an offensive game. He still can barely do anything more than dunk and his free throw shooting is still atrocious.

Big men get paid. Especially ones who lead the league in rebounding and average over 2 blocks a game. And are just about to enter their prime. Anyone is fool to think he'll get anything less then $15 mil a year.

He is not worth that much money. As I said, unless he stops being a liability on one side of the court he deserves $12 mill. max. If somebody want to overpay for him, they can suffer the consequences of limited cap space. If worst comes to worst the Clips could roll with Hawes and play Udoh and Big Baby more.

The Clips should hire a big man coach like Rasheed Wallace to teach him how to post up and have the shooting coach continue to work with him because he has made very little progress on offense during his years in the league which is disgraceful.

[Neddy]

why all these DJ's offensive tool talk? I mean, i do understand we need better spacing but that's more with a mid range J which he will never have, but neither did Bill Russell.

the clippers have top offensive numbers across the board. we lose games in playoffs not because we have one guy on the floor with little to no offensive tools, we lose playoff games because we suck at defense. DJ is the best interior defender we've got, and the best damn rebounder in terms with the old stats of counting total per game. and going over the cap won't make us suffer, it will make a small insignificant dent on Steve's pocket. his 333 million microsoft share is the beach to a grain of sand that is lux tax.

frankly, i think whether DJ deserves the max deal or damn near it depends on how he performs this year through out the season and deep into the playoffs. if he figures it out and be a late bloomer like Tyson Chandler, he deserves every dollar he gets. if he plays off of just his raw talent and doesn't maximize his upsides like Eddy Curry, then he doesn't. I think DJ is somewhere in the middle right now but closer to Tyson than Eddy.

just my 2cents.

[nickhx2]

he's getting the max because nba gms pay max money to these kinds of players.

the only question is whether ballmer cares about the lux or not.

[Quake Griffin]

that's all I needed to know.

I didn't know whether we could pay him big money or not because the luxury tax.
or like....if we had his Bird rights or something. I thought we could only exercise those on 1 or 2 players.

[LACtdom]

It comes down to his personality and how he plays prior to a contract. Most players step up when their contract is on the line or are trying to receive a big payday. At the end of the day I believe that DJ has the ability to be a max player and it's up to him if he wants to put in all the hard work to achieve that. I'm not worried about DJ's performance, more worried about years 3, 4 & 5 or whatever his max will be.

[mttwlsn16]

im not worried at all. i think after this season he will likely sign a max deal and stay with us, and hes still what? only 26? hes just coming into his prime.

[og15]

We'll likely assess at the end of the season. I think it would be great to keep him, but obviously we want to pay a reasonable price. $14M will be great. Since the salary cap is projected to get a decent increase, up to about $17M is doable, but not ideal. Still, how he plays this season will impact the decision.

If we can't retain him, filling that role for less won't be easy and while there are some players who can make a seamless transition, there is generally always still some catching up to do. If we can't re-sign him, that off-season we'd be looking at guys like:

Tyson Chandler who will be 33 years old and would then be cheaper, but that's not young and it would just be a short term solution. Bismack Biyombo who had a great season last year and his defensive impact looked great, but he was only playing 14 mpg. Marc Gasol who really won't be cheaper and will be 30.5 years old in the off-season. Omer Asik who might be a cheaper option, but how much cheaper? Lastly, if we went with more of a PF who can play C, you'd have Amir Johnson who would be cheaper, but then it would seem more like the team would be starting Hawes and Amir would be the 6th man big, and I guess Jordan Hill if the Lakers decline his team option, but if they decline that option, then he didn't play so well.


...and really the only thing that would pacify letting him go for a cheaper guy is being able to sign a better SF with the cap space. Obviously not Kawhi who would be a restricted free agent, so the options become Jeff Green/ uol Deng or Thaddeus Young if they decline their player option or ETO, Rudy Gay

That's risky to me, I don't know about you guys. Losing him with no assurance of anyone replacing him and banking on getting two other players, that's hard.

[NBAfan3024]

Will Microsoft Steve offer him the max? or agree to that?

[LACtdom]

As mentioned before, DJ's defensive presence is needed more than a flashy SF but playing Hawes at C and having a player like Deng or Jeff Green would make us unstoppable at one end of the floor.

[thanumba2clippersfan]

I'm not concerned at all. We have an owner with deep pockets. I'm hoping we can do around $12 Million and I'm willing to go up to $14. I'm sure DJ wants the max, but I'm all for saving money if we can.

[Ranma]

I'm not worried only because I'm resigned to the fact that the team will overpay to keep him at almost any cost unless we can sign-and-trade him for someone else. As I've previously said, DeAndre Jordan is worth more with us than he would be playing for another team. His development would be stunted elsewhere. Having said that, he's still an incomplete player and one who overly relies on his athleticism. I'm concerned with how long of a commitment we're going to make. Ideally, I'd commit to another 3 years.

Regardless, he is not worth a max contract either in dollars or years. Ballmer is not going to be concerned with the luxury tax, but I'd be concerned with his cap hit in relation to how it affects our roster maneuverability, especially with Doc's tendency as a GM to compensate for prior personnel mistakes by packaging first-round picks along with bad contracts in order to unload them.

Even with an increased salary cap, Jordan isn't really worth more than the $12 million per he's currently making. Getting him at $14 million per would minimize the overpayment, but depending on the length of the deal, it could be the difference between a moveable contract to an albatross a la Jared Dudley should things not work out.

Even with the acquisition of Spencer Hawes, DJ is seen as a vital component to the build of this team even if it's only for the sake of continuity in trying to build off of something towards a championship ballclub. Given that, the team is presented with a dilemma of committing long-term to a still developing and limited player, but one who is necessary during a closing window for this current nucleus. What's going to happen once he loses his athleticism due to age and/or injury? Is anyone confident that he'll have developed enough discipline and focus to be a capable defender and rebounder by then? What about on the offensive end?

I get the impression that the team will commit to him at a premium cost given the urgency now with new ownership in place trying to make a statement that things will be heading in a different "hardcore" direction under new stewardship and content to cross the bridge of concerns later down the road when it gets to it, which is all the more important that Doc continues to mold DJ into a solid and stable presence from the defensive end.