How concerned should I be about DJ?

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/518943931464429568[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/518944213317451776[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/518949188437307393[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/Rachel__Nichols/status/518950034139000832[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/Pflanns/status/518951103946567680[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/McCannSportsLaw/status/518958696156893185[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/McCannSportsLaw/status/518972502119571456[/tweet]

[QRich3]

DJ is gonna get the absolute max, no chance of anything else unless he gets injured this season. And with the bump in the salary cap, that could be about $20M a season. And you know what, if he's able to become a reliable defensive anchor, say a 2011 Tyson Chandler type of player, he's absolutely worth it. Chandler showed that a defensive anchor with a limited but effective offensive game can be the 2nd best player on a title team, and DJ would only have to be the 3rd one. He should just mirror his game after Chandler as much as he can.

Plus, continuity matters, so I'd rather we keep him than sign a slightly better player on the same contract, and take a year or two to develop the chemistry that DJ already has with the team.

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.

He's not a liability on offense, he's never been, and he probably won't ever be on this team. We had the best offense in the league, I don't know if you realize how difficult it is to have the best offense in the NBA. You defo can't do it if one of your starters and big minutes guy was a liability. DJ's a great fit, he's great at finishing around the rim, setting solid picks and being where he needs to be without having the ball in his hands.
We have 3 starters with a usage of over 20%, plus a 6th man with a 27%. We NEED guys who know their role, play hard defense and don't ask for the ball too much on offense. Put a guy like Marc Gasol at C in the Clips, and you're wasting talent since not everyone can have the ball, and we already have several playmakers that need the ball in their hands. For that reason alone, few players are a better fit than Deandre for us. Now he just needs to be smart when playing defense and be the main piece that gets us to a top 5 defensive rate, and he'll be more than worth his max contract.

[Ranma]

[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/519135340372967424[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/KBergCBS/status/519145131161976832[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/stevekylerNBA/status/519148915120414720[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/519172990706384896[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/519160512744263680[/tweet]
[tweet]https://twitter.com/stevekylerNBA/status/519151629967568897[/tweet]

[og15]

DJ is gonna get the absolute max, no chance of anything else unless he gets injured this season. And with the bump in the salary cap, that could be about $20M a season. And you know what, if he's able to become a reliable defensive anchor, say a 2011 Tyson Chandler type of player, he's absolutely worth it. Chandler showed that a defensive anchor with a limited but effective offensive game can be the 2nd best player on a title team, and DJ would only have to be the 3rd one. He should just mirror his game after Chandler as much as he can.

Plus, continuity matters, so I'd rather we keep him than sign a slightly better player on the same contract, and take a year or two to develop the chemistry that DJ already has with the team.

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.

He's not a liability on offense, he's never been, and he probably won't ever be on this team. We had the best offense in the league, I don't know if you realize how difficult it is to have the best offense in the NBA. You defo can't do it if one of your starters and big minutes guy was a liability. DJ's a great fit, he's great at finishing around the rim, setting solid picks and being where he needs to be without having the ball in his hands.
We have 3 starters with a usage of over 20%, plus a 6th man with a 27%. We NEED guys who know their role, play hard defense and don't ask for the ball too much on offense. Put a guy like Marc Gasol at C in the Clips, and you're wasting talent since not everyone can have the ball, and we already have several playmakers that need the ball in their hands. For that reason alone, few players are a better fit than Deandre for us. Now he just needs to be smart when playing defense and be the main piece that gets us to a top 5 defensive rate, and he'll be more than worth his max contract.

I'll have to say that one thing that took Chandler's game to the next level is the fact that he became a proficient FT shooter. Chandler was never as bad as DJ, but since 09-10, he's shot 69.9% FT

[QRich3]

I'll have to say that one thing that took Chandler's game to the next level is the fact that he became a proficient FT shooter. Chandler was never as bad as DJ, but since 09-10, he's shot 69.9% FT

You think that was a big factor? Not saying it isn't important but he only attempted over 300 FT in a season twice. I have him as a great offensive player mostly because he sets monster picks and knows how to time his rolls and find space for easy baskets, as well as being an awesome offensive rebounder. DJ is already good at most of that, even if his offense stays the same, awful FT shooting and all, and his defense jumps to top-tier-defensive-anchor mode, give the man the max with no regrets. The defense part is still a big if though.

[og15]

Helped him stay on the floor in certain critical moments without any fear of being intentionally fouled. 70% is crazy for DJ, but if DJ shot 70% FT, he would have averaged 1.2 more PPG last season, the team would have averaged 1.2 more PPG last season, and there would be no battle of whether to keep him on the court or not at any point in time.

[McAdoo]

The cap is set to rise to 90 mil in a couple of seasons so the deal may end up being cheap.

Sent from my SCH-I545 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[LACtdom]

It's hard for us to make this decision from the outside looking in. Obviously our big 3 assets are Chris, Blake & Doc and they need to make the decision as to how much DJ is worth to them and how much they believe DJ's potential to be. Locking DJ into a long contract may ensure us to be contenders for the next 5 years.

Chemistry takes time and maybe in our best interest to overpay DJ simply because of that reason.

[QRich3]

Helped him stay on the floor in certain critical moments without any fear of being intentionally fouled. 70% is crazy for DJ, but if DJ shot 70% FT, he would have averaged 1.2 more PPG last season, the team would have averaged 1.2 more PPG last season, and there would be no battle of whether to keep him on the court or not at any point in time.

Yeh it's true, I agree that's important, and DJ's awful FT shooting will harm us at times. I'm just saying, realistically, he's not gonna improve his shooting much at this stage. And even if he doesn't, if he improves on the other areas he'll be worth a max contract. Specially for us, cause if we let him go it's not like we can sign another guy of his level, we'll be over the cap even if it rises as it's predicted to.

One really good thing about the cap rising, and DJ's extension coming before it does, is we're gonna be able to avoid the repeater tax and we'll be able to use the full MLE for a few more years still, which is something I thought we wouldn't have any chance to for some time.

[Lindecision]

Not concerned about DJ leaving. I'm slightly concerned about DJ being overpaid though.

His cap hold is supposed to be his max, right? That's $17.16 million, which is way too much under this salary cap. But with the cap going up, what is his new max going to be? I have no idea. If it goes up to like $19 million then that's clearly way too much, even taking future salary cap increases into account. Those max raises would be killer.

Seeing as we now know the cap is getting a year by year bump, I think DJ is worth the $17.16 million with max raises. I just hope both sides exercise some constraint not to go north of that, but I fear management may be hamstrung with how important he is to us.

[QRich3]

Apparently Silver said yesterday that the TV contract won't be factored in next season's cap either, since they won't have collected the money by then. So DJ's max won't be too far from those $17M

And I think we only have to look to that contract as an overpayment relative to what it means to us, not what it means compared to the rest of the league.
What's the difference for us between paying him $12M and $17M? will we be able to sign Gasol or another better C than him if we don't resign him? no we won't.
Will it factor in our ability to sign other players, use the MLE, sign&trades and other similar stuff? no it won't, we'll probably be over the apron next season no matter how much we pay him, and we'll definitely be under it the season after that, when the TV contract makes the cap go up.
Will he be harder to trade? yes, he will, and that's the only problem with overpaying him, we're stuck with him until the end of his contract. Hopefully he can end up living up to it, the same way he's worth his current contract even though it was an overpay when he signed it.

[Lindecision]

Apparently Silver said yesterday that the TV contract won't be factored in next season's cap either, since they won't have collected the money by then.

But that can change. Silver was speaking from a "as it stands now" point of view. The commissioner of the league can't be speculating about these things, so he kind of had to say that.

Lowe seems to think there's still a possibility that the NBA and Disney can agree to spread out some of that $24 billion and add it to the $930 million of TV revenues in 2015-16, thereby increasing the cap. As it stands now the cap will jump by $14 million in 2016-17. Do teams really want that? I wouldn't think so, but I really don't know. There will be competing interests.

[og15]

Not concerned about DJ leaving. I'm slightly concerned about DJ being overpaid though.

His cap hold is supposed to be his max, right? That's $17.16 million, which is way too much under this salary cap. But with the cap going up, what is his new max going to be? I have no idea. If it goes up to like $19 million then that's clearly way too much, even taking future salary cap increases into account. Those max raises would be killer.

Seeing as we now know the cap is getting a year by year bump, I think DJ is worth the $17.16 million with max raises. I just hope both sides exercise some constraint not to go north of that, but I fear management may be hamstrung with how important he is to us.

His cap hold is 150% of his current salary, so $17.1 mil or so. His max is 30% of the salary cap, so with a projected cap of $66.5 mil next season, his max would be a salary starting at about $19.95 mil.

Apparently Silver said yesterday that the TV contract won't be factored in next season's cap either, since they won't have collected the money by then. So DJ's max won't be too far from those $17M

And I think we only have to look to that contract as an overpayment relative to what it means to us, not what it means compared to the rest of the league.
What's the difference for us between paying him $12M and $17M? will we be able to sign Gasol or another better C than him if we don't resign him? no we won't.
Will it factor in our ability to sign other players, use the MLE, sign&trades and other similar stuff? no it won't, we'll probably be over the apron next season no matter how much we pay him, and we'll definitely be under it the season after that, when the TV contract makes the cap go up.
Will he be harder to trade? yes, he will, and that's the only problem with overpaying him, we're stuck with him until the end of his contract. Hopefully he can end up living up to it, the same way he's worth his current contract even though it was an overpay when he signed it.

The amount DJ makes can affect whether we have the MLE or mini-MLE and whether we get the biannual. Next years luxury tax is projected at $81 mil which gives us an apron of $85 mil. Our salaries without DJ and keeping all options is $66.5M. If we pay DJ $12 mil, we would have $78.5 mil among 10 players and would be $6.5 mil below apron.

I don't think a $12 mil contract is realistic though. If we give him his max of $19.95 mil, we would be be above the apron. Now at the least that gives us the mini-MLE and minimum contracts to fill out the roster.

If we sign him for $14M, we'd be at $80.5M, but again the use of any exceptions would hard cap the team at $85M, so with 10 players at $85M, we really would only have minimum contracts as options.

If we sign him to $17 mil and then decline the options of Barnes and Crawford, not sure how much is guaranteed, then we free up possibly another $8M, but we lose two players, so we're not necessarily gaining by doing that unless we believe we can get similar impact players for cheaper or at least the same money.

So there are going to be some options that need to be made, maybe declining a guy like Barnes' option, or even a mid-season trade for a player with a rookie type contract because of a looking ahead kind of situation, who knows, we'll see how they figure it out when the time comes.