nate33 wrote:I'm saying that, two years from now, when there is no longer an anomalous surge of money in one offseason, we will look back at Mahinmi's contract and realize how bad it is. It may not be bad relative to other contracts in the 2016 free agency class, but it'll be bad relative to all other contracts in the league in 2018.
This is not the year to sign long term contracts. After striking out on Durant and Horford, we should have stepped away from the table. If Wall is upset about it, tell him that we're simply not paying 20% of the cap for Ian freaking Mahinmi, market forces be damned. We'll save the money, get below the league minimum salary, and pay all of our current players a bonus.
That's a fair analysis, and a viable strategy that Wizards could've employed, given where we are in our efforts to build a contender.
I was making a different point: I was analyzing *this year's* acquisitions, in light of *this year's* marketplace. Time will tell whether market fluctuations in future years will render most/all 2016 deals "bad" in retrospect, but I don't think it matters much -- the entire league is aware of the cap projections for 2018 and beyond, and (in theory) that info gets baked into the market forces that set today's FMV. Or, to put it another way: our deals for Wall and Gortat look great now in light of the cap increase, but that doesn't mean that they were necessarily market value *at the time we inked them* (I thought they were slight overpays on both fronts at the time).
Always remember, my friend: the world will change again. And you may have to come back through everywhere you've been.