shtolky wrote:Basketball1981 wrote:NoLayupRule wrote:the problem is that the Hardaway signing was a classic new GM move
When Phil and Mills were together one of the biggest disagreements they had was over Hardaway. Mills loved him, Phil didn't. Phil traded him. End of story.
Apparently not.
Because the first thing Mills did when Phil was out and Griffin said no was to do whatever it took to get THjr back and prove to Dolan that he, Mills, was right about him
so we bid against ourselves in a grossly flawed example of misguided thinning.
Mills said that the average salary for starting SGs in the league is 18mil. Its not. Its 16mil. But fine.
So he gave Hardaway the average SG salary.
Problem is that Hardaway isn't an average SG yet
hes currently a 1 way player at best and you shouldn't pay those guys like we did
So Mills, behind the scenes, is making a gamble on Hardaway to prove to Dolan that he's always been right about players.
But in doing so Mills made the worst moves because we overbid and, worst of all, gave a player option.
so at the end of the day either THjr underperforms his contract or he matches or outperforms it and then takes the player option and forces us to resign him or leaves
its one thing, a bad thing, to gamble on a player like we did
its another all together to gamble but have an option for that player to leave if he does reach the level were paying him for
unreal Mills
I would have literally given 10 And1s for this post. When I first heard about the signing I thought my friend way punking me. I was thinking that "things are chaing around the Knicks and there is no way any sane GM would give 71mill. to Hardaway. When I saw that it is true I hoped against all odds that Atlanta would match the contract. When it sunk in that there is no way Atlanta matches it I was like
The only positive here in case Hardaway indeed does not perform up to task then that will throw an incredibly bad light on Mills. It will go down as a massive blunder, ESPECIALLY if two years from now players like Irving signal their interest to join our team but we are stuck with an underperforming Hardaway.
@Nolayuprule: Have you seen Hardaway's defense last year? I admit I haven't paid much attention to it. What is it like? Is it really much improved? If Hardaway isn't at least a solid defender then there is literally no realistic chance for him to perform up to that 71mill. IMO. Even if he averages 18points a game---if he plays bad defense he'd still be underperforming and no team would touch that contract.
I am confused as to how you can be so against this signing as evidenced by your post and yet you literally don't know a thing about his defense. That doesn't seem to make sense to me. His defense was actually much better than most realize, and coach Bud even said it was his defense that got him on the court.
As for NoLayUpRule, how is THJ not an average NBA SG? How many SG's are there in the league? 60-70? I have no idea, I am assuming 2-3 per team. He is CLEARLY at least an average shooting guard. This season he will be the 14th highest paid SG. Oladipo and Wes Matthews make more, and THJ is arguably better than both (I can see people going up in arms about mentioning Oladipo, but he was not good enough for his contract number that starts this year). Evan Fournier makes more than THJ.
Also, your logic about Phil hating THJ and Mills loving him because Mills signed him once Phil left is ridiculous. The player Phil traded away in 2015 is not the same player we signed in 2017. We cares if we traded him away, what does that matter? Should OKC not go after Harden in the future because they once dealt him? I'm sure all Mills cares about is proving to Dolan that he was right about THJ...Dolan who would never fire Mills in 1,000,000 years, yet Mills is doing this to please Dolan. Why couldn't he have just signed a good young player to a contract that is being WILDLY exaggerated here as a huge overpay. If it was up to some of you, we would just never sign anyone because literally every contract signed is an overpay.
First of all I'm not making an assumption that Mills loves thjr and Jackson hated him because of the trades. I'm stating what I've heard from the press and from the people in the know who said that this was a major point between him
And secondly the reason I am against signing, regardless of the defenseive improvements of this kid which I think are dubious, it's because it's a monumental miss use of money.
This team is not winning this year and probably not next year.
I'd much prefer to have seen us use that Space to make trades the benefit us in that us draft picks. We should be looking at some of the players you mention to buy crab and Bazemore who teams want to remove from their payrolls
I'd much prefer to be paying Bazemore 17 million a year and getting a pic in the process for the favor to Atlanta and let them pay Hardaway whatever he's worth
