Mr Puddles wrote:Since the Suns didn't pick up Jalen's rookie team scale option, what does that mean for extending him? even though he'll be an unrestricted free agent do the Suns have (e.g) cap advantages over other teams if we extend him?
Good question. I think he'll be a UFA but I'm not 100% sure.
Smith will become an unrestricted free agent during the summer of 2022, two years before his rookie contract normally would have expired and two years after being drafted 10th overall. Phoenix – or whichever team finishes the season with Smith on its roster – won’t be able to offer him a starting salary that exceeds $4,670,160, the amount of his declined option.
So if he keeps playing well and we want to give him a contract we can offer him in the summer a $15M/3 years contract or around that numbers...starting the first year at $4.5M.
Anyone knows for sure if we can offer him that type of deal?
All depends if we can shed Dario. If not, it's looking likely that shamet got that money. Not keeping him his full rookie contract could very well be the biggest mistake this front office has made, in my opinion. He looks like an NBA player, he's young and has legitimate tools to succeed as a backup stretch 4/5. Those don't grow on trees.
Slim Charless wrote: Good question. I think he'll be a UFA but I'm not 100% sure.
Smith will become an unrestricted free agent during the summer of 2022, two years before his rookie contract normally would have expired and two years after being drafted 10th overall. Phoenix – or whichever team finishes the season with Smith on its roster – won’t be able to offer him a starting salary that exceeds $4,670,160, the amount of his declined option.
So if he keeps playing well and we want to give him a contract we can offer him in the summer a $15M/3 years contract or around that numbers...starting the first year at $4.5M.
Anyone knows for sure if we can offer him that type of deal?
All depends if we can shed Dario. If not, it's looking likely that shamet got that money. Not keeping him his full rookie contract could very well be the biggest mistake this front office has made, in my opinion. He looks like an NBA player, he's young and has legitimate tools to succeed as a backup stretch 4/5. Those don't grow on trees.
That Stix contract move was unbelievably stupid...and I have no doubt that it 1000% a directive from Sarver.
Anyone who remembers the days when he used to sell picks could back me up here. Now, Sarver knows he'll catch a ton of heat for doing that now so he told JJ to pass on the 4th yr for Stix. Partly cause he probably recognized that he'll have to fork out for Ayton....but mostly just cause he's cheap...and a crappy owner.
Bobby released Stix because he's poor by NBA standards. It's really that simple.
If you want a little complexity, here's a wrinkle. The whole selling picks thing from the past - this is the pattern. When he's contending, he gains confidence, thinks he's shrewd, starts making short-sighted cutthroat decisions because those are the type of decisions that makes him feel like he's part of the team's success, like he's relevant. He's a bad businessman who made it because he was born into it and the whole world is engineered to guarantee the success of large (and especially finance-based) businesses. He's a duke who likes to think he's responsible for the good harvest. His only role is to say yes an no. When he's down, he says yes. When he's up - that's when the 'no' starts flying.
Can someone get the court jester off the throne, please?
ImNotMcDiSwear wrote:Bobby released Stix because he's poor by NBA standards. It's really that simple.
If you want a little complexity, here's a wrinkle. The whole selling picks thing from the past - this is the pattern. When he's contending, he gains confidence, thinks he's shrewd, starts making short-sighted cutthroat decisions because those are the type of decisions that makes him feel like he's part of the team's success, like he's relevant. He's a bad businessman who made it because he was born into it and the whole world is engineered to guarantee the success of large (and especially finance-based) businesses. He's a duke who likes to think he's responsible for the good harvest. His only role is to say yes an no. When he's down, he says yes. When he's up - that's when the 'no' starts flying.
Can someone get the court jester off the throne, please?
This.
I eagerly await that NBA report that I hope will find him guilty of everything he's been accused of. He needs to sell the team, sooner the better.
ImNotMcDiSwear wrote:Bobby released Stix because he's poor by NBA standards. It's really that simple.
If you want a little complexity, here's a wrinkle. The whole selling picks thing from the past - this is the pattern. When he's contending, he gains confidence, thinks he's shrewd, starts making short-sighted cutthroat decisions because those are the type of decisions that makes him feel like he's part of the team's success, like he's relevant. He's a bad businessman who made it because he was born into it and the whole world is engineered to guarantee the success of large (and especially finance-based) businesses. He's a duke who likes to think he's responsible for the good harvest. His only role is to say yes an no. When he's down, he says yes. When he's up - that's when the 'no' starts flying.
Can someone get the court jester off the throne, please?
Pretty much. The money ball value for Stix was that he was getting paid 4.7 Million Dollars to NOT play minutes (until recently). This is considered "fat that needs to be trimmed, from a financial slash productivity perspective". But with Saric, Ayton, Kaminsky and now McGee out... the supposedly fat that requires trimming is now looking like body fat but you're stuck in the desert for a few nights without packed food.... you become Very Important to Essential. James Jones is now justified in his pick and Sarver is now trying to plan for a 3 year 15 Million Contract for Stix in the case McGee or Kaminsky bolts in the off-season. Option 2 is that Sarver is telling Jones to find a deal ASAP.
Jeez...careful what you wish for..... as crass as Sarver is, he is a known entity. Cat being out of the bag, he now is on double secret probation. His back seating to Jones seems apparent to me, but he will continue to be whipping boy for decisions that have economics involved. Doesn’t anyone think that Jones has a say? If anything, not extending Smith is a close break even as nobody is going to offer him much more than what he will have made next yr. Guys like him a dozen for a dime. Now maybe these unexpected minutes he is garnering over the next few games will throw a little wrench in the projected value/cost Jones had in mind, but that’s entirely up to Smith. Good for him, and really, not so bad for us. We aren’t even sure he’s a 15-20 minute guy yet.
ImNotMcDiSwear wrote:Bobby released Stix because he's poor by NBA standards. It's really that simple.
If you want a little complexity, here's a wrinkle. The whole selling picks thing from the past - this is the pattern. When he's contending, he gains confidence, thinks he's shrewd, starts making short-sighted cutthroat decisions because those are the type of decisions that makes him feel like he's part of the team's success, like he's relevant. He's a bad businessman who made it because he was born into it and the whole world is engineered to guarantee the success of large (and especially finance-based) businesses. He's a duke who likes to think he's responsible for the good harvest. His only role is to say yes an no. When he's down, he says yes. When he's up - that's when the 'no' starts flying.
Can someone get the court jester off the throne, please?
Pretty much. The money ball value for Stix was that he was getting paid 4.7 Million Dollars to NOT play minutes (until recently). This is considered "fat that needs to be trimmed, from a financial slash productivity perspective". But with Saric, Ayton, Kaminsky and now McGee out... the supposedly fat that requires trimming is now looking like body fat but you're stuck in the desert for a few nights without packed food.... you become Very Important to Essential. James Jones is now justified in his pick and Sarver is now trying to plan for a 3 year 15 Million Contract for Stix in the case McGee or Kaminsky bolts in the off-season. Option 2 is that Sarver is telling Jones to find a deal ASAP.
I think we're playing him out of need mostly but yes, they might be trying to find a deal. Which, if we're gonna lose him this offseason for nothing due to us having to pay Ayton and Cam Johnson anyways, I'm fine with.
I don't see Sarver forking over for all these dudes. It's not gonna happen. 99% of owners would've just given Ayton his max this past summer. We have the cheap one. Quite frankly I'm worried we're gonna lose Cam Johnson as well.
Sucks but if they can package Stix with Shame-ette or Cam Payne for an obvious upgrade then do it.
Mr Puddles wrote:Since the Suns didn't pick up Jalen's rookie team scale option, what does that mean for extending him? even though he'll be an unrestricted free agent do the Suns have (e.g) cap advantages over other teams if we extend him?
Good question. I think he'll be a UFA but I'm not 100% sure.
Smith will become an unrestricted free agent during the summer of 2022, two years before his rookie contract normally would have expired and two years after being drafted 10th overall. Phoenix – or whichever team finishes the season with Smith on its roster – won’t be able to offer him a starting salary that exceeds $4,670,160, the amount of his declined option.
So if he keeps playing well and we want to give him a contract we can offer him in the summer a $15M/3 years contract or around that numbers...starting the first year at $4.5M.
Anyone knows for sure if we can offer him that type of deal?
He is an UFA. The most we can offer him is what he would have made had we picked up the option. I don't know about # of years...I assume we can give him the regular max raises.
Other teams can offer him more than he would have made on his option year though. So other teams have the advantage of being able to pay more. That's why I didn't like not picking it up, since I felt we had it cost controlled for 2 more years, matching rights, etc. Now if he plays really well other teams can offer more. Plus it's unlikely he has nearly the trade value given a team trading for him is more limited in re-signing him than another team being able to offer more. Others feel his expiring his some huge asset but those are only assets if a team can dump long term money for an expiring, something I don't think we will take on either.
The only positive if we want to keep him is if he doesn't play well enough for another team to pay him more than what his option would be, or much more, and we want to keep him and he wants to stay. It's possible he stays for less.
Contenders may want to spend their MLE money on more win now players and most rebuilding teams have a lot of prospects. Spurs have a lot of cap space though so maybe if they can't find a somewhat big name player they will spend it on a couple of younger guys like him...but it wouldn't necessarily make sense for them to trade for him unless they felt no team would outbid them. There would be no benefit other than seeing if he fit with the team, but if he fit really well and played well there is a better chance another team offers him more than they can.
I am surprised with Jalen's production as many of you are (some of you are not surprised, kudos to you) and it would be great to see him get more opportunities and hopefully become a more regular part of the rotation. That being said, I still don't have any issues with us declining his rookie deal. Cost controlled sounds like a good term to use but cost controlled would suggests its kept low.
$4.7m next season, almost $6m in the last season of his rookie contract, that's nearly $11m left on his contract. That's not controlling costs for thus far, 4-5 good games. If it was like $2-3m for the next couple of seasons, then sure that's alright value. Call Sarver cheap with this move all you want but even this season, $4.5m for a handful of solid game this season isn't really good value. Yes, he could certainly play himself into a position where he's worth his contract but that's not a guarantee this season and not a guarantee next season (had we not declined his option). I understand why the front office gambled and went this direction.
lilfishi22 wrote:I am surprised with Jalen's production as many of you are (some of you are not surprised, kudos to you) and it would be great to see him get more opportunities and hopefully become a more regular part of the rotation. That being said, I still don't have any issues with us declining his rookie deal. Cost controlled sounds like a good term to use but cost controlled would suggests its kept low.
$4.7m next season, almost $6m in the last season of his rookie contract, that's nearly $11m left on his contract. That's not controlling costs for thus far, 4-5 good games. If it was like $2-3m for the next couple of seasons, then sure that's alright value. Call Sarver cheap with this move all you want but even this season, $4.5m for a handful of solid game this season isn't really good value. Yes, he could certainly play himself into a position where he's worth his contract but that's not a guarantee this season and not a guarantee next season (had we not declined his option). I understand why the front office gambled and went this direction.
Call Sarver cheap with this move all you want but even this season, $4.5m for a handful of solid game this season isn't really good value.
You make great points and for the most part I agree with your points here. But I guess for me personally, I consider it cheap on Sarvers' end because of all the aforementioned ( in my previous posts on Smith's contract argument) discounts he's received prior to making that specific decision on Smith's option:
Concessions
Spoiler:
- Chris Paul opting out of his 44 million to resign on a cheaper partially guaranteed deal.
- Resigning Cam Payne for dirt cheap.
- Saving money by not using the full range of our exceptions, Bi annual, etc.
- Getting a great discount on Bridges contract extension.
- Tax payer funded arena renovation for the Footprint Center, etc. Around 80% paid for by taxpayers!!
additional Revenue
Spoiler:
( could be used towards roster costs/ Aytons' max) etc?? - All of the adfitional playoffs games, ticket sales, merchandise, tv revenue, etc.
- Signing Shamet to almost double his value before he's even played a game for us! This was big in the ripple effects it carries towards other contractual roster obligations due to imminent salary.
- Sitting on Saric once he got injured and not filing for the disabled player exception to offset almost half of his 9 million in dead salary. OR ELSE trading him with another small piece for an comparable expiring contract. To reduce our overall salary burden prior to Aytons' potential extension and luxury tax considerations.
- Not moving Nader ( whose not making significant salary) but nevertheless is injured more than he's available. And basically represents more dead salary that is contributing no on court impact towards wins. ( With all of Saric, Nader, Kaminsky) sitting out with injuries and missing the majority of the season, altogether they represent close to $ 13+ million in DEAD SALARY/ NO IMPACT. also with Monty's infamously short rotations, You have Hutchinson, Wainwright, Smith ( prior to Covid protocols) hardly even playing or not playing at all ( Hutchinson). Add those to Saric and Kaminsky who obviously aren't playing this season, then you have 5 wasted roster spots. 6 if you also add in Nader too whose on the injured list more than he is on the court. Is that not roster negligence and really pooorvroster depth management? Especially for a supposed contender? ( it would've been better to just pay the 2 million disparity for Craig, Who at least would be playing more than being on the injured list).
- Sitting on Jalen ( a 10th overall lottery pick) and not choosing to give him minutes or develop him properly until after we decline his option. Meaning we basically wasted a lotto asset that could've been utilized in a trade (prior to/ or on draft night) for an actual veteran impact player whilst also committing to around $8.7 million for a player to sit on the bench and occasionally get a few minutes in garbage time! Instead of working to maximize his value either on the court or via trade.
- passing on better legitimate free agency options for mediocre semi washed bargain bin vets such as Payton, Hutchinson, Wainwright. All who may have some modicum of potential. But have been dropped by numerous teams for their blatant weaknesses and inconsistencies. We're supposed contenders that are looking to cut cost rather than go "all in." This is a typical Sarver move that has repeatedly done to our team any time we were close to contention by the way.
- 27 games in, and the suns still haven't properly addressed/ fixed the same repetitive glaring weaknesses that have now contributed to 8 losses. If we don't seek to upgrade positionally to address these continuing weaknesses, we'll be on track to finish around 58-24 at best. Which is still very good. But to even get in that range without fixing these weaknesses, would require heavy minutes from Paul, Booker, Crowder, Bridges, etc. likely leaving them fatigued around the playoffs.
- Most recently, Adding obscure unproven no name G league players with no legitimate size when over 90% of our frontcourt is out in Covid protocols. It was blatantly clear to anyone, that we needed size. Instead they opt to add a 6'5 shooting guard and a 6'7 wing and 6'8 forward instead of a legitimate center. This is negligence in not recognizing your personnel in critical roster situations.
The point here I think is that Saver overall has recieved more than enough concessions both contractually and in other areas to offset any potential cost concerns towards picking up Smith's option. Not picking it up is obviously yet another example ( optics) of him being cheap and cost cutting wherever he can as he has repeatedly shown to do whenever we finally build a contending team with high potential salary commitments. But IF you're actually serious about fielding a title contender, That's what you do! You go all in towards winning a title and worry about the bill after, OR ELSE if your Saver, you don't, And you prioritize your bottom line / profit margin whilst fielding a near championship team not quite good enough to win it all, but still good enough to be competitive and turn a good profit for ownership.
$4.5m for a handful of solid game this season isn't really good value.
Whilst under normal pretenses I would of course fully agree with you that $4.5 million is not good value for only a handful of solid games, Smith quite likely could've / would've had more than a mere handful IF ONLY Monty / Suns had actually chosen to give him legitimate playing time like he's finally now getting on a technicality. I mean to be fair, by that same measure, has Shamet been good value at the 10 million he signed for and will cost against our cap next season? Because his contract is a large factor in why they chose to not pick up Smith's option over potential LT concerns. Yet he still gets minutes even though he's been pretty bad because he's a veteran, again, even though has still sucked pretty bad for quite a few games. The optics again ( so far) look like not playing him/ developing him sooner was a mistake! Wil we yet get more evidence of this perspective tommorow possibly?
The unfortunate reality is that Monty has his favorites, and is to a large degree inflexible in his short rotations, even to the team's eventual detriment! Saric representing around $ 9 million in dead salary, Shamet representing close to 10 million in salary commitment for vet minimum level production. Even some of our rotation players that are consistently getting more minutes than what Smith has seen prior to Covid are putting up less production than Smith in his first legitimate in game opportunity. Currently it's looking like yet more negligence from the suns. Especially if he continues this upward trajectory.
One can only hope that the suns are more clever than they currently appear and have either a plan to resign him or to trade him rather than simply letting him walk.
If he's playing like this now, surely he must have been playing well in practice. As with most of us, I doubted Smith from basically the moment he wasn't getting minutes his rookie year, but quite frankly we all have the valid excuse of "it's not my job" since we're not in the gym with these guys. Very glad to see him produce so far.
I understand though the concerns about playing a rookie in our 2021 season, and that's fair enough. Then we signed McGee who has been still amazing for us and was coming off a nice olympic run and Cam Johnson has had some nice stretches this year, so it's not like Smith was playing behind worse players. This is honestly the first opportunity he's had.
I think the real problem (again, if Smith is legitimate) comes from simply not picking up the option because if he's playing like this in games now, then obviously he has been killing it in practice and McGee is 34 so we could have easily just kept Smith as something up our sleeve.
Super glad Jalen is playing well. I really wish we would have tried him more in last year's playoffs, but understand not playing a rookie that had a rough first season.
I hope Jalen can keep having productive minutes and is used more when others are having bad games.
Duane Rankin (@DuaneRankin) Tweeted: "In shootaround, MB was telling me that he saw that emotion in Maryland and he was like, "Oh, you the quiet guy now?"
Jalen Smith on what #Suns assistant Mark Bryant asked him before Sunday's game in Charlotte.
This is pretty funny too! Phoenix Suns (@Suns) Tweeted: "Hi, I'm @campayne. You're probably wondering how I ended up like this. Funny story..." https://t.co/hC0BKUZBST
Can we do some "trick" in the summer to get him back?
I am thinking that we can offer him just a one year deal for $4.6M and then we can have a non-official agreement with him and his agent for 2023 giving him something like $60/4 years.
It just an idea if he continues playing great for us. Has happened something like that before?
