We won’t know until it’s over quite whether or not Drummond’s career is a reminder of why mental make-up tests shouldn’t be too overvalued in light of a player’s actual abilities and impact, but the indications from his rookie season suggest that it will be.
To stick in this league, English will have to not just be a catch-and-shoot player, but also as a shooter off of screens and occasionally off of the bounce. He showed in college that he could potentially do this if he could develop the extra range required, but he has yet to show this has happened. Due to having had no opportunity to do so.
Evans is a wing man with a famously poor outside jump shot, so it’s probably a slight contradiction that last year, he started to take jump shots for free throws. If he could shoot, he’d be a great prospect, an above average defensive player (who can defend inside and out) and very good rebounder from the swingman positions with length, athleticism, transition finishes and some off-the-dribble game. But the lack of a jumper submarines it all, and it seems it’s trending backwards.
Johnson’s pro career has thus far been a jarring disappointment. Last year he played for three different D-League teams, this after being picked first overall in the draft. He was traded twice, once for Luke Harangody and once for Kyle Weaver, and his averages declined at each gig. By the end of the year, Johnson found himself averaging only 6.8 points, 1.8 rebounds and 0.4 blocks per game for the Idaho Stampede. Jeff Potter, the President of the Fort Wayne Mad Ants who picked him first overall, felt obliged to take the unusual step of publicly expressing that Johnson just wasn’t committed enough. Even if it’s a minority opinion, it’s a worrying one.
Kravtsov had a partially guaranteed contract for this season that became guaranteed when he was not waived by July 29th, so he’ll be back. And he should be. He’s a legitimate defensive centre with offensive skills to boot (and his 29.7% free throw percentage is an anomaly – he shot 70% over the preceding three seasons. But he should also spend a little time in the D-League. For whatever reason, the Pistons never sent him there last year, and while they played him in 25 NBA games, it was only in a bit part role. The NBA and its coaches may be a better place to learn, but a 10-15 game run-out on assignment to actually employ those skills learnt and build up some confidence (or even trade value) would consolidate that. Maybe next year.
Korie Lucious
Lucious perhaps did the right thing in transferring from Michigan State to Iowa State, as it gave him a fresh start, more minutes and more opportunity. But those minutes and opportunities reaffirmed his limitations. Lucious is a shooter, who wants to be an elite shooter, and who takes a large number of jump shots, yet he just isn’t an elite shooter. He can get into the lane and dish to some extent, yet he wants the shot more, and it’s just not that good. His point guard skills are there, somewhat, but Lucious has somewhat high turnover numbers, partly due to a loose handle under pressure. On the plus side, Lucious is quick and can guard, and crescendoed nicely (if very late) in his college career. He’ll make money in the pro game. But not the NBA.
Middleton played a fair amount for the Pistons last year, and played pretty well on offence, averaging 6.1 points in 18 minutes per game with remarkably few turnovers. The downside was poor defensive play, and a lack of true range – Middleton’s herky jerky game of hesitation, floaters, turnarounds and the like from mid-range translates to the NBA with his size, but is not enough on its own. Middleton has a guaranteed contract for next season and will be back, but he needs to continue to develop the range and the defence to compliment his current skills.
Mitchell lumbered through one of the most dramatic sophomore slumps seen for a while, seeing his numbers decline in every single statistical category (save for 0.1 of a steal), most notably going from 10.3rpg to 8.5rpg and 57% FG to 44% FG. This all happened while his minutes increased from 29 to 33 per game. He shot 44% from three as a rookie, and apparently fell in love with the idea of being a shooter, taking too many jump shots, thus explaining the field goal percentage drop. He can drive and post, to a degree, but seemingly wants to do neither, and the rebounding decline seems similarly apathetic. Mitchell has all the physical tools to be a defender, rebounder and face-up scorer, but he’s only apparently interested in one of the three.
Peterson is an odd choice for summer league. The 28 year old left Samford in 2008 and spent the first three years of his career in Bulgaria, followed by a one year stint in the Czech Republic for Prostejov. Last year was spent in the Ukraine, averaging 13.6 points, 5.7 rebounds and 1.5 assists for Hoverla. Nice numbers, but representative of his playing style in both good and bad ways. Notwithstanding his decent defensive instincts around the basket, and his height of 6’10 or 6’11 depending on who you believe, Peterson is essentially a very big small forward. You can run some offence through him at the high post with his passing vision and outside jump shot as long as the rest of the team can offset the rebounding hole his presence presents.
Siva’s athleticism, ability and willingness to get to the basket intrigue, particularly the athleticism, which few other point guards can rival. His aggressiveness can give way to recklessness, with some turnovers and forced shots, but you can live with that. The athleticism is most effective defensively, where, when tuned in, Siva can be a genuine disruptive influence. He’s a poor shooter, not a controlled floor general (he passes first, but doesn’t necessarily control the tempo), and is prone to force things. But he makes things happen. And he’s fast. And he’s fun. Summer league lends itself well to these traits.
Benson has spent the past two summer leagues and training camps with the Hawks, but seemingly that well has dried up. He briefly played in the NBA, managing nine minutes with the Warriors late in 2011-12, but didn’t make it back last year. Benson spent most of last season in the D-League, averaging 10.0 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.7 blocks in only 23 minutes per game in two stints with the Erie BayHawks, bookending a stay in the Philippines, where he averaged 23.6 points, 15.8 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game for Talk’N’Text in the Commissioners Cup. However, import big men ALWAYS put up big numbers in the Philippines, as there are very few domestic big men to compete with them. And so despite the ostensibly gaudy numbers, Benson was released for being “ineffective”, and replaced by Donnell Harvey, who was acquired to bring the “toughness, interior defence and communication” that Benson just didn’t. Therein lies the story with Benson – he’s tall, athletic, fluid, and fairly skill, but he’s just not tough enough, and shot blocking is not the same as defence.
Hagins just graduated from Delaware, where he was a three time CAA All-Defensive Team selection, and last year’s Defensive Player of the Year. As a senior, he averaged 11.6 points, 10.7 rebounds and 2.4 blocks per game, on an efficient 55% FG and 74% FT. Hagins was an invite to the Portsmouth Invitation Tournament, where he played extremely well in all facets of the game, demonstrating both his skills and his athleticism. In addition to this athleticism and fluidity of motion, Hagins has a strong frame, good rebounding instincts, hustle, a hook shot with both hands, and a mid range jumper. He rotates well, plays strong post defence, and, whilst not being a regular post-up option, can finish efficiently and run occasional pick-and-roll. Does he have a legit chance of a camp roster? Yes. Shelden Williams got drafted 16th with much the same game.
James returns to the franchise that drafted him, let him go merely half way through his rookie contract, then brought him back very briefly once more last season. It’s odd, in a way – by this time, they must surely know what they have in him, and also what they don’t. Clearly, something intrigues. James’s NBA career thus far has underwhelmed, and his D-League numbers last season still show big holes; he averaged 8.2 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.1 blocks in 30 minutes per game, but his 15.8 points came on percentages of 41%/26%/76%, and an unhealthily large 2.7 turnovers for a man who doesn’t dribble much. James is perhaps best used in the NBA in the role that Brooklyn very briefly used him for last season, that of a situational, one-play defensive wing specialist. But is such a role worth its own roster spot?
Perennial summer leaguer Janning has himself a quality European career going. He’s improved his three point shot since college and now cuts it in Italy, one of Europe’s better leagues, as a versatile “just a guard” type of guard. Last year he averaged 6.6 points for Serie A champion Siena, rising to 8.4ppg in EuroLeague player. The book on Janning is fairly well written – he’s a very solid player best suited to Europe. Yet his presence here would suggest he would rather be back in the NBA. This is fine, yet, notwithstanding the one year he spent in it with Phoenix, it doesn’t seem likely.
Lighty’s emergence as a versatile all-round player as an upperclassman was nonetheless not enough to get him into the NBA. He’s since spent two years in Europe, splitting his first season between Bennet Cantu and Vanoli Cremona in Italy, then moving to France last season and spending the season with Nanterre, averaging 12.7 points, 3.7 rebounds and 2.7 assists as a leader on the championship winning side. Lighty scored 430 points on 314 shots and put up 21 points in the championship clinching game – from a French league perspective, there’s nothing not to like. Lighty has athleticism, a decent shot, passing vision and good if gambly defensive instincts. But there is likely not enough there for the NBA.
Plumlee has the offensive skill that his brother Miles doesn’t. That’s not to say he’s a hugely polished offensive player, but he’s better. Plumlee has rescued his free throw percentage from terrible to average, hits a few mid range jumpers, and has a hook shot and a reasonable handle. He’ll run the floor, has all the athleticism of a true Plumlee, and has a good rebounding rate. However, Plumlee can be a little clumsy, soft and mistake prone, moreso than you’d like from a four year college grad. But the height, athleticism, and decent skill level show good potential.
Scott was with the Nets in both summer league and training camp last season, which was quite the turnaround from a man who started his career in the less-than-stellar outlets of Portugal and Austria. (Great places, just not great basketball leagues.) After being waived, he went to the D-League, and averaged 11.6 points, 5.6 rebounds and 1.0 blocks per game for the Springfield Armor. However, he did so on sub-40% shooting, continuing to cast up the jumpers and rely on transition opportunities offensively, adding no post-up or dribble-drive games of note. Additionally, he’s also not that good of a defender – he just looks as though he should be. Scott intrigues with his athleticism and jump shot combination, but it’s not enough.
Shengelia is a shining example of what the D-League is for. Signed to a guaranteed contract but destined for the inactive list, Shengelia was assigned to the Springfield Armor five times, and played ten games, including posting a 23 point, 10 rebound, 12 assist triple-double on debut, his first competitive game for months. Shengelia finished the season with D-League averages of 24.3 points, 8.2 rebounds, 4.0 assists, 2.3 steals and 1.0 blocks per game, on percentages of 53%/37%/68%. He also managed a double double in 25 minutes of the final NBA game of the season, hinting at his future promise. Huge turnover numbers accompany all this output – lest we forget, Shengelia is only 21 and still raw. But his inside/outside game, versatility, passing, smarts, savvy, agility, skills and mismatch potential all make for a rare combination, and he’s productive with it all. There’s a reason Brooklyn gave up MarShon Brooks and Kris Joseph in the Kevin Garnett/Paul Pierce deal rather than Shengelia and Reggie Evans, and it wasn’t Evans.
Sutton went from a defensive role player at Kansas State to a leading offensive player at North Carolina Central, back to a defensive role player with the Tulsa 66ers. Slightly undersized at 6’5, but athletic, strong and extremely intense, Sutton averaged 9.8 points and 6.0 rebounds for the 66ers, using up pretty much every one of his fouls in doing so. He takes pride in being the garbage guy and hits the glass, chases down the ball, and gives no ground. He doesn’t, however, score much. Sutton is a poor shooter and ball handler, and has to survive in a similarly garbage-man style on offence. He also turns 27 before the next season starts, and while the aforementioned Damion James may not have the same consistently intense man to man defence, he offers better size and better skills to the defensive stopper role that the two both seek to fulfil.
Like Shengelia, Taylor was assigned multiple times to the Springfield Armor, and averaged 24.6 points and 7.5 assists per game down there. He also played in 38 NBA games. In those 38 NBA games, however, he had more turnovers than assists. Garbage time (which most of it was) is no great indicator of ability, yet the trend continued in Taylor’s games with the Armor; those 7.5 assists per game came along with four turnovers. As ever, then, Taylor showed he isn’t an effective half court point guard for more than mere stretches. And if he isn’t a half court point guard, what is he?
Kashif Watson
C.J’s brother has played in summer league before, with Golden State in 2010, back when C.J. was a free agent of the Warriors. It didn’t work as a means to convince C.J. to stay then, and it won’t work now either, given that he’s already agreed to sign with the Pacers. Kashif, a small but tough guard from Idaho, was drafted in the fifth round of the 2010 D-League draft by the New Mexico Thunderbirds, but did not make the team, and his only professional experience since that time appears to be a total of 33 minutes for the Windsor Express in the NBL Canada last season. He is here because of who he is related to, not because he might make it.
Chris Wright was told by a doctor to retire from the game 15 months ago due to a diagnosis of MS found during an ankle examination. Twelve months on, and he was in the NBA with the Mavericks on a 10-day contract. Decent comeback.
To make it back again, or to stick, will require either luck, a strong stretch of stand-out play, or the development of one particular skill. Or, more than likely, some combination thereof. There’s a lot to like about Wright, who has few flaws, but it’s hard to assign him a role in the NBA, and that’s all too often a requirement of anyone not deemed to have great upside. Having MS does not equate to having great upside, unfortunately.
Abromaitis began his professional career this season in France, playing for perennial powerhouse ASVEL Villerbanne and averaging 8.1 points and 3.9 rebounds in 20 minutes per game. He shot his usual 41% from three point range, and didn’t make many mistakes, yet nor did he (or does he) do much other than shoot. He doesn’t have Kyle Korver’s ability to get open or shoot off screens, he’s not as tall as Steve Novak, not as athletic as James Jones, and not as lucky as Luke Zeller. Abromaitis could in theory have Pat Garrity’s role in the NBA, but Pat Garrity was considerably better than Abromaitis before becoming the specialist that he did.
Fells continues to plug away in summer league, hoping to catch on, and has built up one of the biggest resumes of anyone here. He’s spent the last two regular seasons in Israel and the last two summers in the Dominican Republic, rarely getting hurt and certainly putting in his work. The off-ball scorer averaged 12.3 points per game for Hapoel Jerusalem this season, and his decision making and shot selection skills continue to show incremental improvements. However, Fells is still not a playmaker, still average to mediocre in the rest of the game other than the jump shot, and, nice as his shot is, it still doesn’t have electric three point range. A shooting specialist can’t always shoot in the 30% range. Fells would potentially have a Von Wafer-like role if his jump shot could make the leap, but it still hasn’t.
Granger’s decision to come to summer league now, after spending his entire career to date in Spain, is interesting. With his contract with Estudiantes this summer, perhaps this is his best chance of making the NBA. Granger continues to improve year on year, and, two years after being undrafted, is a thoroughly unspectacular but extremely solid and capable leader on the floor, steadily improving all facets of his game and yielding no noticeable flaws. Granger is a decent athletic with good strength, a solid floor game, an OK jump shot, solid perimeter defence, and the guile to get to the rim and finish. He could very conceivably be an NBA third stringer.
Like Fells, Hill is also giving it a fifth go in the NBA; like Fells, Hill also spent last year in Israel, a prime place to go to for anyone playing the summer league game, and he’ll be sure to land something similarly next year. Hill is a versatile player, a tweener and face-up four with three point range, a dribble game, a increasingly rarely used post-up game, and decent post defence, polished and poised and a persistent mismatch. He is a good player. He is not, however, an NBA player.
Holman probably won’t play much here due to the presence of Melo, Iverson and Olynyk – summer league is for them to develop. If he does play, he’ll pile up the rebounds – Holman always does, and last year was no exception, averaging 9.4 rebounds in only 28 minutes per game for Hapoel Eliat in Israel. He also racks up the fouls, averaging three per game in that time, the side effect of playing entirely at the rim on both ends. Holman isn’t afraid to mix it up, take the contact, give the foul, and can finish, and he moves well for one so strong. His wingspan is also huge, which offsets his being an inch or two short. But he’s very limited to the post.
Basically the complete opposite of his namesake, Iverson has a chance to have a Jeff Foster-like career if he can shed the excess weight, move a bit quicker, and add an 18 foot jump shot.
In his first pro season, Johnson-Odom confirmed what was known – he can score, either by throwing himself thorough unafraid at the basket in the pursuit of contact, or through his streaky yet explosive jump shot. His height, 6’3, is his main disadvantage. But if you’re good, then you’re good, and at some point height becomes arbitrary. Johnson-Odom has NBA talent. More importantly here, Johnson-Odom has everything you need to be a sensational summer leaguer. He should dominate here.
In 33 D-League games this season, Melo posted averages of 9.8 points, 6.0 rebounds and 3.1 blocks in only 26 minutes per game. That intrigues. There’s a fair way to go – those numbers aren’t dominating, nor especially close to it, and there’s reasons he played only 26 minutes per game, not least of which is the 3.3 fouls that came with them. But Melo is a piece for the future, and even if he doesn’t work out as a piece for the future, you stick with him in the belief that he will be. That shot blocking can’t be taught.
Mitchell won the D-League rookie of the year award, averaging 21.9 points (second in the league) and 6.4 rebounds per game. Down the stretch of the season, he went on an absolute scoring tear, scoring huge point totals which he wasn’t exactly known for before this. Averaging only 14ppg at midseason, Mitchell started taking all the shots, taking more than 30 of them six different times, including 41 in a 51 point outing. This trend continued in the three games he played with Talk’N’Text in the Philippines, where he averaged 38.3 points and 11 rebounds per game. He gets points now, it seems. But he doesn’t get them efficiently. Mitchell shot percentages of 42%/32%/72%, and the 1,049 points he scored took 941 shots to score. Mitchell is a volume scorer, a wannabe-isolation s corer who overvalues his jump shot and is drifting further away from doing the little things. But even if he’s not as good as it as he wants to be, he CAN score, and he’s almost a perfect athletic specimen for a small forward. He just needs to stop wanting to be Rodney White and he’ll make it.
Olynyk’s breakout last season was huge, especially after sitting out a year. He put away the three, rather than trend further towards it, and became a highly effective mid-range and in scorer, with dribble-drive and post-up games, toughness and rebounding. In theory, he’s a good long term pairing with Melo.
Pressey is, or was, one of the purest pass-first point guards in the draft, but high assist numbers alone weren’t enough to get drafted. They belie a floor game that isn’t entirely under control – Pressey’s a good passer, especially out of the pick-and-roll, but he makes more mistakes than you’d like from a floor general, and is rather ball dominant in the process. He’s quick enough, mediocre enough of a shooter, and a useful enough defender (he gambles, but he has to) to overcome his height disadvantage at the NBA level, but only if his point guard game is beyond doubt. Which, right now, it isn’t.
Omar Reed
Omar Reed has completed the extremely rare move from the English Basketball League to the NBA (essentially). The English Basketball League is not the same as the British Basketball League – it is an inferior product to what is already a poor one, and making this ludicrous feat further impressive is that Reed was only ever in the second division of the EBL with the Medway Park Crusaders. To give you some idea of what we’re dealing with here, here’s some video of his time there.
Whilst training in Medway Park, a coach from the D-League’s Austin Toros, who had come to work with British prospect and Spurs draft pick Ryan Richards, noticed Reed’s jump shot and invited him to try out for the Toros. Reed ended up being picked in the fourth round of the 2011 D-League draft by the Toros, and has spent most of the last two years in the D-League. The one-time AAC Defensive Player of the Year spent last year with Boston’s affiliate, the Maine Red Claws, which is why he’s here. Reed averaged 5.4 points and 4.2 rebounds per game, as a “little things” player who played decent defence, hit the glass, and took only open shots. Three-and-D players are both trendy and important. But the 32% three point shooting isn’t sufficient for it.
I once saw a decent NBA career in Nolan Smith’s future. However, over the two years of his career so far, he has shown that he is an unremarkable defender, not a half court point guard, not a great scorer, and definitely not a shooter. He’s shown himself to be not a whole lot more than a crafty penetrator who doesn’t have the extra gear needed to be continually effective as such at the NBA level. It’s hard, then, to assign him a role or to see from where the improvement will come from, Nevertheless, there was once a spark in the fire, so Smith needs to throw a log on it. Adding the three ball so as to facilitate his drives and mid-range game is a logical starting point. But first, he needs to stop getting injured – Smith suffered a torn calf in his first game of this summer league, and is out for the remainder.
Butler returned to the D-League last season in an attempt to springboard himself back into the NBA. He played well, averaging 17.8 points and 5.1 rebounds for the Tulsa 66ers. However, aged 34, the once-good athleticism has largely gone, save for flashes. Butler would like to cash in on a reputation as a three-and-D guy, but the reality of his situation is that he’s average at both, and only ever was. He has been a sub-par NBA player for years – this isn’t meant pejoratively, although it’s appreciated that it’s hard to take it any other way – and he’s not going to reverse that now.
Years of summer leaguing it up finally paid off for Daniels with a training camp contract with the Lakers last season. He consistently remains on the cusp of the NBA because he’s legitimately good, a jump shooter with range and legit size who can also block shots and rebound when he puts his mind to it. But this latter thing is also what has kept him on that side of the fence – Daniels doesn’t always try that hard, be it on individual possessions, entire games, or in his overall conditioning. Even when he does, the reputation now precedes him. Nevertheless, Daniels routinely produces at this level, and he will likely do so again.
In his first D-League season, Downs got out to a blistering start, the closest thing to a prime Andrei Kirilenko that the Maine Red Claws have ever seen. He tapered off over the final two months but still finished with season averages of 16.0 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.5 steals per game. Downs has always had tools but has never had a great run of actually putting them together. This year, admittedly while free-roaming a bit in a D-League style that allows for that, he made a leap.
Flynn’s career has been on a scarily big downslide, and he fell out of the NBA as soon as his rookie contract ended. He spent last year in Australia, where he was an All-Star and averaged 17.4 points and 5.9 assists per game, but you’d expect that. Regrettably, you’d also somewhat expect the 4.1 turnovers. Flynn was never entirely under control, but his hip problem has robbed him of the explosion, and it’s not just stopped him improving – it’s also made him noticeably worse. Flynn needs to recover and reinvent himself, and, whichever it is, he needs to prove it against better quality opposition than the NBL.
Freeman played in Israel last year, first with Hapoel Eilat (12.6ppg) and later with Maccabi Ashdod (15.1ppg). The usual concerns about his NBA prospects exist – without great size or athleticism, or even all that great of a three point shot (his 44% junior year three point shooting is a clear outlier in light of the 36%, 27% and 32% he’s posted since), Freeman’s heady all-around game is rendered insufficient against NBA defence. Probably.
Gray spent last year with Roanne in France, functioning almost exclusively as a shooter with occasional playmaking responsibilities. He averaged 9.2 points and 1.9 assists per game, taking a three every five minutes, and making 46% of them. Offensively, he attempted little else – he only shot two free throws in January, February and March combined. Defensively, he does enough, despite fairly average size and athleticism. It’s perhaps possible that Gray’s offensive efficiency could get him into the NBA in a shooter’s role, but it’s surely much more possible that he can upgrade to bigger, richer European gigs.
Hansbrough received an unguaranteed training camp contract from the Pacers likely because his brother was there. He then stuck around for the entire season. Another one will be difficult – Hansbrough is a skilled and smart player, but he’s an unathletic 6’3 who is not a full time half court point guard, and who struggled to score in his one NBA season due to his lack of athleticism and the extra three feet of range required. If he adds the range, maybe he makes it back as a shooter and occasional ball handler, but it’s a long shot.
Despite a guaranteed contract, Harper was waived by the Magic last offseason to incorporate all the piece of the Dwight Howard deal. He then went to the D-League and underperformed, averaging only 11.7 points and 6.5 rebounds in 27 minutes per game. With the rest of his game solid but unremarkable, Harper only makes it back to the NBA if he can live up to his stretch four billing, but he won’t do that shooting 42% from the field and 32% from three.
Hill was a surprise first-round pick, but not a bad one. Give Damien Wilkins a spin move and you’re in the right area. (And early career Damien Wilkins was pretty good.) Hill never dominates games – he can’t dominate games. But he compliments those that does. He gets a few of his own in transition, off the dribble and with a much improved jumper, he boards, he defends well enough, and he’s a solid passer. He’s the little things guy that you don’t necessarily want your team to “settle” for in the late first round, but whom you’ll soon come to understand why they did. I further don’t believe concerns about his ability to play small forward at the next level are legitimate. Hill will be fine – he’s too smart and skilled not to be.
Now 30 years old, Howard is still trying. He just completed his sixth season with the Fort Wayne Mad Ants – six years of D-League paychecks and bus rides is some level of commitment to the cause. This was also arguably Howard’s career best season, averaging 19.3 points, 4.5 assists and 4.0 rebounds per game. He’s a combo guard who isn’t clearly either, a perimeter player without a three point shot or a niche, but he’s also just good.
Johnson is simply a gifted scorer. Hesitations, spin moves, jump shots, dribble drives, contested shots, finishing at the rim…he does it all with instinct, skill and effort. And while he takes a few too many at times, he can score both with and without the ball. It’s a rare skill and he should stick for some years.
Mavunga was a late addition to the Pacers’s summer league roster last year, and his 6 points and 6 rebounds per game in four contests was seemingly enough to get him a repeat gig. He averaged 16.4 points, 9.0 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game as the senior lynchpin for Miami Ohio in 2012, and, after declining a training camp contract from Indiana, spent the season in Italy with Angellico Biella. With them, Mavunga started well but faded late, ultimately averaging 7.3 points and 4.4 rebounds in 23 minutes per game. He is trying to transition his game from undersized power forward to combo forward with range, yet the ball handling and jump shot need a lot more work. And he shouldn’t ever forget the effectiveness of just getting the ball at the rim and clattering into people.
On assignment in the D-League last year, Plumlee averaged an inefficient 11.2 points (45% FG, 50% FT, 10.9 fgapg), alongside 10.2 points and 1.9 blocks in 30.5 minutes per game. This rather confirms what we know – Plumlee’s height, strength, athleticism and very good rebounding rate translate, and the continued upwards trend in his rim protection is heartening. But every single facet of the offence needs a lot of work.
Releford is best as a transition scorer and defender. He leaks out at any opportunity and is an athletic, capable finisher, and on defence, he demonstrates a high energy level, which combines well with the same physical tools to form an occasionally disruptive presence on that end. In the half court offence, he offers scant more than decent ball movement and improved if spotty open jump shooting. Yet there is still a role for these things. Further improvements in the jump shot might see him make it as a three-and-D wing.
Sloan has signed a two-year minimum salary contract with the Pacers already. (You’re allowed to sign both minimum salary and rookie scale deals during the moratorium – Solomon Hill has also already signed.) He spent much of last year in the NBA, mostly with Cleveland, for whom he had a reasonable role up until the contract guarantee date. Sloan’s problem is his niche – he’s very solid, skilled, tough and smart, and, in his pro career to date, has handled the transition from primarily a scorer to primarily a playmaker with aplomb. Without much dynamicism in the process, Sloan commits few mistakes and is a capable third string point guard. But nothing more than that.
Djibril Thiam
Thiam is an odd choice for the roster. He was never a stand-out player in college, averaging 9.6 points, 4.6 rebounds and 1.5 blocks per game as a senior for Wyoming, and his two professional gigs since then have been the disparate places of Qatar and the ABA. Neither is noted for player development. Still, here’s some highlights of that Qatar stay, most of which is dunking.
Home ties notwithstanding, Watford has skills. One of the key cogs to the regeneration of the Hoosiers, Watford was a one time draft prospect whose stock died when he seemingly failed to improve much as an upperclassman. Undersized for a power forward, but not really a small forward in any way other than his jump shooting, Watford has become (or rather, failed to become much more than) a jump shooting specialist. As if to evidence this, he shot 48% from three last season and 39% from two. Watford didn’t develop much of a post-up or dribble drive game, still rebounds poorly, and is mediocre defensively. And although the shot is good, the release is a little slower than you’d want from a specialist.
Wright made the D-League Defensive Team last season, averaging 18.3 points, 9.2 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.6 steals and 1.5 blocks per game for the Maine Red Claws. The three point percentage was a healthy 37% but it came on scant few attempts, not enough to demonstrate a successful development of perimeter skills. That, then, is what keeps Wright on the fringe of the NBA. He’s a power forward in a small forward’s body. If this was determined on skills alone, he’d be in the NBA by now.
Anderson landed an extended run with Houston last season, and, although the unguaranteed nature of his contract makes his position rather tenuous, he’s done enough to merit the minimum. He could have a Danny Green-like role for someone if he can hone that jumper further.
Houston was better when Beverley was at point guard last year than anyone else. He is a steal of a contract, and despite concerns about consistency being entirely valid, he would be a perfectly capable starter alongside James Harden. And that day might be upon us some day soon.
Blue unexpectedly declared for the draft, after what was a good year for his program but not necessarily a good one for him. As of right now, it’s not obvious what role he could fit. He has a shooting guard’s height, great athleticism, and a strong transition game, yet his jump shot is mediocre, and much as some may want him to play point guard on account of his decent passing vision and pick-and-roll game, he cannot handle the ball sufficiently to be a full time one. Blue needs to develop more, and while he can do so while still being paid to play, he needs consistent work somewhere and minimal upheaval to do so. The D-League, then, may be the place.
The leader and best player of an extremely fun Murray State team, Canaan is mostly a shooter. And he’s an explosive one. The 37% three point percentage belies him somewhat, as Canaan can take over games purely from deep, and often has done. He can create these looks off the dribble, hit them off the catch-and-shoot, has a high quality pull-up jumper, and shoots so quickly that he still gets them off despite his lack of size. He does, however, take a few too many. Such is the side effect of being an NBA talent in a mid-major conference. And at 6’0, he doesn’t have much in the way of point guard skills, save for a solid handle. Nevertheless, Houston has James Harden to run the offence. In theory, if he proves he can defend the position, Canaan is a good fit alongside him.
Like a smaller version of Nikola Pekovic, Cooley scores from the post and the pick-and-roll with a combination of strength and dexterity, seeking out the contact and able to finish through it. The eternal Harangody comparisons fall down when it comes to Cooley’s lack of jump shot – this, combined with his lack of speed, make it impossible to play the power forward position at the NBA level, which he rather needs to at 6’9. Defensively, there’s not a matchup that he projects well against, except maybe Chuck Hayes. Nevertheless, his rebounding rate is prolific, and that, combined with his ability to consistently make shots within 10 feet and from the foul line, is a good combination.
Unfortunately, the “smaller” qualifier there is doing quite a bit of work in that sentence. Pekovic is a horse who can do all this against the biggest and the best, while Cooley, you would assume, isn’t. And while rebounding tends to translate better than anything else, it’s up for debate whether Cooley’s athletic disadvantages would prevent that happening here. Summer league will be a good barometer for him.
Covington has signed, or will soon be signing, a partially guaranteed deal with the Rockets. This is likely nothing more than an extremely early training camp invite, yet it is evidence of what they think of him. Averaging 15.8 points and 7.5 rebounds as a senior for Tennessee State last season, along with 2.1 steals and 1.8 blocks, Covington can be found somewhere along the oft-straddled line between small forward and power forward, operating primarily as a face-up shooter whilst best served defensively on the interior with his length and decent athleticism. He projects, then, as a face-up four. But this doesn’t mean he can just disregard everything that isn’t a jump shot.
Henriquez intrigues simply because of his height, fluid athleticism, and excellet shot blocking instincts. However, everything else has always needed significant improvement, and it hasn’t happened. Henriquez is something of an offensive liability, with terrible free throw shooting, no handle, scant little post-up game, and a jump shot which he keeps trying to use but which isn’t very effective. He rebounds through size alone, and, for all the impressive shot blocking numbers, he is easily moved off the spot and fouls too much. Henriquez has a couple of innate skills that cannot be taught. But the ones that can, he hasn’t learnt.
The Rockets waived Honeycutt soon after acquiring him from Sacramento in the Thomas Robinson deal, yet seemingly this didn’t mean they were entirely done with him. Honeycutt’s pro career thus far has seen very little go right – his best run of play was a short 15 game stint with the Reno Bighorns of the D-League, in which he averaged 10.5 points, 7.3 rebounds, 2.0 steals and 1.2 blocks in only 24 minutes per game, on percentages of 48%, 40% and 83%. Perhaps this is an indication that he is starting to put together his wide range of skills. What is certainly true is that he has some of the best potential of any currently unsigned free agent.
Something of a forgotten man, Jones had a decent rookie season that hardly anyone noticed, in light of the Thomas Robinson era, Marcus Morris, the brief Patrick Patterson breakout, and the Royce White distraction. In the NBA, Jones averaged 5.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.0 blocks in 15 minutes per game, and on assignment with Rio Grande Valley, he upped these numbers to 19.0 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.3 blocks per game. With all four of the aforementioned players now gone, Jones has a legitimate opportunity to make Houston’s power forward position his own, and he has the size, talent, strength, athleticism and skill to do so.
Murry was the 15th pick in the 2012 D-League draft by Austin, and was later traded to Rio Grande Valley in exchange for Patrick Sullivan. He spent the entire season on a Vipers roster stacked with talent, and averaged 23.4 minutes as a lynchpin on a roster that went through a huge amount of turnover. Murry, something of a combo guard, averaged 8.3 points, 2.8 assists, 2.5 rebounds and 1.6 steals per game, shooting 45% from the field and 36% from the three point line, the three point percentage bring the highest of his career to date. Murry, a big guard with versatility but not a defined position, is a good handsy defender and passer who likes to run, although he lacks next-level athleticism. His smarts, team-based instincts and passing vision are rather mitigated by a handle that is exposed under intense defensive pressure, and he is not a particularly good jump shooter (which itself is a misnomer – Murry doesn’t jump much when shooting). Murry’s a role player, a quality and versatile role player, but he’s a D-League role player.
Ohlbrecht was picked immediately ahead of Murry in the draft, and spent the year with the Vipers before a February call-up to the Rockets. Even then, he spent more of his time with the Vipers on assignment. He has a contract that runs through 2015, but is fully guaranteed, and may well be collateral damage when the Dwight Howard situation is finally ratified. Nevertheless, Ohlbrecht took the pittance of a D-League salary instead of much, much better European offers in order to try and get into the NBA, and it worked out, however briefly. Ohlbrecht averaged a blisteringly efficient 13.3 points (61% FG, 81% FT) to go along with 7.4 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game in the D-League – the one-time perimeter player who occasionally played small forward is now a fully fledged centre, able to take contact and finish aroudn the basket whilst maintaining the 18-20 footer he always had. Big guys who score and score efficiently are relevant to any NBA conversation.
If Smith wasn’t the best backup centre in the NBA last season, then I’m struggling to think of who was. (EDIT: oh yeah, JaVale.) After going undrafted, a slimmer, quicker Smith played his way into the league, then the rotation, and then into the conversation the first sentence of this blurb credits him with. He scores very efficiently through pick-and-roll play and catching and finishing around the basket (aided by his 12′ inch hands), rebounds better than he ever did in college, and defends those bigger than him better than expected. He does so while committing far too many fouls, but mistakes happen, and it’s at least counterweighted by impressively low turnover numbers. But largely, with Smith, it’s those hands. Here they are in comparison to a person’s shoulder.
The first two things to note about Casper Ware are that he’s very small and very productive. One will probably overshadow the other, but both are valid. Averaging 17.4 points and 4.3 assists per game as a senior for Long Beach State, Ware played for the Pistons in summer league last year, then went to Italy to join LegaDue side Montferrato. He promptly led LegaDue in points, averaging 20.4 points along with 4.2 assists per game, through relentless penetration, strong mid range game, and a continually improving outside shot. Usual concerns about defence apply, although it should be noted that Ware was one the Big West’s defensive player of the year, a tenacious and nuisance of a defender who picks up full court and gives as much as he does on that end as the offensive one. He’ll likely never make the NBA due to the height issue. But he will prosper in Europe.
Young declared for the draft after his sophomore season but never looked especially close to ever getting picked in it. He is, pertinently, an undersized shooting guard with sub-standard mid- and long-range games, who didn’t improve noticeably from his previous season, and who couldn’t even capitalise on post-season exposure on a Razorbacks team that didn’t have any. What he is is a small transition scorer with mediocre point guard abilities and similarly underwhelming defence. Young has a lot to work on.
In light of one or both of these two being about to be traded, there exists a new realm of questions about this two unusual, nearly-novel deals.
The questions surround what they’re being paid, and what they’re being charged to the salary cap. People don’t know which set of figures to believe, and the confusions stems from the fact that those two questions actually have two different answers.
“Salary” and “cap number” are usually assumed to be synonymous with each other on account of the fact that they normally are, with rare exceptions. Occasionally, exceptions can be found in buyout agreements (I believe, though cannot say decisively, that the Blazers were still playing Shawn Kemp up to and including last season), but not with valid contracts. These deals, then, are an exception. And that’s why they need clarifying.
Using the Arenas provision, Lin and Asik signed for the most Houston could give them over three years – $25,123,938. The contracts called for them to be paid an even $5 million in 2012/13, $5.225 million in 2013/14, and $14,898,938 in 2014/15. For the purposes of where we’re going, it doesn’t matter how these figure was arrived at, only what they are and where we’re going.
The cap number for these contracts calls for that $25,123,938 contract to be split evenly across all three years, i.e. $8,374,646 each season. This is true despite of the actual payment schedule being what it is above. So when someone asks “what are Lin and Asik getting paid?”, the answer could be either, technically. On a literal interpretation of the question, the payment schedule is the right answer. Yet when people ask that, what they really want to know, even if they don’t know there’s a difference, is what is their cap number. That’s the one that matters to anyone who isn’t actually cutting the cheques.
The confusion as to which is correct stems from a now-irrelevant provision of the Arenas rule, whereby had Chicago and New York matched the deal, their cap hit would have mirrored the payment schedule. This was widely reported at the time, and as such, passed into the public conscience in a conflicting manner. But it’s something that should be disregarded. That was something that didn’t happen, cannot now happen, and thus is irrelevant. From now until the date the contracts expire, Lin and Asik will have cap numbers of $8,374,646 in each season, along with being paid $5.225 million this season and $14,898,938 next. This is true no matter which team they are on – even if Asik is traded back to Chicago, $8,374,646 will remain the cap number. While owners looking to trade for them must be mindful of the latter, it is the former figure which is used for all cap calculations, and thus trade permutations. So when you see their cap hit listed as $8,374,646, this is the one that matters. This is the figure around which outgoing salary in trade, cap room, proximity to luxury tax, and all that jazz, is calculated from. This, then, is the correct figure.
And yes, this also applies to Landry Fields. His actual salary will be $5 million 2012/13, $5.225 million 2013/14, and $8,525,000 in 2014/15. Don’t shoot the messenger.
While we’re on the subject, let’s address one other thing regarding these three signings – they were NOT “Poison Pill” deals. They were deals done what we used to call, and for no apparent reason stopped calling, the Arenas provision. The mechanism known as the “Poison Pill” provision is completely different, and regards what happens when you trade someone whose rookie contract you have extended, before said extension kicks in. It is unrelated here, and yet from somewhere, the term seems to have transitioned to the Asik, Lin and Fields cases.
There IS a difference between “team option” and “unguaranteed”, and it DOES matter
July 3rd, 2013
Several years ago, I wrote a piece called Creative Financing in the NBA, that sought to address and highlight a few quirky salaries and salaries mechanisms handed about that season.
In that piece, I also spent a long time addressing the difference between team options and unguaranteed salaries. Often times, unguaranteed salaries are reported in the mainstream press as being team options, even though the two mechanisms are different. And often times, this is fine, because the differences don’t really matter. Not to the casual fan, at least. Nevertheless, differences do exist. Some of the initial post is quoted below that explains these differences:
Unguaranteed or partially guaranteed final seasons are becoming quite the trend in the NBA, and they are quickly replacing team options. In fact, there are only 11 team options in the entire league […]
There are very few instances in which contracts must be guaranteed. In fact, there are only two; the first year of a signed-and-traded contract, and the first two years of a rookie scale contract (which must be guaranteed for a minimum of 80% of the scale amount). Nothing else has to be guaranteed, but it is self-evident that almost all are. Would you accept an unguaranteed contract as a player? Not without incentive to do so, no. It is self evident why so many contracts are fully guaranteed. Yet the unguaranteed contract fad has its basis in logic.
In a lot of cases, unguaranteed contracts function much like team options do. However, there are some significant advantages to doing it in this way, which is why it happens. The differences:
1) Team options have to be decided upon by the final day of the previous season. Seasons change over on July 1st, and thus team options must be decided upon by June 30th. This is not the case with unguaranteed contracts, which either have guarantee dates that can be negotiated to different dates, or which have no guarantee date at all. A lot of unguaranteed contracts have some guaranteed money, becoming fully guaranteed upon a certain date, or no guaranteed money at all becoming slowly guaranteed upon several dates; for players earning the minimum salary is often the latter, which bigger contracts are usually the former. Common dates include July 15th (two weeks after free agency starts, giving teams times to analyse the situation), August 1st (same sort of thing) and August 15th (for the very tardy); however, in practice, anything goes. In this way, these contracts serve as delayed team options.
Sometimes, such as in the case of Ian Mahinmi’s second season, the contract is fully unguaranteed if not waived on or before June 30th, thereafter becoming fully guaranteed. Contracts with guarantee dates such as those are basically exactly the same as team options; however, the reason they are not done with team options is because of the reasons below.
2) Salaries for option years in contracts cannot be for a lesser salary than the salary of the previous season. But no such stipulation applies to unguaranteed years. One such example of this is with the recently expired contracts of Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw. Blake’s contract paid $4.25 million in its first two seasons, dropping to $4 million in the final one; Outlaw’s contract was $4 million for two seasons and then $3.6 mil for the third. By making the final seasons for the duo unguaranteed, even though they had June 30th guarantee dates that made them basically team options, the Blazers were able to use the lower salary trick.
3) Players can be traded from the minute a team’s season ends, up until the start of the moratorium (so for lottery teams, that’s mid April until the end of June.) This is how draft night trades are allowed to happen. However, players can only be traded if they’re not going to be free agents that summer, or if they have no options that would allow them to become so. If they have an option, player or team, then that option must be exercised concurrent with the trade, and thus the player will not be a free agent. Teams can bypass this by making the final year an unguaranteed season, rather than an option year. This is how Erick Dampier was traded. It is also how Ryan Gomes was traded before free agency started.
Lords Of The Unguaranteed this offseason were Chicago. The contracts they gave to all three of C.J. Watson, Ronnie Brewer and Kyle Korver all have unguaranteed third seasons. Watson’s and Brewer’s are evidential of the aforementioned delayed-team-option thing, fully unguaranteed contracts that become fully guaranteed if not waived on or before July 10th. Korver’s is different; he has $500,000 in guaranteed compensation, yet has no contract guarantee date (save for the league-wide guarantee date of January 10th), and will thus be an incredibly useful trade chip that summer because of reason 3 above. It is largely for this reason that unguaranteed contracts are so en vogue right now. […]
The downside to doing it this way is that players have to be waived for the savings to take effect, which means they get renounced in the process. In contrast, if a team declines a player’s team option, they would still have Bird rights on that player in order to re-sign them, and they could also still extend a qualifying offer (if applicable). By being waived as an unguaranteed contracts instead, those benefits are lost. But that minor inconvenience is more than offset by the benefits to such a team-friendly mechanism, which is why its usage is becoming increasingly prevalent in the NBA.
Houston’s unguaranteed deals to Carlos Delfino and Aaron Brooks followed the Mahinmi example above. They became guaranteed if not waived on or before June 30th, which is the same date upon which regular team options must also be decided, thereby rendering them effectively the same. Yet as explained above, by taking the unguaranteed route rather than using a team option, Houston were able to explore trades with the two after the draft. This is one example of where the difference does matter, even though it doesn’t look as though it does.
The lack of the distinction between the two in the general media (and thus the public conscience) is so emphatic that it will be a hard trend to buck. Yet this discussion here is prompted by one current and relevant example of why it needs a good firm bucking. In reporting that the Raptors “still have to decide” whether to pick up Kyle Lowry’s option or not – which isn’t exactly news, but anyway – Doug Smith accidentally touches upon this problem and sets off a pattern of thought that just isn’t helpful, based as it is on a faulty premise.
Lowry’s contract this season calls for a $6.21 million salary this season, of which only $1 million is guaranteed if he is waived before July 15th. This, then, is not a team option. But referring to it as an option gives rise to speculation that is may be “declined” in order to instead tie Lowry down to a longer deal. (I know such speculation to have arisen because I’ve seen friends of mine give it.) This, as we’ve seen above, is not possible precisely because it is not an option – to obtain the savings on the contract means waiving Lowry, which means losing Lowry. It is true that if it had been a team option, the Raptors could have declined it in order to try and tie him up for the long term, but it is also true that if it was an option, it would have been decided by now. Lowry, then, doesn’t have an option to decline – instead, Lowry has a contract largely unguaranteed for lack of skill if waived before a certain date.
The difference isn’t mere pedantry or semantics – it actually matters. Let us please refer to the distinction whenever it arrives.
July 1st is (the date on which one season ends and the next one begins, and thus June 30th (and the week preceding it) is an important cut-off date for certain transactions.
Players with player or early termination options had to decide if they were coming back; the few players with team options awaited an uncertain future; players eligible for QO’s had to see if they got them.
All the results are in now, and there follows a list of who did what before July 1st. NB: free agent statuses taken as of April 22nd 2013.
(Under the new CBA, all qualifying offers have to be fully guaranteed. Previously, they only had to be guaranteed for the same percentage amount as the previous year’s salary was. Therefore, fewer qualifying offers are given out now.)
The following players had fully or partially unguaranteed contracts with guarantee dates between the end of the season and today:
– Boston:Paul Pierce (only $5 million of $15,333,334 guaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; made the date and became guaranteed) and Terrence Williams (fully unguaranteed if waived on or before June 30th, then $200,000 guaranteed if waived on or before September 1st, then $300,000 guaranteed if waived on or before October 31st, thereafter fully guaranteed; waived yesterday, thus guaranteed nothing.)
– Detroit:Viacheslav Kravstov (only $500,000 of $1.5 million guaranteed if waived on or before June 29th; made the date and became guaranteed) and Rodney Stuckey (only $4 million of $8.5 million guaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; made the date and became guaranteed),
– Houston:Chandler Parsons (only $600,000 of $926,500 guaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; made the date and became guaranteed), Carlos Delfino ($3 million salary all unguaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; waived yesterday, thus guaranteed nothing) and Aaron Brooks ($2,508,000 salary all unguaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; waived yesterday, thus guaranteed nothing)
– L.A. Lakers:Chris Duhon (only $1.5 million of $3,750,000 guaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; waived, thus owed only $1.5 million)
– New Orleans:Jason Smith (only $1 million of $2.5 million guaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; made the date and became guaranteed)
– New York:James White ($916,099 salary all unguaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; waived yesterday, thus guaranteed nothing)
– Orlando:E’Twaun Moore ($884,293 salary all unguaranteed if waived on or before June 30th; made the date and became guaranteed)
– Phoenix:Hamed Haddadi (only $200,000 of $1,397,500 guaranteed if waived on or before June 29th; waived, thus owed only $200,000) and Shannon Brown (only $1.75 million of $3.5 million guaranteed if waived at or before midday on June 29th; made the date and became guaranteed)
– San Antonio:Matt Bonner (only $1 million of $3,945,000 guaranteed if waived on or before June 29th; made the date and became guaranteed)
Many other players still have unguaranteed salaries with various different guarantee dates, or no guarantee dates at all. See here for a summary.
Mavericks to sign Gal Mekel to three year guaranteed deal
July 1st, 2013
It was actually three, but close enough.
Looking to reinvent their point guard rotation, the Dallas Mavericks have looked to the overseas market, and will sign Israeli national team point guard Gal Mekel.
Mekel has been named in NBA circles in recent times, as he has participated in a series of workouts and free agent camps for teams around the league, hoping to catch on. Recently, this culminated into accepting an offer to join the Milwaukee Bucks’ summer league team. Yet in signing a three year, fully guaranteed deal, Mekel has done much more than merely catch on.
Mekel played for Wichita State between 2006 and 2008, establishing himself as a solid but unspectacular point guard who shot too much and had absolutely no NBA prospects. However, after leaving college after his sophomore season and returning to his native Israel, Mekel (who also has a Polish passport) has improved markedly and emerged as one of the best floor generals on the continent. In winning last year’s Israel Premier League MVP award, the 6’3 Mekel recorded per game averages of 13.3 points and 5.4 assists (good for second in the league), including a 21 point 7 assist 3 steal outing in the deciding championship game. Mekel commands games with passing vision, ball handling, high basketball IQ, genuine leadership skills and a deadly pick-and-roll game, and, while he’s not fast and lacks a good outside jump shot, he nonetheless brings a wealth of transferrable skills to the NBA.
Last year, Mekel impressed the Utah Jazz so much that they extended him a training camp offer, one he was only prevented from taking due to visa problems. This year, he’s done a lot better than that.
Mekel’s three year guaranteed minimum salary contract will pay him $490,180, $816,482 and $947,276 over the next three seasons, but does not cut into the Mavericks’s cap space. His first year salary is the same as the rookie minimum, and thus it does not affect cap space, as that is the same amount as a cap hold would be. Mekel, then, in theory preserves the Mavericks’s cap space plans while adding one future piece of the puzzle, which is why such a move can be announced in advance of future, larger ones.
This news was first reported by Marc Stein of ESPN. Just.
Anthony Tolliver earned $273,697 and counting for one day of work, and it’s all thanks to Sasha Pavlovic
June 11th, 2013
After going undrafted out of Creighton in 2007, Anthony Tolliver played in summer league for the Miami Heat, and was granted the honour of being the 16th overall pick in the 2007 Continental Basketball Association draft. These things eventually parlayed themselves into a training camp contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Tolliver’s contract with Cleveland was a typical ‘summer’ (read as ‘training camp’) contract. It was a fully unguaranteed rookie minimum salary contract, which, in the 2007/08 season, was worth $427,163. Tolliver was one of several camp signings for the Cavaliers that season – alongside Noel Felix, Chet Mason, Hassan Adams, Darius Rice, and a re-signed Dwayne Jones – and was an outside shot to make the roster based purely on the numbers game alone.
Concurrent with these moves, Cleveland was embroiled in the long-since-forgotten-about holdouts of Anderson Varejao and Sasha Pavlovic. Both restricted free agents out of contract that summer, both unhappy with Cleveland’s best offer, and yet both seemingly unable to get more on the market, the two held out of training camp, waiting for enormous deals that never came. From memory, Pavlovic wanted roughly six years and $40 million, while Varejao wanted $10 million per annum.
The two held out all through the free agency period, all through training camp, all through preseason, and into the regular season. It is precisely because of this that Tolliver, as well as Demetris Nichols, made the Cavaliers roster that season. Pavlovic was the first to crack – he agreed to re-sign to a partially guaranteed three-year, $13,696,250 contract that he was waived after only two years of. He signed this contract on October 31st 2007, the second day of the regular season. And when he did so, Tolliver was waived to open up a roster spot.
It seemed mostly innocuous that Tolliver earned a few dollars for his brief stint with the Cavs that season. There are 170 days in an NBA regular season, and players unguaranteed for a lack of skill are paid per diem for each day they are on the roster, including partial days and time on waivers (which, at the time, was 48 hours not including weekends). For his one day of work, then – a day on which he didn’t even make the active list – Tolliver received four days of pay, $10,051 (which is $427,163 / 170 * 4). Similarly, all three of Adams, Felix and Rice received $8,088 – they were waived suitably late that their two days on waivers earned them two days of pay.
However, the difference between Tolliver’s situation and that of the other trio is that day-and-a-bit he spent on the roster. The amount a player gets in a minimum salary contract differs based on his number of years of experience, but ‘years of experience’ is itself something of a misnomer. To gain a year of experience, a player need spend only one day of the regular season on a team’s roster, and it doesn’t even need to be on the active list. The one-and-a-bit days Tolliver spent, then, was enough to count as a full year of experience. And the by-product of that has been increased salaries ever since.
Tolliver didn’t sign in the NBA again in the 2007-08 season, splitting his remaining time between the D-League and the German league. But the following July, Tolliver signed a two-year minimum salary contract with the San Antonio Spurs, including a $200,000 guarantee in the first season. He made the regular season roster, and stuck with the team right up until January, whereupon he was waived in advance of the league-wide contract guarantee date of January 10th. In that time, Tolliver earned $309,719, 74/170ths of his one-year veteran minimum salary of $711,517. Later that season, Tolliver signed a ten-day contract with the New Orleans Hornets, earning him a further $41,853 (10/170ths), for a total NBA salary that season of $351,573. Had he not spent that time with the Cavaliers the previous season, he would have been earning only a similarly prorated of the rookie minimum of $442,114, which would have been $218,456.
This pattern continues into future seasons, too. In the 2009/10 season, Tolliver signed a prorated minimum salary contract with the Portland Trail Blazers that paid him $72,838, followed by two ten-day contracts with the Golden State Warriors at $48,559 a piece, and finally ending in a rest-of-the-season contract with them that paid an extra $330,199 for a total of $500,155. Had he been earning the one-year veteran minimum of $736,420 instead of the two-year veteran one of $825,497, that amount would only have been $446,184. And were it not for the Cavaliers stint five years ago, the minimum salary that Tolliver received from the Atlanta Hawks this season would have been worth only $915,852 instead of the $992,680 he wound up getting. Including the per diem he got directly from Cleveland, Tolliver wound up pulling in $1,854,459 in NBA salary across those four seasons, instead of the $1,580,492 over three he would have done.
And he owes it all to Sasha Pavlovic’s delusions of grandeur.
All salary information is taken from this website’s own salary pages. All figures taken from the day of publication – if subsequent trades/signings are made, then adjust accordingly.
NOTE: All cap space amounts are calculated to an estimated salary cap of $58.5 million. This inexact figure is the most recent (and thus accurate) projection released yet, and will suffice for now. When the actual amount is calculated/announced, the sums below will be altered accordingly.
It is vital – VITAL – that you understand what a “cap hold” is before you read this. An explanation can be found here.
(If you want to get really absurd, they could even amnesty Al Horford. Hypotheticals are fun.)
This is, however, a maximum amount. And it’s not a realistic one. Smith’s cap hold will be equal to the maximum amount for a nine year veteran, and, while this amount will not be known until the new salary cap figure is determined, a slight increase in the cap will mean a slight increase in the $16,402,500 nine year veteran maximum amount that this year’s cap produced. So unless he is renounced, or until he is signed elsewhere, that’s a $16.5 million cap hold cutting into that $35.5 million figure. The same is true of Teague’s $6,082,692 cap hold, and the negligible amounts saved by trading the picks, not giving Johnson his $1,250,854 qualifying offer, and waiving Scott, are also not likely to happen. In a scenario where they are all retained, then, Atlanta’s cap situation then looks like this:
Josh Smith: $16,500,000 (circa, cap hold) Al Horford: $12,000,000
Jeff Teague: $6,082,692 (cap hold) Lou Williams: $5,225,000
#17 pick): $1,348,200
#18 pick: $1,280,800
Ivan Johnson: $1,250,854 (cap hold & qualifying offer) John Jenkins: $1,258,800
Mike Scott: $788,872 Jeremy Tyler: $100,000 (waived)
Roster charge (rookie minimum cap hold for not having 12 things on the cap, one for each number under – Tyler doesn’t count): $490,180
Roster charge: $490,180
Roster charge: $490,180
Total: $47,305,758 = $11,194,242 in cap room
Even this scenario assumes the renouncements of Korver and Pachulia, quality role players who won’t be easily replaced. Yet such is the reality of the gamble of cap space. Atlanta can and likely will have eight figures worth of cap space, and they could have an awful lot more than that should Smith move on. But it’s a choice.
(Note: “things on the cap” constitute players under contract, free agents not under contract who have cap holds, and the cap holds of unsigned first-round picks. Unsigned second-round picks do not have cap holds and thus do not count for anything, and nor do waived players.)
If Paul Pierce is waived, that saves $10,333,334 (or $15,333,334 if done via the amnesty clause), and if Kevin Garnett retires without ever drawing another penny, that saves another $12,433,735. That plus some other smaller concurrent moves would mean it would be possible for the Celtics to have a small amount of cap room. But it is farfetched and not worth it.
Projected cap space: $21,858,088, but variable and unlikely
Charlotte’s committed salary looks as though it’s primed for plenty of cap space. It could be, in the right circumstances, and it definitely will be if Ben Gordon opts out of his final $13,200,000. But again, cap holds are in play. The number four pick has one of $3,214,200 alone, and, while the $11,058,300 hold for DeSagana Diop and the $3,396,250 hold for Reggie Williams are easy decisions, other ones are not. Gerald Henderson has a cap hold of $7,753,318, Byron Mullens has one of $5,632,655, and Josh McRoberts’s is at $4,075,500. These players were all decent contributors (warts and all) and may wish to be brought back. And even if they aren’t brought back at those prices, that’s how much they cut into the cap space before they’ve even signed a new deal. With all three on the cap, then, Charlotte stands to have little to no cap room.
However, there are nonetheless options. If all three are renounced, and Jeff Adrien ($916,099, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date) is cut, then things get interesting, and they have the amnesty clause still to use. If the Bobcats are prepared to save face and waive Tyrus Thomas in addition to these other moves, they’d be down to $31,466,992 in committed salary to only seven players. After adding the cap room for the #2 pick and four roster charges, Charlotte would then have $36,641,912 on their cap, for projected cap room of $21,858,088. This amount is likely to be more than they need, which may mean the aforementioned three need no renouncing at all. Charlotte has options and could be a cap space player. This is not necessarily the same, however, as being a free agency player.
(Moving down two spots in the lottery actually opened up a further $755,600 in cap room. See, silver linings.)
Even with an amnesty of Carlos Boozer and the expected waiving of Rip Hamilton’s unguaranteed deal saving a combined potential $19.3 million, the Bulls still wouldn’t have cap room
Cleveland can further reduce this amount if Mo Speights opts out of his $4,515,000 and is renounced. This might happen – even if he signs a new deal starting at only $4 million, it’s likely worth it for the guaranteed security the extra two years or so this new deal would bring. They can save more by waiving C.J. Miles ($2,225,000, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date), Kevin Jones ($788,872, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date) and Chris Quinn ($1,106,942, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date). The renouncements of Daniel Gibson ($9,105,431), Luke Walton ($9,137,045), Omri Casspi ($5,693,265) and Wayne Ellington ($5,207,605) will not be too difficult; the other free agent amounts of Shaun Livingston ($884,293) and Semih Erden ($884,293 if not given a qualifying offer) are not significant. Cap holds for the #1 ($4,436,900) and #19 ($1,223,200) cut back into that; nevertheless, assuming a seemingly realistic scenario in which all renouncements are made, Speights opts in, Miles and Quinn are cut, and Jones isn’t, Cleveland then looks like this:
The #13 pick has a cap hold of $1,655,300, but Dallas are reportedly trying to move it. The theory that it can be attached to Shawn Marion’s final season (which he surely will not opt out of) seems fantastical; nevertheless, it seems Dallas is pretty intent on moving the pick. And even if they aren’t, a clause in the 2011 CBA may save them. Teams with unsigned first-round picks can, if all parties want, file documents with the league agreeing not to sign the player that season, which in return removes their cap hold for the year. (This rule was used by Dallas last year on Petteri Koponen, and was also used by Chicago on Nikola Mirotic.) So the #13 pick’s cap hold is not included here.
O.J. Mayo is a logical certainty to opt out of his $4,200,900, which would thus turn into a $4,824,000 cap hold. The status of other cap holds is less certain; for the purposes of the above number, it is assumed that Chris Kaman ($9,600,000), Anthony Morrow ($7,600,000), Roddy Beaubois ($5,568,333), Elton Brand ($3,990,950) and Mike James ($884,293) are all renounced, while Koponen once again has his cap hold ($880,600) expunged. Brandan Wright ($884,293) surely won’t be renounced, however, and while Darren Collison’s cap hold of $5,798,360 is slightly in the way, it’s not exhorbitant, so it is assumed it will only be renounced if needs be (i.e. if the signing of a big time free agent necessitates it). It is renounced in the below calculation as a means of assessing a realistic maximum cap space amount for the Mavs, yet that does not mean it surely will be.
Dallas also has two unguaranteed contracts; Josh Akognon ($788,872, fully unguaranteed until December 1st) and Bernard James ($788,872, fully unguaranteed until July 15th); for the purposes of this calculation, it is assumed that Akognon will be waived and James won’t.
This is a very variable figure for all of the reasons mentioned above; Marion’s to-be-adjusted contract, the status of the #13, possible trades of Marion and/or Cunningham, etc. The status of Mayo is also fairly significant – the day he leaves to sign elsewhere will open up an extra $4,333,820 in cap room, or, if he stays, the day he re-signs will take up a big chunk of the $13.6 mil. Nevertheless, while Dallas doesn’t have as much cap room to throw about as others, they’re in the game.
EDIT: Come to think of it, O.J. Mayo’s cap hold doesn’t actually matter. As he’s only played one season since changing teams as a free agent, he only has non-Bird rights, should he opt out. And yet if Dallas renounces him, he’d still only have non-Bird rights. Mayo’s cap hold, then, can be discounted.
Even if Andre Iguodala were to opt out, his cap hold keeps Denver over the cap. Even if he were to leave via free agency, Corey Brewer’s cap hold would keep them over. Even if Brewer were to leave via free agency, Timofey Mozgov’s……well, you get the gist.
It took the lottery pick given up for Corey Maggette to do it, but Detroit finally has some cap flexibility. Charlie Villanueva has already opted into his $8,580,000 contract for next year, but Detroit still has the amnesty clause. They can use it on him, and they should. The big contracts of Jose Calderon, Maggette, a long-since-bought-out Rip Hamilton, Jason Maxiell and Will Bynum all expire, and Rodney Stuckey’s contract is only guaranteed for $4 million of its $8.5 million total if waived on or before June 30th. And just to add a little more, Viacheslav Kravtsov ($1,500,000, only $500,000 guaranteed if waived on or before June 29th) and Kim English ($788,872, fully unguaranteed until July 12th) also have unguaranteed portions.
Encroaching back into all this cap room goodness is the #8 pick, which will take up $2,210,900. It is also hereby assumed that Stuckey will NOT be waived, if only for one reason – with all due respect given, it surely isn’t likely that Detroit will be all that big of a free agency player, so the extra $4 million of cap room would if anything be overkill. (The same is also assumed to be true of Kravtsov and English.) Nevertheless, assuming renouncements for all of the above free agents are possible, as well as the outstanding cap holds on Ben Wallace ($4,268,160) and Vernon Macklin ($788,872), Detroit has themselves a ton to work with.
Houston don’t have as much cap space as you might expect, considering their high profile (and seemingly eternal) campaign for a superstar free agent. Nevertheless, their committed salary could drop down as low as $39,665,022 without making any trades. Francisco Garcia has a team option for $6.4 million that is not going to be exercised, and the Rockets also have a good many unguaranteed contracts, listed hereafter:
Carlos Delfino ($3,000,000, fully unguaranteed if waived on or before June 30th) Aaron Brooks ($2,508,000, fully unguaranteed if waived on or before June 30th) Chandler Parsons ($926,500, only $600,000 guaranteed if waived on or before June 30th) Greg Smith ($884,293, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date) James Anderson ($916,099, fully unguaranteed if waived on or before October 31st) Patrick Beverley ($788,872, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date) Tim Ohlbrect ($788,872, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date)
In theory, if Houston waived all of those players except Parsons (whose salary is actually cheaper when left unwaived than the $600,000 amount would be with a roster charge added), and declined Garcia’s team option, that’s a cap number of $41,625,742 with four roster charges added. In practice, though, they won’t all be waived. Delfino and Brooks surely will, and Ohlbrecht likely will – however, Patrick Beverley and Greg Smith are really very good NBA players tied in to ridiculously cheap contracts. Even when assuming Anderson gets waived – which itself is not a given – the renouncement of Garcia (who, strangely, is their only free agent) and the incumbent cap hold for Earl Boykins ($884,293), that leaves Houston here:
James Harden: $13,668,750 (at the moment; as a designated maximum salary contract, it is to be adjusted when new max salaries are known post-moratorium) Omer Asik: $8,374,646 Jeremy Lin: $8,374,646 Thomas Robinson: $3,526,440 Royce White: $1,719,480 Terrence Jones: $1,551,840 Donatas Motiejunas: $1,422,720
Chandler Parsons: $926,500
Greg Smith: $884,293
Patrick Beverley: $788,872 Tyler Honeycutt: $100,000 (waived)
Roster charge: $490,180
Roster charge: $490,180
Total = $42,318,547 = $16,181,453 in cap room.
It’s not enough for a maximum contract for neither Dwight nor Chris Paul. It is close enough, however, to put them in play. And there’s plenty of options here. If you were the Lakers, and Dwight wanted to walk to the Rockets (which may happen), why WOULDN’T you take back Thomas Robinson and Omer Asik in a sign-and-trade? And if you were the Rockets, why WOULDN’T you do that deal when doing so would offer up an extra $12 million to throw at someone else? Or do it the other way around – fill up the cap space with straight free agent signings, then sign and trade for the other guy. There are options here, many options, and the ultimate tinker Daryl Morey will know that. Houston’s not got the Detroit-level swathes of cap room the prevailing story would have you believe, but they have enough, and they have the means to make things happen. So they’re big players in the market.
Projected cap space: Probably none, but you never know
Indiana’s biggest cap hold is that of David West at $13 million. If he leaves, they could theoretically have very nearly eight figures worth of cap room. Yet Indiana shouldn’t, and don’t, want him to leave.
(In a hypothetical world, it sure would be good to use the amnesty on Danny Granger and make a run at Chris Paul now. But the amnesty has long since been used on James Posey, and, cap space doesn’t necessarily mean spending power.)
On a related note, an unintentional side effect of the Rudy Gay trade was that it made the Speights/Ellington/pick deal of a week before into a pretty bad one. They weren’t to know, of course, but…still. All three of those pieces would have been, and might still be, useful.
Mildly interesting side note: whilst they may have $86.4 million committed next year, every single one of the $78,402,206 that the Heat have committed in 2014/15 has an option attached. So in a way, they have $0 committed.
Milwaukee’s cap situation is particularly difficult to project – all three of Brandon Jennings, Monta Ellis (via an ETO) and J.J. Redick are free agents, and their three cap holds add up to a whopping $33,636,233, moreso once the new max contract figures come in. All we know is that Milwaukee aren’t keeping all three – the question of why they brought in all three is very valid – and we don’t know which one or two they will keep. As of right now, it appears it will be Ellis, who has just been offered an extension. Given that this is the best basis for a projection we have, we’ll work it out from there.
Ellis’s final season is due to pay him $11 million. If we add that figure, subtract the cap holds for Redick and Jennings (assumed to be allowed to leave for free in this scenario, although sign and trades should be strongly sought after), and use the amnesty clause on Drew Gooden, a cap space plan starts to come together. Assuming the $1.5 million team option on Gustavo Ayon is exercised – it should be – and further renouncements for Sam Dalembert, Mike Dunleavy Jr, Joel Przybilla and Marquis Daniels, Milwaukee then have the following situation:
In that scenario, you could readily keep one of Jennings (cap hold of $7,948,733) or Redick (cap hold of $9,285,000) and still have plenty to play with.
Should the Bucks have any cap space, it’s worth remembering that they unnecessarily gave up Tobias Harris to get it. So they’d better use it.
Any cap flexibility that they do have is going on Nikola Pekovic, as well it should. By the way, a side note: as first reported by this site, the Timberwolves guaranteed Chris Johnson for next season. So, well done Chris.
New Orleans enjoy quite a rare position, where they have a lot of money coming off their books, but without the cap holds usually associated with it. With Rashard Lewis’s $13,470,007 and Matt Carroll’s $3,300,000 cap hits long since waived, the only cap holds New Orleans must contend with are those of Al-Farouq Aminu ($3,749,602), Xavier Henry ($3,201,370), the #6 pick ($2,643,600), Lou Amundson ($884,293) and Roger Mason ($884,293). They also have plenty of unguaranteed money to work with, in the forms of Robin Lopez ($5,119,761, only $500,000 guaranteed if waived on or before July 5th), Jason Smith ($2,500,000, only $1 million guaranteed if waived on or before June 30th), Lance Thomas ($884,293, fully guaranteed if waived on or before September 1st), Darius Miller ($788,872, fully unguaranteed if waived 27th July 2013), Brian Roberts ($788,872, fully unguaranteed until July 8th, then $50,000 guaranteed until July 20th, thereafter fully guaranteed) and Terrel Harris ($884,293, fully unguaranteed until October 31st, thereafter $150,000 guaranteed).
There’s a lot of variables in play there, but the above calculation is arrived at by assuming that Aminu, Henry, Amundson and Mason are renounced, and all the unguaranteed contracts survive. These assumptions are based on the same sort of logic as the Bobcats above. If Aminu is not renounced, that figure decreases to $8,683,375 – however, Aminu can likely be retained for an amount attainable via non-Bird rights, without needing the full Bird, so a renouncement is assumed.
New Orleans still has their amnesty clause, but none of their players are eligible for it.
New York has no cap space and somehow has to use their very limited means to retain all of J.R. Smith, Chris Copeland and Pablo Prigioni, while also upgrading the team. They’ve put themselves in a tough spot.
Even though they somehow seem to have been the winners of the Dwight Howard trade – for which we are all repentant – Orlando nevertheless still didn’t help their financial situation in the deal, and don’t have nearly as much cap space as you’d want in such a rebuild. Nevertheless, some partially guaranteed deals will lessen the load a bit: Al Harrington’s contract is only 50% guaranteed for each of the next two seasons, which would mean a cap hit of only $3,574,300 if waived, and Hedo Turkoglu’s $12 million is only guaranteed for $6 million, an extremely generous concession he made when he was dealt from Toronto to Phoenix that he now probably strongly regrets. It is assumed that these two will be waived.
On a smaller scale, the minimum salary contracts of Kyle O’Quinn ($788,872, fully unguaranteed until opening night) and E’Twaun Moore ($884,293, fully unguaranteed until June 30th) can also be saved on, although this is considered unlikely and unnecessary. Similarly considered unlikely and unnecessary are Beno Udrih’s cap hold ($11,058,300) and DeQuan Jones’s qualifying offer ($988,872); both are assumed renounced, along with Jeremy Richardson ($884,293), and Fran Vasquez’s continued cap hold is assumed to be expunged via the aforementioned method. A cap projection is arrived at thusly:
Total = $48,686,117 = $9,813,883 in cap room…sort of.
A big factor here, however, is the Dwight Howard TPE. Its $17,816,880 in goodness is still on the cap until August 10th. To get at this cap room, it’d have to be used or forfeited.
One of the greatest unknown commodities in this free agency period will be Andrew Bynum. His cap hold of $17,733,450 keeps Philly, despite their comparatively low committed salary, out of cap room contention. Of course, there is no guarantee that this will stay this way – there is no guarantee of anything with Bynum. He may well leave. Despite the depressing state of his health, he’s still young and still very talented, so teams will still offer money on a reclamation project. But it’s surely impossible to gauge the market with any accuracy on someone with so little certainty going forward. And surely, if someone’s going to pay him on the promise that he’ll return to something near his best, that team must be Philly. It is they, after all, who got completely rinsed on the deal that brought him in. They need to get something from the deal. It is hereby assumed, then, that Bynum won’t be renounced. And because of the sheer enormity of his cap hold, this makes discussion of any other cap machinations moot.
Phoenix’s cap situation is comparatively simple for cap room calculations. They have no options, no significant free agent cap holds, and only three unguaranteed deals = Shannon Brown ($3,500,000, only 50% guaranteed if waived within 36 hours after the end of the draft), Hamed Haddadi ($1,397,500, only $200,000 guaranteed if waived on or before June 29th) and P.J. Tucker ($884,293, fully unguaranteed if waived on or before July 1st). These three are fairly comfortable to predict; Haddadi will likely be waived, Tucker will surely be retained, and, in light of the fact he pretty much DNP-CD’d the entire final two months, it is assumed Brown will be cut. It is further assumed that Diante Garrett will not be extended a qualifying offer – who would they be outbidding? – and that Wesley Johnson’s $5,421,233 cap hold will be readily addressed. (NB: despite the difficulty of predicting Jermaine O’Neal’s future, given his resurgent play and fragmented relationship with the team, it is assumed his minimum salary cap hold will not be renounced.) With two first-round picks in the first, Phoenix’s projected cap room is thus determined:
This isn’t a whole lot more cap room than a combination of the MLE and BAE would be, and, in light of the potential usefulness of Brown’s deal and the bizarre if genuine intent to probably retain Johnson, it’s also possible that Phoenix has no cap room at all.
Luke Babbitt, Elliot Williams and Nolan Smith are all surely done in Portland. It would be patently ridiculous if Sasha Pavlovic’s unguaranteed $1,399,507 wasn’t waived. Eric Maynor, much as they like him, is worth neither his $3,351,387 qualifying offer nor his $5,846,803 cap hold. And J.J. Hickson is also supposedly done there. Hickson’s cap hold of $7.6 million isn’t too bad, but we’ll assume here he is renounced/quickly signs elsewhere. This leaves Portland with:
Despite being over $16 million short of the cap, Tyreke Evans’s $13,129,563 cap hold eats up most of that, and the $2,413,300 for the #7 pick takes up most of the rest. Barring a series of moves that are very difficult to foresee, it’s Evans OR cap room, not both. Which is a shame, because having wasted cap flexibility for years, they finally have an owner that might use it, right when they don’t have it.
If Evans DOES leave, then that, plus an amnesty of John Salmons, makes things interesting.
It’s a similar story with San Antonio – despite being far short of the cap, and extremely far short of the tax, cap holds for key players Manu Ginobili ($19,136,250, ten year veteran max – to be adjusted upwards after moratorium) and Tiago Splitter ($7,493,600) take them almost certainly out of the race.
Utah have almost an entire salary cap’s worth of money to spend. The only committed salaries they have are $6,008,196 for Derrick Favors, $4,505,280 for Enes Kanter, $3,452,183 for Gordon Hayward, $2,202,000 for Alec Burks, $1,660,257 for Jeremy Evans, $884,293 for Jerel McNeal (fully unguaranteed if waived on or before October 31st) and $788,872 for Kevin Murphy (fully unguaranteed if waived on or before August 1st, then $75,000 guaranteed if waived on or before November 1st, thereafter fully guaranteed). Everyone else is an unrestricted free agent. The only one with an option is Marvin Williams, and the likelihood of him opting out of his $7.5 million was greatly reduced in light of his recent Achilles surgery. Assuming that he opts in, and that everyone else (Al Jefferson, Paul Millsap, Mo Williams, Randy Foye, Earl Watson, Greg Ostertag, Brevin Knight, Jamaal Tinsley and DeMarre Carroll) are all renounced, and Murphy is not waived, Utah have the following freedom:
There are many semi-plausible combinations of renouncements that could come into play here, and it’s impossible to predict which will actually happen, so it is hereby assumed that none of them will. Even those being renounced can still be re-signed, remember. They wouldn’t have Bird rights any longer, but, in light of the size of some of these incumbent salaries and the sheer amount of cap room Utah has to give them, they might not need them.
It would depend on upon either or both of Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza opting out, neither of which is hugely likely.
All of these numbers are speculative. That is all they can be at this stage, for you never know what is going to happen. We don’t know what figure the salary cap is going to be yet, nor what teams will do with certain players. Teams can make trades to open up further cap room, and many teams will try this. Some may even succeed. And many current valid contracts contain incentive clauses, which can affect their value in future years. (This happens a lot and is the hardest part of the NBA salary game. Nothing is ever stagnant.) There are a good many variables involved, and always will be.
However, these numbers are as accurate as is possible at the moment, and the interpretation of team’s personnel decisions is hopefully somewhat based in fact. In-depth numbers for all this can be found at the respective salary pages, where salary numbers for all players under contract, and cap holds for both players and picks, are listed. With those numbers, and the knowledge that roster charges are applied to any spot under twelve on a team’s salary number that isn’t filled by a “thing,” you can work through all the possible connotations with this information.
Every now and then, it’s fun to comb through the list of recently retired players (almost, but not quite exclusively, NBA ones), and track down their current post-playing career whereabouts. The last such list was compiled two years ago and is rather out of date now, so here’s a fresh one.
Tariq Abdul-Wahad – Abdul-Wahad is now the head coach at Lincoln high school in San Jose.
Shareef Abdur-Rahim – Still the Kings assistant general manager. Last year returned to university to finish the degree he left unfinished 16 years earlier.
Maurice Ager – Ager hasn’t played since a four game stint with the Timberwolves at the very start of the 2010/11 season. Instead, he’s turned to music, and is now a producer and occasional rapper. Ager’s first album, “Moe Town,” was released last month; here’s a video clip of a bonus track, called “Pistons.” You’ll recognise one sample.
Briefly mentioned at the end is “Sports ‘n’ Music”, a radio show Ager also hosts. Here’s an episode of that.
Cory Alexander – Last time we checked in, Alexander had had some problems. He’d lost all his money, and was suing Bank of America to get it back, claiming it was their fault. It is unclear how successful this action was. But what is clear is that Alexander turned his occasional commentary role on Virginia games into a bigger media career, and is now an analyst and announcer on the ACC Network.
Courtney Alexander – Now coaching high school basketball at Dominion Christian High School in Marietta, Georgia. Alexander also still runs his not-for-profit, Georgia Press, although the website has changed location since last time. It now points to a subdirectory of imsopure.com. Alrighty then.
Kenny Anderson – Since the last update, Anderson’s most newsworthy moment was a car wreck. In December 2011, his Cadillac was found wrapped around two roadside trees, but Anderson was nowhere to be seen. Uninjured, Anderson had left the scene and returned to his home. He later returned to the scene, clearly (and admitting to being) under the influence of alcohol, and was arrested for DUI. However, Anderson was ultimately acquitted, as it could not be proven that he was the one to drunkenly wreck. Anderson has since had more driving issues, and posted this potentially awkward if kind of amusing tweet about a trip to Hooters. He now coaches high school basketball at Posnack Jewish Day School in Florida, and is writing a book.
Shandon Anderson – At last update, Anderson had multiple business interests, including a salon and a spa. It is unknown how they are doing, but what is known is that Anderson is now a trainee chef.
Rafael Araujo – Araujo is not listed because he is retired, but because he was. The man now known as Babby Araujo, been back in Brazil ever since leaving the NBA, retired from the game in March of last year and expressed his intent to write a book. It is not known how the book thing has gone. But in October of this year, Araujo ended his retirement after only six months, signing with Moga das Cruzes and averaging 14.2 points and 9.1 rebounds per game thus far this season.
Brandon Armstrong – Former Nets guard Armstrong was out of basketball for three and a half years, and was assumed to have retired, but unexpectedly resurfaced this November when he made the Reno Bighorns training camp roster as a local tryout player. However, Armstrong was cut before the regular season started, and once again cannot be traced.
Connor Atchley – After college, Atchley enjoyed a two year professional career, most of which was in the D-League. Included in there was a brief stop in Turkey, a couple of trips to summer league, and even a training camp gig with the Sacramento Kings. He returned to Texas in September 2011 to work as a graduate manager; it’s unclear if he is still there.
Chucky Atkins – Atkins has taken up coaching. He first volunteered at USF, then worked with the NBA Player’s Association at high school camps, before starting his first season this year at Evans High School in Orlando, his alma mater.
Stacey Augmon – An assistant coach with the Nuggets at last count, Augmon left there two years ago to return to UNLV and be an assistant there.
Vin Baker – At last look, Baker was dabbling in basketball coaching, but he seems to have mostly left the sport behind. He is now studying for a Masters degree in Divinity at Union Theological Seminary in Manhattan, training to be a pastor, as well as volunteering as an assistant at a nearby high school. Having had well known struggles financially, Baker is also suing his former accountant, claiming his fortune was mismanaged.
Sean Banks – Banks has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. He was arrested in the summer of 2011 and accused of being part of the “James Bond gang”, a sophisticated band of thieves in operation for decades, and then arrested again in January on various charges while still awaiting trial for the previous ones.
Steven Barber and Maurice Taylor – The former Knick team mates, only one of whom you’ve heard of, started a personal training business together named “Premier Skills and Performance Training LLC,” the website for which no longer exists. Taylor is also the CEO of Maurice Taylor Enterprises LLC, which, per his LinkedIn page, seems to involve investments of some sort.
Brent Barry – As was the case previously, Barry works for NBA TV as an analyst and pundit.
Jon Barry – As was the case previously, Barry works for ABC and ESPN as an analyst and pundit.
Travis Best – Best managed a few years in Europe after his NBA career ended, but they petered out in late 2009. He now hosts basketball camps in and around Atlanta.
Joseph Blair – Blair runs the Blair Charity Group, which appears to be not so much a charity as a liaison for other ones in and around Tucson, Arizona. He is also a consultant and speaker.
Corie Blount – Blount now runs Gradu8 Inc. Uncertain as to what that was, the following is quoted from the company’s About page:
Gradu8 Incorporated- the first organization solely committed to representing the pride of academic achievement through the manufacturing and distribution of customized products.
The company is named for its’ efforts to promote graduate awareness, stress the importance of graduating and increase graduation rates here in America. Gradu8 understands the commitment and sacrifice every student faces to attain academic success. Our goal is to acknowledge those who have achieved success educationally and inspire those who have not.
Gradu8’s unique programs are currently showing up in schools and businesses across America. Administrators and teachers commend us for creating fresh concepts that promote the value of graduating to their students. No other company has the ability to promote the pride of education and graduation the way that Gradu8 does.
Mark Blount – Cannot be traced, other than this non-story about Blount seeking to renegotiate his child support payments, the most notable aspect of which is the fact that both his sons seemed to also be named Mark. (Mark’s a wonderful name and all, but that’s surely confusing.) A man named Mark D. Blount founded a company in Florida last year called Blount Wellness, but it’s not known if it’s the same Mark D. Blount.
Dejan Bodiroga – Currently the president of the Serbian Basketball Federation, it was announced in late January that Bodiroga was to be the next president of FIBA, but that seemed presumptuous. Bodiroga is at this point still merely a candidate, behind troubled incumbent Olafur Rafnsson.
Jason Bohannon – The Wisconsin guard played professionally for one season, scoring 17 points in 51 D-League minutes for the Iowa Energy before leaving midseason and going to Germany, whereupon he averaged 12.6 points in 24.5 minutes for second division Heidelberg, with 42% three point shooting. He is now an Investment Adviser Representative.
Calvin Booth – Booth now works as a scout for the Hornets.
Curtis Borchardt – Borchardt’s professional career was a long story of injures, both in his NBA time and his subsequent European stays. He missed most of the 2003-04, 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2009-10 seasons, as well as all of the 2002-03 and 2010-11 ones. He missed the start of the 2011-12 season, too, but returned in January to play five healthy and productive months for ACB team Valladolid, averaging 8.9 points and 7.1 rebounds in a desperate yet successful bid to stave off relegation. He then retired this offseason.
Ruben Boumtje Boumtje – Boom Boom retired at the start of the 2011-12 season after a heart condition was discovered.
Bruce Bowen – As was the case at the last checkup, Bowen is an analyst for ESPN. He recently became one of the worst players in history to have his NBA jersey number retired, which admittedly is a backhanded compliment, but a compliment nonetheless.
Ryan Bowen – Bowen briefly returned to his alma mater of Iowa to work as a video coordinator, and now is back with the Nuggets as an assistant coach and advance scout.
Michael Bradley – Bradley briefly became an agent, but it didn’t work out. He is now a high school coach, and also owns two yoga studios.
Shawn Bradley – In retirement, Bradley has made an unsuccessful foray into politics, and is the chairman of the board of a boarding school. He also owns a ranch.
Rick Brunson – A Bulls assistant coach at last update, Brunson now holds the same role with the Bobcats.
Greg Buckner – At the time of the last update, Buckner was said to be wanting to make a comeback as a player. It didn’t happen; instead, Buckner returned to Clemson to complete his degree, and has worked the last two years as an assistant coach for the Rockets.
Antonio Burks – Former Memphis guard Burks never recovered from his backyard shooting sufficiently to resume a playing career – indeed, he says he cannot even walk without a limp, and that’s after 24 surgeries. He joined LeMoyne Owen College as an assistant coach in late 2010; it appears, however, that he is no longer there.
Da’Sean Butler – Butler famously tore his ACL in his final college game, but it didn’t heal too well. Indeed, Butler describes it as “disintegrated”. He has returned to WVU to work as a graduate assistant, and is done with playing, at least for now.
Jackie Butler – Butler was thrown in to the Luis Scola trade of 2007, waived by the Rockets, and never played again. It appears he retired at the age of only 22. Then again, in that time, Butler managed to be a McDonald’s All-American, the CBA rookie of the year, and an NBA champion. Perhaps he felt he’d achieved everything. Since his retirement, Butler cannot be traced.
Zarko Cabarkapa – Save for a brief 25 minute comeback in January 2009 with his pre-NBA team, Buducnost, Cabarkapa has not played since 2006 due to multiple back surgeries. As late as December of that year, Cabarkapa still refused to consider retirement. But with another three years gone, he probably has by now. The only news about him since then is entirely NSFW, so Google it yourself.
Elden Campbell – Still cannot be traced. In light of news, here’s some trivia – unless the internet is lying to me, Elden Campbell is one of only two players in NBA history to increase his scoring average in each of his first seven seasons. The other one is Derek Harper, who managed it for eight seasons. [EDIT: The internet did indeed lie. Shawn Kemp also did it, as may have others. The lesson, as always – never trust anybody.]
Jason Capel – Still the head coach at Appalachian State.
Geno Carlisle – Carlisle last played in 2008-09, a part season outing for the Anaheim Arsenal of the D-League, before he was waived due to injury. He cannot be traced since that time.
Sam Cassell – Still an assistant coach with the Wizards.
Kelvin Cato – It’s unknown what, if anything, Kelvin Cato does for money nowadays. Rumours of a foray into the music industry cannot be corroborated. But Cato did recently appear in the public conscious when Paul Shirley named a syndrome after him.
Calbert Cheaney – At update an assistant with the Wizards, Cheaney has since left and returned to his alma mater, Indiana, where he has two jobs – Director of Basketball Operations, and Director of Internal and External Player Development.
Eric Chenowith – When we last checked on Chenowith, he was working as a high school assistant coach, and part-owned a construction company. He left the assistant’s job last summer, and it’s not know about the status of the construction company. In the time since, Chenowith has worked as a substitute teacher, returned to KU to finish his degree, and is now an insurance producer.
Doug Christie – Christie still runs Christie Sports Management, which trains athletes rather than represents them, and also home schools his son. It was announced last March that he and his wife were going to produce some porn.
Ousmane Cisse – Remember this name? Cisse last played in the 2009-10 season, finishing it with Brest in the French Second Division, averaging 11.9 points, 10.0 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game. He cannot be traced since.
Keon Clark – Clark’s perennial legal troubles have been documented at length on this site, and his arrest total is somewhere in or near the fifties. At last check, he was serving 33 months in prison for parole violations and traffic offences, and last July, while still imprisoned on those charges, yet more were brought. It is not possible for me to add any more to Keon Clark’s sitrep as I am now unable to access the online court records due to repeatedly posting their results on Clark publicly.
Mateen Cleaves – Cleaves now works as an NBA analyst for Fox Sports Detroit and an NCAA analyst for CBS.
Jarron Collins – Collins retired this summer and now works as a scout for the Clippers.
Chris Crawford – Crawford founded Slam Dunk Stables in 2003, but their progress is unknown.
Austin Croshere – Croshere is a Pacers analyst and occasional colour commentator.
Michael Curry – Curry is lead assistant/associate head coach for the Sixers.
Antonio Davis – Davis returned to basketball this year, joining ESPN as a studio analyst.
Dale Davis – Here’s an awkward if jauntily soundtracked video that explains Dale’s current business.
Justin Davis – As with Dale Davis, here’s a video that describes what Justin Davis does better than I ever could.
He’s certainly a good orator.
Andrew DeClercq – DeClercq runs basketball camps, owns a property development company called New Creation Properties, and a property rental company called ATD Properties. He no longer teaches high school basketball.
Tony Delk – In the summer of 2011, Delk moved from being the director of basketball operations at Kentucky to being an assistant coach at New Mexico State.
Dan Dickau – Dickau spent last year as a player development coach with the Blazers, but was not brought back this season. He also ceased operating his basketball academy, and, while in the running for the vacant Idaho Stampede head coaching job this summer, did not make it. He currently works as an analyst for locally televised Gonzaga games.
Michael Dickerson – Dickerson’s comeback, such that it was, hasn’t seen him play in a game since January 2010. There’s been reports of desire to play since then, but no actual play, and no other news.
Alain Digbeu – Digbeu retired this summer and settled in Turkey, as he has a Turkish wife. He is doing some TV work and is working to gain his coaching license.
Vlade Divac – Divac remains president of the Serbian Olympic Committee.
Christian Drejer – Drejer retired five years ago, unable to get over the foot troubles that plagued his entire career, and a rumoured comeback in 2010 never saw him take the court in any meaningful game. He studied economics at Copenhagen Business School for two years, and is now a director for a commercial interiors company, of which his wife is chairman.
Predrag Drobnjak – Drobnjak recently appeared as a guest analyst on Arena Sports, and I can’t understand a word of it.
Roberto Duenas – Duenas is now a youth team coach with Barcelona.
Howard Eisley – Eisley is an assistant coach for player development with the Clippers.
Obinna Ekezie – For the past five years, Ekezie has been running Wakanow.com, the first online travel portal for Nigeria outbound travel.
Tyrone Ellis – Ellis finished his lengthy European career this summer and went to work as an assistant coach for the Tulsa 66ers of the D-League.
Evan Eschmeyer – Eschmeyer returned to Northwestern to earn his JD/MBA, graduated in 2008, founded a now-defunct online recruiting service, worked with the Environmental Law & Policy Center on the proliferation and establishment of renewable energy resources, and runs a law office in Columbus.
Peter Fehse – Fehse’s oft-documented career decline as a player due to incessant injury troubles saw him eventually become a coach for his final team, the lower league BSW Sixers. However, his contract was not renewed for this season, and while he certainly made at least one preseason appearance for Oberliga (fifth tier) side Halle SC 96, the club is of such a lowly status in the grand scheme of things that no information abounds as to whether he stuck.
Andrei Fetisov – Fetisov is now the Director of Sport at a school in St. Petersburg.
Alton Ford – Ford’s last career stop was as a bit-part player for the Erie BayHawks in the latter part of the 2010-11 season, and he cannot be traced since that time.
T.J. Ford and James Posey – Ford retired one year ago this week with his persistent neck trouble, and now runs an AAU team. He has also returned to school to complete his degree. Posey helps out with Ford’s AAU team, which is the only post-retirement news on him other than the sale of his house.
Jeff Foster – Foster has not made the news since retiring last March.
Tremaine Fowlkes – Tremaine Fowlkes was born in Los Angeles, California. A man named Tremaine Fowlkes founded a company called TRE Holdings LLC in Los Angeles in 2004. That company, according to this, lodged then redacted an appeal against a finding in the US Bankruptcy Court. Same guy? Hope not.
Adonal Foyle – Was for a long time a rising star in the Magic front office, and was considered a candidate for the GM job. But when the new regime took over, there wasn’t a place for Foyle in it, and he was fired. Foyle subsequently set up a personal coaching and consultancy firm.
Richie Frahm – Runs the occasional skills camp, but is otherwise untraced.
Steve Francis – Francis runs a small record label, Mazerati Music, and also occasionally takes a turn on the mic himself. Here’s a song of his called “Finer Things,” which is either an attempt to educate the youth of today of how the fragility and vapidity of material possessions is heightened in a time of great economic upheaval, or the complete opposite.
Shouldn’t sing your own hook, Steve.
Chester Frazier – Assistant coach at Kansas State. Left his playing contract with German team Wurzburg in order to take the role. It got messy.
Rob Griffin – Griffin claims to work four jobs. He says he is the CEO at the One Love multimedia company, the president of sales and marketing at Get Lucky Productions, a trainer at Hype Athletics, and a sales rep for the TV33 WHPR network.
Rashard Griffith – A stay-at-home dad who occasionally volunteers as a coach.
Adam Haluska – Haluska has not played since being waived by the Mavericks in training camp in late 2010. He had not played in the 18 months before that, either. He now works in medical sales for a company called Stryker Orthopaedics.
Darvin Ham – Now an assistant coach for the Lakers.
Ben Handlogten – Owned a property development company for a while, and now works as a director of medical sales.
Travis Hansen – Hansen is a partner in a private equity firm, Yapo Ventures, and runs a not-for-profit foundation called Little Heroes. He also wrote a book.
Penny Hardaway – Now a minority owner of the Grizzlies, and volunteer coaching at a local middle school, Lester Middle School, to replace a friend on sick leave due to cancer.
Adam Harrington – Harrington owns and runs Aspire Basketball Training, and, like so many others on this list, works in medical sales as a representative. He also runs a memorial fund dedicated to his sister, a former NBA employee who died of cancer.
Othella Harrington – Assistant Director of Basketball Operations at Georgetown.
Russell Hicks – After a couple of years at Europe’s lower levels, and an inexplicable stint with the Lakers, Hicks’s playing career ended, and he now works in sales.
Steven Hill – Hill retired at the very end of 2010 due to lingering leg and back injuries, and now works as a pricing manager for a transport company.
Tyrone Hill – After four years as an assistant there, the Hawks let Hill go this summer, and he does not seem to have caught on elsewhere.
Blake Hoffarber – Hoffarber played professional basketball for two months, averaging 9.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game for French second division team, Fos Ouest. He is now a sales representative in the cardiology department of Boston Sciences.
Randy Holcomb – Owns a clothing company, Alfred’s House, and is a real estate developer for The Woodmont Company.
J.R. Holden – Runs a non-profit organisation, TEN Inc.
Jeff Horner – Now a high school coach at West Des Moines Valley.
Robert Horry – Started working this year as a Lakers analyst.
Allan Houston – Assistant general manager for the Knicks. Suffered an awkward moment at the 2012 Las Vegas Summer League when a heavily jet-lagged idiot tripped over a step, stumbled a few places and landed in his lap. That person was not me. (It was really.)
DeeAndre Hulett – At last count, Hulett had returned to university, and was working as an assistant coach at a local high school. There is no update since that time.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas – Works as a special assistant to the Cavaliers general manager.
Bobby Jackson – Jackson has graduated from being a Kings community ambassador to an assistant coach.
Dante Jackson – Jackson never undertook a professional career, even though he probably could have done, working one year as a graduate assistant at Ohio State before returning to Xavier this season to do the same again.
Jim Jackson – Jackson is an analyst for the Big Ten network, owns a logistics firm, owns a furniture company, and is a managing director of this.
Marc Jackson – Works as an analyst for Sixers games.
Tory Jackson – After a short two year professional career, Jackson retired and is now the head coach at his former high school.
Chris Jefferies – Jefferies is the vice president of a Las Vegas hospitality company, and has been for several years after his really quite early retirement.
Horace Jenkins – Jenkins runs an AAU team in Lehigh and also offers private coaching.
Britton Johnsen – After retiring for the second and final time this summer, Johnsen returned to Utah to complete his degree, and is now developing a basketball academy. He has also done occasional commentary work for the Jazz.
Anthony Johnson – Johnson is trying to get into coaching, and volunteered with the Hawks last year, but has yet to land a job.
Ervin Johnson – Now a community ambassador for the Denver Nuggets.
Ken Johnson – The last update on Johnson is from two years ago – he had returned to Ohio State to complete his art degree, and expressed a desire to become an art teacher. It is unclear if he’s done this.
Eddie Jones – Participates in many charity ventures, but it’s unclear what he now does for an income.
Fred Jones – Jones has established a social media venture purely for former NBA players, Player Population.com. It’s fine in theory, but I’m not sure of what the advantage is to it over existing social media. Also, I suspect a majority of NBA players use social media like they do now largely for the female fans it brings, which an exclusive club would not offer. Nevertheless, good luck.
Christian Laettner – Once rich enough to almost buy the Girzzlies, Laettner’s fortune has been lost to real estate deals gone sour, and he resorted to making a playing comeback last season in the American Basketball Association. Laettner was then an assistant coach for the Fort Wayne Mad Ants for the remainder of the season, but was not retained for this year, and now runs the Christian Laettner Basketball Academy. On the academy’s website, you can buy self-aggrandizing t-shirts featuring the slogan “I still heart Laettner”.
Raef LaFrentz – In retirement, LaFrentz bought a great deal of farmland in Iowa.
Sean Lampley – Lampley is now a former NBA player.
James Lang – Cannot be traced since his 2009 stroke. Hope he’s all right.
Trajan Langdon – Now a scout for the Spurs, specialising in the European game, at which he proved most adept.
Priest Lauderdale – Lauderdale opened the 2011-12 season in the Lebanon with Chalab, but the team withdrew from the league because of financial difficulties very early on. He has not played since, nor can he be traced.
Charles Lee – Lee has returned to his alma mater, Bucknell, to be an assistant coach.
Voshon Lenard – Has done some promoting work for Captain Morgan, but that’s all that is known.
Quincy Lewis – Lewis does TV work for University of Minnesota games, and is an assistant high school coach.
Randy Livingston – After two years as the head coach for the Idaho Stampede of the D-League, Livingston was not retained for a third season. He was mentioned as a candidate for an assistant coaching job with San Antonio, Utah and LSU, but none of them came to fruition. Livingston is suing his former agents for unpaid fees, and appears to be out of work at the moment.
Steve Logan – With the rape charges behind him, the last news on Logan was that he was attempting to set up basketball camps in the Cleveland area.
Josh Lomers – Lomers played one professional season, then gave up. According to his LinkedIn, he is now a HR Generalist.
Felipe Lopez – Works for the NBA as an ambassador in their NBA Cares program.
Tyronn Lue – Still an assistant with the Celtics. His teetotal life is “awesome”. Glad someone understands.
George Lynch – At last count, Lynch was untraceable, since leaving Southern Methodist University at an undisclosed time where he had been working as a graduate manager. It transpires that he worked only one year at SMU, before becoming a personal trainer for three seasons, then working for two years as a strength and conditioning coach and a assistant athletics director for community relations at UC-Irvine. He left there this summer to return to SMU to work as an assistant coach under their new head coach, Larry Brown.
Arvydas Macijauskas – Macijauskas studied for a masters in European Basketball Coaching Science at the University of Worcester here in England, graduating in December, and will look for coaching opportunities.
Tito Maddox – After disappearing from the scene in 2003, then reappearing in a column relating to the now-forgotten-about O.J. Mayo scandal in 2008 (in which it was said that Maddox had had a brain tumour), Maddox cannot be traced at any time in the subsequent five years.
Mark Madsen – Madsen is an assistant coach at Stanford.
Jamaal Magloire – A month or so after waiving him as a player, the Raptors hired Magloire to be a Basketball Development Consultant and Community Ambassador.
Jackie Manuel – After retiring in 2011, Manuel worked one season as an assistant strength and conditioning coach at North Carolina, then left this season to become an assistant coach at NC-Greensboro.
Sean Marks – Marks now works for the Spurs, as both a director of basketball operations and as the general manager for their self-owned D-League affiliate, the Austin Toros.
Donyell Marshall – Served for one year as an assistant with the D-League’s Maine Red Claws, but did not return for this season. According to his Twitter bio, he is now a full time dad.
Terrell McIntyre – McIntyre retired on doctor’s advice at the start of the 2011-12 season after suffering a hip injury. He wants to go into coaching, but has not yet done so, instead working on unspecificed investment opportunities.
Gerry McNamara – After the Bernie Fine pseudo-scandal, McNamara was promoted from Syracuse graduate assistant to assistant coach. He recently had painful sounding spine surgery.
Chris Mihm – Mihm returned to Texas to complete his degree in psychology and liberal arts, and helps out with the Longhorns men’s team, albeit not in any official capacity that I am aware of. He recently lost his Big 12 all-time shot-blocking record to Jeff Withey.
Oliver Miller – On the very day that the previous post was made, Miller was arrested for pistol whipping his girlfriend’s brother after an argument at a barbecue. It made the post as an edited addendum. Miller was sentenced to a year in jail for the incident, and served six months. It’s not known what he’s done since his release, but this doesn’t sound good.
Reggie Miller – Continues to demonstrate a refined and impeccably timed sense of humour on TNT broadcasts.
Yao Ming – Yao has returned to Jiao Tong university in Shanghai to study economics, and is active in animal welfare. He is also terrible at golf.
Terence Morris – It’s a bit disingenuous to list a non-retired player on a list of retired players, but it’s fair in this case, as no doubt everyone will think Morris is retired. After all, he was – Morris retired after a 2011/12 season in which he helped Barcelona do the domestic double. But Morris unretired this year when he was drafted 1st overall in the 2012 UBA (Universal Basketball Association) Draft by the Houston Express. He’s played seven games thus far and is destroying the league, ranking second in points (24.3ppg), first in rebounds (15.6 rpg), seventh in assists (6.0apg) and first in blocks (5.6bpg). Suffice to say, the standard of the UBA isn’t great, but I suppose that’s where the fun comes from.
Alonzo Mourning – Vice President of Player Programs for the Heat.
Gabe Muoneke – Followed through on his dream to work in the oil industry and is now an asset manager for Afren Resources.
Dikembe Mutombo – Recently starred in an amusing and nonsensical Geico advert.
Mamadou N’Diaye – Now an assistant coach at Coastal Carolina.
Eduardo Najera – Retired after last season and immediately got a head coaching job with the Mavericks-owned D-League team, the Texas Legends.
Tyrone Nesby – All of Nesby’s previously discussed business ventures seem to have come to an end. He is now reporting himself as a trainer with a company called Nes-b Sports. The crude website for the company offers plain black sandals for a mere $100.
Rasho Nesterovic – Cannot be traced since retiring after the 2010/11 season.
Ira Newble – An assistant coach with the Austin Toros after previously holding the same role with the Canton Charge.
Shaquille O’Neal – Doing TV. Not very good at it. Has potential, but needs to try less hard. Basically the complete opposite of his playing career, then.
Fabricio Oberto – Oberto has actually unretired. He’s threatened to do this on a couple of occasions since retiring in 2010, but it’s really happened this time, playing the last two months with Argentinian team Atenas. Oberto is averaging 9.9 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.3 assists in 23 minutes per game, but hurt his hamstring 86 seconds into his last game and is out for at least two weeks.
Greg Ostertag – Ostertag unretired last year and joined the Texas Legends of the D-League, but was badly out of shape. He averaged 4.2 points and 5.0 rebounds in 10 games, before his knee – the reason he had retired in the first place – refused to go any further. Just as the aforementioned Chris Mihm has had to watch Jeff Withey overtake his Big 12 blocked shots record, Ostertag recently had to watch Withey passed his Kansas school record for them too.
Someone on Twitter has pretended to be a racist version of Ostertag for nearly three years now.
Bo Outlaw – Now an Orlando Magic community ambassador.
Robert Pack – Now an assistant coach for the L.A. Clippers.
David Padgett – Padgett served for one season as an assistant strength coach at Louisville, and has served the last two years as an assistant coach at IUPUI.
Anthony Parker – Parker ended his impressive career this past summer and became a scout for the Orlando Magic.
Cherokee Parks – Inexplicably, Parks – who had not played since December 2003 – came out of retirement last season to sign with French fourth division team, Aubenas. There must be a reason why he travelled across the globe to play semi-professional basketball, but whatever it is, I don’t know it. It did, however, definitely happen – here’s some tape to prove it. It’s only of a missed jump shot, but, still.
Parks was even due to re-sign there for another season (see the link for an enthusiastic if crudely translated blurb on Parks’s virtues), yet this contract was later cancelled after the death of a family member.
Gary Payton – Hard to pinpoint exactly what he does, but appears at many charity events, and is really pushing for the NBA’s return to Seattle in some untitleable capacity.
Anthony Peeler – Into his fourth season as an assistant coach at Division II Virginia Union.
Ben Pepper – Pepper essentially retired after the 2007/08 season, but has played the last three summers in Australia’s Western Australia State Basketball League for the Geraldton Buccaneers. Last year, however, he averaged only 7/5 in five games before having season ending knee surgery. This year, Pepper has joined Hawks Basketball Club, who play in the Geraldton Amateur Basketball Association; he will play for the men’s team, while simultaneously coaching the women’s.
Wesley Person – Person was coaching high school basketball at Enterprise State Community College, spending one year as an assistant with the women’s team, then being head coach of the men’s team for one season. After an 8-21 season, Person was fired. He then began to volunteer as an assistant for the women’s team at Troy University, but made the headline for a different reason last January with this arrest. And then in November, he was arrested again.
Eric Piatkowski – After briefly working as an analyst for Nebraska games, Piatkowski has vanished from the public life.
Kevin Pittsnogle – In 2010 and 2011, Pittsnogle was a player/coach for a semi-pro team, the Winchester Storm, though it’s hard to tell who they play against. (It seems they used to be a member of the Eastern Basketball Alliance, but not sure about now.) Pittsnogle only played home games; here’s a clip of him doing so. He’s the overweight and extremely slow #50 in black.
Not afraid to shoot, not capable of anything else. Still, basketball isn’t Pittsnogle’s life any more. He continues to work as a substitute teacher in West Virginia, and is a youth case manager for the West Virginia Department of Commerce.
Scot Pollard – Now broadcasts Kansas games, and recently made forays into acting, most prominently in a B-movie horror called Axeman at Cutler’s Creek. Yes, the beardy guy who licks and kills women really is Scot Pollard.
For an amusing analysis of Pollard’s chances of avoiding eternal punishment in the fiery depths of hell, read this.
Vitaly Potapenko – After leaving the Pacers, Potapenko moved to the Dakota Wizards of the D-League to be an assistant coach there; when the team moved to Santa Cruz for the 2012-13 season, Potapenko went with them.
Roger Powell – Powell retired after the 2011 season. He is now an assistant coach at Valparaiso, and also a minister.
Laron Profit – Now an assistant coach for player development with the Orlando Magic.
Zeljko Rebraca – Hoping Partizan Belgrade will offer him a coaching job.
Luke Recker – Now sells medical equipment for a living, for a company called Stryker Orthopaedics. If that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the same company the aforementioned Adam Haluska works for. Someone at Stryker Orthopaedics has an Iowa connection, it seems.
Justin Reed – Arrested for possessing quite a lot of weed in March 2011, and hasn’t been heard from since.
Don Reid – Reid has teamed up with former Pistons employee Mike Ford to open Increase Sports, a youth development program.
Jared Reiner – Reiner works in medical sales for the same company as the aforementioned Recker and Haluska. You can guess where he went to college.
Chris Richard – Richard retired from the game this summer to concentrate on his foundation for underprivileged children, the Rich Kids Project.
Jason Richards – Into his third season as a graduate student manager at Pittsburgh.
Norm Richardson – Richardson ended his playing career in Germany, and wound up staying there, coaching the TSV Bietigheim Under-18 team.
Cliff Robinson – Robinson now helps run his wife’s charity, The Robinson Network, and working with the NBA Alumni Association.
Glenn Robinson – Cannot be traced, but his son’s doing OK for himself.
Rodney Rogers – A New York Post piece about Rogers ran last month, detailing his efforts to run a foundation.
Jalen Rose – Still working as an analyst for ESPN and ABC, and firing out more interesting stuff than most of his peers, if occasionally slightly slanderous.
Malik Rose – Now a broadcaster for the Philadelphia 76ers.
Michael Ruffin – Ruffin is a Director of Field Research of the athletics department of the American Society for Quality.
Bryon Russell – Unknown. It doesn’t appear as though he plays with the Los Angeles Lightning in the summer any more either.
Brian Scalabrine – Declined an assistant coaching job with the Bulls to become a broadcaster for the Celtics.
Lanny Smith – Never really recovering from his injuries, Smith now runs Active Faith Sports, a Christian sports apparel brand with a strikingly slick web portal.
Steve Smith – Has a large real estate portfolio, and works as an analyst for NBA TV.
Eric Snow – Named the Director of Player Development at Southern Methodist University last summer. As with George Lynch, the Larry Brown connection is in play.
Vladimir Stepania – After many years of ultimately unsuccessful rehab, Vladimir Stepania embraced retirement and went to study at New York University. He subsequently settled in the state, and is now the CEO of Silk Road Flavors, a speciality food importer, which he runs with members of his family.
Michael Stewart – Stewart is the vice president of the Unison Group, a medical supply company.
Frans Steyn – Like so many other retired players, it seems, Steyn now works in medical sales. Not for Stryker Orthopedics, however.
Jared Stohl – Portland shooter Stohl played one beautifully one-dimensional season in Germany with second division team Crailsheim. He averaged 8.7 ppg in 14.1 mpg, shot 28% from two point range, and 42% from three point range. He then retired and now runs homeless-art, an enterprise designed to help homeless people help homeless people by creating sellable art.
Predrag Stojakovic – Has done some ambassadorial work for the NBA, but in retirement, has mostly just chilled.
Shaun Stonerook – Stonerook retired this past summer and is still in the taking-time-out stage that often accompanies retirements.
Awvee Storey – Player Personnel Manager for the Washington Mystics of the WNBA.
Damon Stoudamire – Assistant coach at the University of Memphis.
Erick Strickland – Strickland either part-owns or part-owned Luxury Boys Toys, an eBay-like site for expensive stuff, and works at an Acura dealership. He recently petitioned for a job at Nebraska, but was unsuccessful.
Rod Strickland – The last time we checked in on Strickland, he was working for Kentucky as a special assistant, and had just been arrested for yet another DUI. This time around, things are much the same, except this time, the arrest was for driving on a suspended license. Strickland disputed the charge as being an administrative error. Nevertheless, regardless of that, he still works at Kentucky.
Bob Sura – Sura recently turned up on an episode of Pokerstars’s The Big Game. Here’s a clip.
Online, it seems he’s doing pretty good. Also, his Twitter feed, if it’s really him, is hilarious. Seems like he’s having fun.
Mirsad Turkcan – Turkcan retired this past summer after a 19 year professional career, and said he would probably go to work for his last club, Fenerbahce. It is unclear if this happened.
Ime Udoka – Retired this past offseason and immediately went to work with the Spurs as an assistant coach.
Cory Underwood – Seems to either deal in, or endorse, Rich Fly Gee$, which does sidelines in music and clothing.
Nick Van Exel – Now into his third years as a Player Development Instructor for the Hawks. More newsworthy in recent times was his son, who was sentenced to 60 years in jail in February for murder.
Keith Van Horn – Founded a fly-fishing club, then sold it, and founded a software company, Accuworks Software. He retains contact with basketball through this.
Milos Vujanic – The future of the Knicks suffered a serious injury last season and decided to retire. He became an assistant coach at Partizan Belgrade, but left in January citing personal commitments.
Antoine Walker – After two years of being a decent but not stand-out D-League player, Antoine finally pulled the plug on his playing career. He now gives financial adivce, despite…well, you know. Those who can, do. Those who can’t, or at least didn’t, teach.
Charlie Ward – Ward has been the head football coach at Westbury Christian high school in Texas for several years, and is also a part of the school’s development team.
Chris Webber – Writing an autobiography, and developing a career as an analyst. Is really good at it, although Mark Cuban disagrees.
Frederic Weis – Always unfairly disrespected in America, Weis retired at the end of the 2010-11 season after years of injuries that slowed him down considerably. He now owns a brewery in the French town of Limoges.
Bonzi Wells – Still plays in exhibitions, but that doesn’t really count.
David Wesley – Wesley was an assistant coach for the Texas Legends D-League team for two seasons, then left this summer to become a colour analyst for the Hornets.
Robert Whaley – Out of prison, out of basketball, out of shape.
Jahidi White – The only news of Jahidi in retirement was that of an acting role he had in a forgettable B movie, Showdown at Area 51. He is one of the two aliens in this clip. Not sure which, but I suspect it’s the one in the junkyard.
Chris Whitney – Director of Player Development with the Bobcats since 2010.
Mike Wilks – After a few knee injuries, Wilks retired from the game this past offseason and joined the Thunder as a scout.
Aaron Williams – Very quiet in retirement, Williams appeared briefly as a temporary assistant coach at Xavier, replacing Kareem Richardson, who was temporarily sidelined with health problems. Williams, however, left when Richardson returned roughly six weeks later. And when Richardson left Xavier at the end of the season to go to Florida International – along with Rasheen Davis to Manhattan – Xavier hired two replacements, neither of which were Williams.
Ajani Williams – President of the Jamaica Basketball Association, and has been for several years.
Alvin Williams – At one time the Director of Player Development for the Raptors, Williams is now a scout for them.
After college, Donell embarked on a professional basketball career that included 2 season – one with Los Angeles Clippers (NBA) and another Bakersfield Jam (NBDL). When his playing days were over, Donell became a assistant and associate head coach with stops at Fairfax High, Bell-Jeff High and St. Bernard High.
As a high school girls coach, Donell recruited and coached some of the top players in the country and coached in a number of girls and boys to top programs such as UCLA, USC, Arizona, Marshall, Texas, Boston College, San Jose State, North Carolina, NC State and Cal.
Donell saw a need in the marketplace for personal skill training and embarked on his next basketball venture by starting Elite Drills & Skills Basketball. Donell has taken all he has learned as a player and coach and has translated that into training some of the best basketball players and teams in the world. Donell’s skills are highly respected in the training community’s such as Los Angeles, Greensboro and beyond. Donell’s playing and teaching experience make him one of the most qualified and experienced personal skills coaches in the country. For any player looking to significantly improve their game, an opportunity to train with Donell is not one to be missed.
Eric Williams – Does real estate. Not prepared to touch the basketball wives thing here. We did all that before it was popular.
Frank Williams – Williams was arrested for possessing quite a lot of marijuana in the summer of 2009, and last played in Argentina in 2010. His two newsworthy moments since then involved receiving probation in a plea deal for the arrest (2011) and being inducted into the Greater Peoria Sports Hall of Fame (2013). He is otherwise untraced.
Jason Williams – Has played some exhibitions, but his new income is not known. Incidentally, yet not incidentally at all, the other Jayson Williams is out of prison.
Scott Williams – Worked his first seven post-retirement years as a colour commentator, first for Cleveland then Phoenix, before leaving this season to become an assistant coach with the Idaho Stampede of the D-League.
Kevin Willis – Willis’s company, Willis and Walker, which sells custom suits and jeans to taller men, is now into its 25th year of business. And even though Willis just turned 50, he’d still bite on a comeback offer.
Ryan Wittman – A good player, but not good enough to meet basketball’s highest standards, Wittman shunned the third and fourth tiers after only one year to go turn his Cornell education into money. He is now an asset management analyst, a job which just sounds well paid.
Brian Zoubek – As was fairly well know, Zoubek spurned what could have been a good professional career in order to open a pastry shop. Less well known is the fact that it closed a month ago to go do some real estate.
Bulls might waive Nate Robinson to save money (and possibly for another reason, one for which I have no evidence)
December 19th, 2012
K.C. Johnson reports that the Bulls, despite being a number four seed without having their MVP on the court, are sorely tempted to waive Nate Robinson.
In one of the most unheralded high quality moves of the summer – unheralded because the dominant Bullsean narrative of the summer was rightly one of cost-cutting and player-dumping – the Bulls were able to sign Robinson to not only a minimum salary contract, but a partially guaranteed one at that. Of the $1,146,337 Nate is owed – an amount which, if he’s kept for the full season, the Bulls will owe only $854,389 of – only $400,000 is guaranteed, becoming fully guaranteed if not waived on or before January 1st [not the 10th, as reported elsewhere]. In an industry where the permanent goal is to sign as good as quality of player as is possible for as cheap of a price as is possible, this is an incredibly good contract. The institutional maligning of Nate as a player that dates back years cannot (or should not) ignore the fact that he’s a hugely talented player who can single handedly turn the outcome of NBA games. And the Bulls should know this, because he’s done that more than once for them this season.
The move would be, of course, patently ridiculous. Even if the season was a wash, you don’t waive a most vital contributor to save on what, by NBA standards, is a nominal fee, and by no standard is the season proving to be a wash in the first place. Nate is third on the Bulls in PER, the only man who can consistently create a shot off the dribble in Rose’s absence, arguably the team’s best ball handler, its only creative backcourt player, and one of its best shooters. He’s even being masked defensively by the Bulls’s meticulous defensive system, and is thus a hugely important player to a team whose season is still important. There are absolutely no basketball reasons why Nate should be cut on the basis of his performance thus far, and the justification offered – that Marquis Teague is showing “signs” – is an unbelievably tepid excuse. Teague has not yet even had the Bulls career of Acie Law, who at least managed three good games to Teague’s two. Excited by his future as they may be, there is absolutely no reason why Teague should play ahead of Nate if the Bulls want to win games.
The move, then, would be financial. In a best-case scenario for them, cutting Nate on New Year’s Eve will save the Bulls about $900,000 after tax calculations, if they are not able to get under the luxury tax threshold by season’s end. However, in light of the concurrent rumblings about the desire to move Rip Hamilton, which wasn’t difficult to predict, they likely will do so, therefore they’ll only be saving about $450,000 on Nate, an even smaller amount. It’s also an amount that much of which would more than likely have to be spent again anyway. Chicago only has 13 players on the roster on the moment, and although the NBA allows for 12 for two weeks at a time, 13 is the mandated minimum roster size. Someone will have to be signed – or a succession of people on 10 day contracts – to meet that requirement. And that would demand spending the saved money again. In short, then, the Bulls should suck it up and pay.
If the Bulls decide they absolutely cannot afford to spend an extra $400,000 on a projected backup, there are many other ways to go about it. The obvious candidate to go is Vladimir Radmanovic, signed to a guaranteed deal and completely unused on the court, the sixth player on a six man forward depth chart. Vlad is also signed to the minimum of $854,389, and, come trade deadline day of February 21st, two thirds will already have been billed to the Bulls. There are many teams out there with open roster spots and no luxury tax concerns who would happily take him and a $375,000 check – $100,000 more than will be outstanding on Radmanovic’s salary – just to take the cap hit. To the recipient team, it’s a free $100k. If the Bulls would rather not sign that check, a second-round pick would be equally well received.
There is no reason to believe this kind of deal is not available to them, considering the amount of precedence that exists for it across the league in reason seasons. Failing that, though, he might take a buyout. Or they could perhaps make the increasingly inevitable Rip-Hamilton-and-a-pick-to-Cleveland deal happen, whilst adding Vlad and Omri Casspi to it. There are always, ALWAYS ways around this that don’t involve cutting a bargain of a player just to save on a trivial amount.
As this is the same team that squeezed Teague of of $170,000 for no justifiable reason, it is entirely possible that this supposedly negligible amount is nevertheless deemed sufficient to merit losing one of their best players. That, however, would be unpalatable. So would be the grim but plausible reality that Bulls brass have sullied on Nate simply because they don’t like his style of play, a reality which would involve prioritising aesthetics and perceived importance of fundamentals over actual positive impact. Flawed as Nate is, he’s still incredibly useful. It would be depressing for that to be overlooked in deference to stylistic reasons.
Perhaps, then, there is another justification. In the search for a palatable reason for this rumour to exist, perhaps there exists something off the court. It is demonstrably proven to all Bulls observers that Robinson has been better for them this season than the starter ahead of him, Kirk Hinrich, whose perceived defensive value just does not offset the incontrovertible fact that he just can’t play the other end any more. Indeed, it’s been so apparent at times that it’s painful. We should not, therefore, assume that the players don’t know this either. Nor should we assume that a basketball locker room is unlike any other workplace in the world. And people in workplaces bitch.
When a backup is wildly outplaying a starter on a nightly basis, but the team is more emotionally and financially invested in the starter, they have two options; they can divorce themselves from that investment and maximise their incumbent assets on the court, or they can get rid of the thing that’s making their investment look worse. In doing so, they reaffirm their investment, and, they hope, help it realise its potential. The investment then has every opportunity to succeed, without being able to feel superior breath down its neck all the time. It’s asset management, or at least, it pertains to be. And so perhaps that is why we have arrived at this point.
As the title suggest, I have no evidence that this is what is indeed happening. I merely posit the theory that it might, on account of the fact that it has happened sufficiently often elsewhere. [Find a team with a struggling starter and a worse backup, and ask yourself why they won’t at least upgrade the backup.] And I posit it mostly in the vain hope that there’s a reason that this course of action is being discussed, other than the overarching and unavoidable “Bulls are spendthrifts” narrative. It is, however, merely my own whimsy. And I’m not sure I even want it to be true.
All this cost cutting is the direct result of signing Hinrich to the oversized and unnecessarily ambitious contract that they did. His underperformance, predictable as it was, should have meant a greater reliance upon his superior backup. As it is, it might cost him his job.
Something’s not right there.
(NB – The above is all contigent on the Bulls actually considering this as an option, rather than just is being an option available to them. The two are very different.)
Even though he signed a one year minimum salary contract using the Minimum Salary Exception, Nazr Mohammed has a 15% trade kicker in his current contract.
Trade kickers in contracts are somewhat rare. They are particularly rare in small contracts, as becomes obvious upon a study of the current trade kickers in the league today:
Furthermore, many of those trade kickers are in contracts that are already paying the maximum salary to the relevant player. As kickers cannot be used to increase a salary to an amount greater than the max, those kickers are thus pretty much redundant. [As for why anyone puts them in, then – well, why not? What if the max gets bigger? Unlikely, but plausible.] Very few trade kickers actually matter, then. Indeed, of all the contracts in the league today, only three contain already-enacted trade kickers. Of those three, one was partially waived in order to facilitate the trade (Hedo Turkoglu), and one was redundant for the aforementioned maximum contract reasons (Chris Paul). That leaves Luke Walton as the one example of a current contract that was increased by a trade kicker. In a bloviated way, the point is hereby made – trade kickers aren’t very common.
When they are given out, they are done so as leverage. If a team and a player cannot meet in the middle on contract negotiations, the inclusion of a trade bonus serves to bridge the gap; an increase in salary upon being traded gives greater incentive to accept perceived home town discounts. In Nazr’s case, negotiations probably can’t have gone on for too long, as there was surely no dispute as to the fact that he was a minimum salary contract calibre player.
What Nazr’s trade kicker does it make him harder to trade. The minimum salary exception allows teams not only to sign players to the minimum salary for one or two seasons, but also to trade for players signed to the minimum salary for one or two seasons. This is why trades such as bench warmers for second rounders happen quite often, and why so many pedantically small trade exceptions exist. By having a trade kicker in his deal, Nazr makes himself more difficult to trade (which, considering Chicago’s proximity to the hard cap, may well be considered some day soon). Unless he opts to waive it, the trade kicker pushes his contract above the minimum, making it no longer absorbable by the minimum salary exception or a similarly sized trade exception. And so thus the recipient team must either match the salary, have a bigger trade exception, or have the cap room to absorb his salary outright. This limits the number of potential Nazr Mohammed trade partners; the difference is very negligible, but impactful enough to merit commentary.
Here’s the real question – where did he get sufficient leverage to warrant such a tool?
Addendum to Teague story: the Bulls's salary cap picture, and how it came to be
August 2nd, 2012
When the new maximum salary figures came in, Derrick Rose’s 2012/13 maximum salary contract went from $15,506,632 to $16,402,500, an increase of as-near-as-is $900,000. Luol Deng’s salary went down by $60,000, but that barely offsets the increases, and it’s an increase that put the Bulls right up against the “apron”.
After all the roster turnover, the Bulls breakdown of 2012/13 salaries currently looks like this:
Only listed above is committed salary, not any cap holds. Cap holds aren’t relevant at this juncture. What is relevant is how much the Bulls have left to spend.
The process by which the Bulls put together that roster is more important here than usual. The new CBA created a level, known colloquially as the ‘apron’, which subjects any team with a payroll above that level to further payroll restrictions. The line exists $4 million above the luxury tax threshold of $70,307,000, so the Bulls are not over it. It is more important to note, however, that there is absolutely no way they can now go over it, because of what they have done thus far.
The Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception cannot be used by teams over the apron, or by teams who would finish above the apron upon using it. Also, if you DO use it, you can’t then go over the apron under any circumstances. The same is all also true of the Bi-Annual Exception. And the Bulls have used both – Hinrich received $3.941 million of the $5 million MLE, while Belinelli got the full BAE.
Proximity to the apron – which, it bears repeating, they CANNOT now go over – is now the Bulls’s major problem. They have only $1,615,602 in room beneath it now, and with only 12 players under contract, they need more. This is doubly true in light of only having four big men, triply true in light of two of those four being incredibly injury prone historically, and quadrupley true in light of Rose missing most if not whole of next season. But adding more players is difficult because they just can’t afford much.
Refer back now to the aforementioned Marquis Teague issue. The Bulls want to pay him less than what protocol mandates – whereas paying him 120% of his rookie scale would cost $1,028,400, 100% of it would cost only $857,000, whilst 80% of it would cost only $685,600. At the risk of stating the obvious, the less they give Teague, the more they can use to patch up the rest of the roster.
If Teague gets 120%, there’s only $587,202 remaining; that’s enough for a rookie minimum and two ten day contracts, and that’s all. (And for what it’s worth, the $473,604 rookie minimum will nonetheless count as $854,389 for tax purposes.) Until such time as Rip Hamilton is traded, the pinch is a tight one. Therein lies Teague’s problem and the source of the conflict. The Bulls have much leverage with Teague that they don’t have with others – if he wants to play in the NBA, he has to either play with Chicago, or, if not Chicago, spend a year out of basketball altogether for them to lose their exclusive rights. Chicago put themselves in a position where they needed to squeeze someone, and that someone was Teague.
It is not true to say, though, that the Bulls were forced to battle the apron. Were the above roster built via a different mechanism, they wouldn’t have suffered from any spending limitations other than those they self-imposed. For the purposes of this post, we will ignore the basketball reasons WHY the Bulls gave Hinrich the contract that they did – as opposed to keeping the superior and cheaper C.J. Watson – and instead only look at how they could have done it.
To avoid having to pay him $500,000 in guaranteed compensation, the Bulls traded Kyle Korver to Atlanta in exchange for a nominal amount of cash. This is the same team from which they signed Hinrich. Had the Hawks signed-and-traded Hinrich for Korver, the Bulls wouldn’t need to have used the MLE to sign Hinrich. The only negative difference in this outcome would have been the Bulls didn’t create a TPE of $5 million, which they did in the real one. Yet it now matters not. The S&T was discussed, but it wasn’t done.
Had the S&T been done, Belinelli could then have signed for his BAE amount using the non-taxpayer MLE to do so. If a team signs a player using the non-taxpayer MLE for an amount smaller than the taxpayer MLE, it is treated as though the taxpayer MLE was used instead, for the purposes of establishing whether or not the apron can be exceeded. (Put in practice, if you sign someone using the NTPMLE, but pay them less than $3.09 million in the first year, which is what the TPMLE is this year, you can still go over the apron.) Therefore, had Hinrich not taken the MLE, Belinelli could have done, and the whole thing would have been treated as though only the TPMLE was used, Chicago could sign as many minimum salaries as they have roster space, and give Teague 120% without any repercussions apart from the luxury tax incurred. But this is not what happened.
The Bulls could have had exactly the same roster without the TPE and without the hard cap that is the apron. They instead chose the TPE and thus burdened themselves with the hard cap. If the TPE from the Korver trade is used at some point (probably next July) to land a quality player that would have been otherwise unavailable, this makes sense. Yet as of right now, they aren’t even able to freely use the minimum salary exception without consternation because of this process. This is what they chose. It is justified if the TPE becomes of some use, and not before.
Tom Thibodeau’s salary has nothing to do with the salary cap, though. So just pay that guy.
Marquis Teague is still unsigned, and you're probably not going to like why
August 1st, 2012
Of the 30 first rounders drafted in June, 29 have signed their rookie scale contracts. There are to be no international draft-and-stashes in the first round this year; 29 are signed and ready to play in the NBA next year, while the other one should be.
The 30th player, the lone unsigned warrior, is Marquis Teague. He was drafted 29th overall, and while the 28 ahead of him (and Festus Ezeli behind him) have all been signed, Teague still awaits his first NBA contract. He has not been renounced, a la Travis Knight back in the day, but he also has yet to sign.
As most people are aware of in these days of increased cap transparency, first contracts for first-round draft picks are (for their first three years after being drafted, at least) bound by the amounts set forth in the rookie salary scale. This is true no matter what your salary cap situation is. The 29th pick in the 2012 NBA draft has a rookie scale amount of $857,000 in the first year – the only scope for negotiation that teams, players and agents have is being able to sign for as much as 120% or as little as 80% of that.
In practice, almost everybody gets the 120%, even when drafted late. The exceptions to this are very few and far between. But there have been some. In the doing I’ve been doing this, there’s been all of seven. Sergio Rodriguez signed for only 100% in 2006, while the next year, Ian Mahinmi got only 80% in year one, rising to 100% in later years. Donte Greene got only 100% in 2008, whilst the man drafted two picks above him, George Hill, got 120% in his first two years then only 80% in the last two (an amount which was so small that it was actually smaller than the minimum salary, and thus had to be adjusted upwards to meet that). In 2010, James Anderson got a contract that paid up to of 120% of the scale in the first year upon meeting incentives, but only 115% in the second year, and would have only paid 117% in the third year had he gotten that far (yet that option year was never exercised). Yaroslav Korolev received 100% in his rookie year and 97% in his second (so designed so as to make the two years match each other), the Clippers managing to at least save some money on their wildly ambitious and eventually unsuccessful pick. And last year, MarShon Brooks signed for only 115% in the first year, then 120% thereafter, a move that saved his team $46,255. [NB: For more ardent followers, Cory Joseph met his incentives and got 120%.]
It will be apparent that three of those six instances have been done by one team – the San Antonio Spurs. Anderson, Mahinmi and Hill was were all Spurs picks, and all exceptions to the 120% convention – the other common thread between them is that they were all drafted late in the first. Of those six, the highest selected was Anderson and #20; the other five was all the 25th pick or below. The Spurs have done it thrice. And they’ve done it bloody quietly.
Unmistakably, then, it is easier to squeeze a slight saving later in the draft. Indeed, the one famous attempt to do it to a lottery pick was not a success. Two years ago, Memphis tried to sign its draft picks Greivis Vasquez (#28) and Xavier Henry (#12) to contracts that paid a base compensation amount of less than 120%, but which could rise to the full 120% if they met certain performance incentives. It didn’t go too well, and they eventually relented and granted the 120%, with nothing more than a PR nightmare to show for it. The move was not appreciated. Nevertheless, there is logic to their idea that rookies shouldn’t get the full 120%, logic I tried to explain back in 2010:
While complaining with one arse that their expenditure outweighs their income, owners are using their second arse to wildly overpay the underdeserving, greatly increasing that expenditure level while under pressure from nothing but their own aspirations. We’re looking at an impending lockout a mere 11 months after learning that Johan Petro got an 8 figure contract. Joe Johnson got the fifth highest contract in the history of the sport. Rudy Gay got the max. Chewbacca lives on Endor. It does not make sense.
Rookie scale contracts are not the biggest reason for this double-standard, yet they are a part of it. They represent one more way in which owners are giving players more than they have to. As the examination above has shown, there exists a strong precedent for doing so, yet there is not a rule. If Memphis are looking to buck a trend and start a protocol of their own, whereby a rookie earns their money, then I can’t really fault them, even in light of the Gay hypocrisy. If they are offering Henry (and Vasquez) 100% of the scale guaranteed, with the maximum amount available in incentives that are slightly harder to reach than normal, then what, really, is wrong with that?
Teams sign players to the full 120% out of loyalty and respect for the player and their agent, yet no one has to be loyal. If another people went along with this idea, it would become a trend, and in no way the reprehensible act that it is now perceived to be.
But in making that point, Heisley misses others. The point of giving rookies the full 120% was not about rewarding them for things that have not yet done and might not ever do – the point was to avoid the fallout from not doing so. This is a risk that the Grizzlies strode confidently towards, balls-to-the-wall, yet one which has now removed said balls and attached them to a passing freight train. The methodology is legal, the logic sound, the possible outcome attractive. But the potential rewards were so comparatively tiny, the risk was not worth taking on. Put simply, there was no need to do this.
Essentially, then, while it is appreciated that you don’t ever want to give money to those who haven’t earned it, the consensus is so emphatic that it’s not worth the fallout from possibly contradicting it. Memphis found out in a very public way that you’ve just got to pick your battles.
This brings us back to Teague, and why he hasn’t signed.
Often times, first rounders sign rather late deliberately, as the team is trying to maximize its cap room. When unsigned, rookie scale players are charged to the team’s cap as a cap hold equal to 100% of the scale amount, which is therefore less impactful on the cap than the 120% they usually then go on to sign for. This process opens up a smaller but possibly important amount of cap room, which is why players such as Anthony Davis and Jeremy Lamb didn’t sign until much later than may have been expected. The Bulls, however, do not have cap space and have not done all summer. They thus gain no benefit from this, and thus it can’t be the reason.
Another reason may be Teague’s value as a trade asset. From the minute a first rounder signs his rookie scale contract, he can’t be traded for 30 days – therefore, if you want to trade the guy in a big summer time transaction, it is often best to not sign them and let the recipient team handle it. Unsigned picks also have a salary amount for trade purposes of naught, which is usually more valuable for salary aggregation purposes. However, with the Bulls not seemingly in the running for Dwight Howard, or indeed for anyone, it doesn’t appear to be the case that they are leaving Teague unsigned with the intention of trading him later.
If Teague was going to be renounced in a Knight-esque way, it would have happened by now. If the plan was always for him to not join the NBA immediately, it would have been known long before now. Instead, we have had only silence. This, then, leaves one other theory. Sources confirm the depressing truth – the reason the Bulls haven’t signed Teague yet is because the Bulls don’t want to give him the 120%.
Chicago has never done this before. Even when drafting late, they give their picks the 120% that standard protocol (if not the rules) demand, as evidenced by Jimmy Butler last season. Then again, they have never been luxury tax payers before, and, as things stand today, they will be next year. Seemingly, then, squeezing a few dollars out of Teague is deemed a remedy to the increased payroll bill.
If Teague signed for 100% of his rookie scale for its duration, that would mean a contract of $857,000, $895,600, $934,100 and $1,686,051, for a total of $4,372,751. If he signed for 120% of it, that would mean a contract of $1,028,400, $1,074,720, $1,120,920 and $2,023,261, for a total of $5,247,301. The difference between the two is $874,550. That is as-near-as-is the equivalent of one veteran minimum contract, but over a four year period. It is also less than a quarter of the $3,941,000 they just gave Kirk Hinrich. And the difference between Teague’s 2012/13 salary between 100% and 120% of the scale amount is a rather trivial $171,400. Less than half a rookie minimum.
Nevertheless, however small the 2012/13 saving will be in the context of overall payroll expenditure, it seems to have been deemed sufficient. As mentioned above, the Bulls are over the luxury tax as of today. They have $71,837,061 committed to only 11 players, not including Nate Robinson, nor Teague. They’ve never been above it before, and they surely don’t intend to be above it this time – it doesn’t take a great deal of foresight to see the Bulls trading Rip Hamilton at the deadline, with enough cash to offset his remaining salary, at a time that Derrick Rose is able to play again, and after Rip has (theoretically) rebuilt his value as a player. This is pretty much guaranteed to happen. And it will be much easier to achieve the less they sign Teague for. The cheaper he comes, the more dead weight salary Chicago can take back for Rip, the easier he’ll be to deal.
Once again, while Carlos Boozer’s contract is the problem, losing others is the solution.
Chicago CAN do this, of course, both technically and morally. The Spurs have manipulated the situation to their systematic advantage for years, and it’s cost them nothing; there is no real reason why the same could not be true of others teams, Chicago included. But this is the Bulls, a franchise which, whether they like it or not, already struggle to combat a reputation for thriftiness, and which (rightly or wrongly) doesn’t have a flattering reputation as a place to sign.
Why poke the bear?
(EDIT: One other factor may be in play here. By giving Hinrich as much as they did of the non-tax payer mid-level exception, the Bulls have now ensured that the apron – the line $4 million above the luxury tax threshold – is now their hard cap. Put simply, they cannot go over it. Take the aforementioned $71,837,061 for 11 players, add $854,389 for Nate, and add $1,028,400 for Teague at 120%, and now you’re at $73,719,850, only $597,150 short of it. With so few healthy players under contract, particularly big men, Chicago might need wiggle room in order to have the ability to sign emergency reinforcements, and scrimping on Teague can provide some of that. But this logic falters in light of the fact that Kirk Hinrich just got nearly $4 million. So the tax angle stands. And more importantly, neither reason is a great one.)
Omer Asik should still be a Bull (and Landry Fields should still be a Knick)
July 28th, 2012
Omer Asik is now officially a Rocket, his offer sheet (identical to that of Jeremy Lin’s) going unmatched by Chicago. This gives Houston an absolute defensive wall at the centre position, someone who last year was one of the best defensive big men in the league. On a par with Dwight Howard and Tyson Chandler, albeit in considerably less time. We’ll see how well this holds up when he becomes a 25mpg+ player outside of the comfort of Tom Thibodeau’s defensive system; nevertheless, by paying him upon a highly favourable prediction of future performance, Houston got their guy, someone who can now break out akin to how Joel Przybilla did at the same age, if not better.
Asik’s value to Houston is more than it would ever have been to Chicago, which is why an expense that is difficult to justify for one team is much easier to justify for the other. In a situation very similar to that of Marcin Gortat and Orlando three years ago, Chicago had an awesome backup centre, and knew it, yet the secret was out. And while Houston could pay Asik to be a starter, Chicago couldn’t. Their self-imposed budgetary restrictions, combined with the presence of having a better player in front of him (and one with whom Asik has an ill-fitting skillset, making it unlikely the two could ever play alongside each other), made it a tough ask to match. While Carlos Boozer’s contract is the problem, losing others is its solution, and with Taj Gibson similarly up for a pay day, the Bulls had to choose between the two. They went for the better two-way player.
The choice Chicago faced concerned whether to play $8.3 million a season to a player you can only play 15 minutes per game until the guy in front of him gets injured (which, while he inevitably will, is arguably a misappropriation of the very limited asset that is the Bulls’ financial flexibility), or lose a defensive anchor and a key piece of the thing that keeps you competitive. That’s no choice at all, a lose-lose situation. However, it didn’t have to be this way.
Asik was drafted in 2008 with the 36th pick in the draft; that is to say, he was not a first rounder. As a second rounder, Asik was not bound by the rookie salary scale – as long as you have the means to do so, you can pay second rounders whatever you want. They can get the maximum, in theory. In practice, of course, they often get the minimum. A combination of lack of leverage, team’s prioritising of their exceptions elsewhere, and not normally being good enough to merit anything more, leads to most second round rookies getting the smallest possible amount. And that’s if they get any contract at all.
The Minimum Salary Exception – which, as its name suggest, is a salary cap exception that allows you to sign (or trade for) players earning the minimum salary – is a maximum of two years in length. This limitation became an issue in the summer of 2004 when Gilbert Arenas, who had signed a two year deal via the MSE in 2002, hit free agency. Arenas signed a two year minimum salary contract using the MSE after being drafted, and then went on to be really quite good. As a result, he merited a big pay day. But the Warriors – over the cap and thus limited to the Early Bird exception, which offered only a contract that started at the value of the Mid-Level Exception – couldn’t give it to him. So when Arenas signed an offer sheet with Washington that was higher than the value of the MLE, Golden State didn’t have a salary cap exception with which they could match it. And thus they watched him walk.
[NB: Carlos Boozer, himself embroiled in an Arenas situation that summer, actually signed a three year deal using part of the MLE with a team option on the third year, one which Cleveland declined in the hopes of re-signing him long term cheaply. Similar, but significantly different.]
Arenas’s situation highlighted a loophole in the system, one in which a team couldn’t pay its own players as much as its competitors could. That’s the very thing the “Bird Clock” allegory was supposed to solve. So a remedy was sought. In the CBA negotiations the following summer, the loophole was supposedly closed with the invention of what was subsequently known as the “Arenas provision.” The specifics of its details are outside the remit here, but can be found at Larry Coon’s CBA FAQ – essentially, it limits the amount certain free agents can be given, while giving the incumbent team the ability to pay it too.
In the first seven years since its invention, this provision was never used. The reasons for this are probably two-fold – firstly, more teams decided it was worth cracking off a chunk of their MLE to sign second rounders (or particularly impressive undrafted rookies) to three year contracts, and secondly, there just weren’t as many viable candidates. The only one there may have been was Carl Landry in 2008, yet he managed only a three year $9 million contract, not nearly big enough to invoke the provision.
This summer, though, it’s been used three times. Once on Lin, once on Asik, and once on Landry Fields. None of the three offers were matched when all of them could have been. But it is more important to note that at least two of them should never have been in this situation.
As stated above, the Minimum Salary Exception offers only a maximum of two years. But the Minimum Salary Exception is a salary cap exception, meaning it is only used by teams over the cap. Teams under the cap aren’t bound by any limitations other than those conferred by the size of their cap space, and in 2010, the Bulls and Knicks (infamously) both had plenty of it.
The Knicks took care of most of their offseason business early, signing and trading for Amar’e Stoudemire, signing and trading away David Lee, and outright signing Raymond Felton. It is understandable that those were priorities. But even after those moves were down, the Knicks had some money to spend, and they did so on Roger Mason and Andy Rautins. Rautins signed for the kind of contract Fields should have done, a three year contract with a slight bonus above the minimum ($600,000) in the first year. And Mason signed for $1.4 million, an odd amount to give to a man you’ll play ahead of Rautins, and whose minimum salary would have been $1,146,337, of which New York would have only been on the hook of $854,389. That was $550,000 they didn’t really need to spend. Even after that, though, the Knicks were enough under the cap to sign Fields without needing the Minimum Salary Exception to do it. But for whatever reason, they didn’t.
Meanwhile, Chicago’s LeBron-less offseason saw them pay Asik two years and $3,578,500, after he had spent two more years since being drafted developing further in his native Turkey. They spent considerably above the minimum to bring over a player whose rights they had previously traded the equivalent of three picks to obtain in the first place – indisputably, then, they valued the player. They might not have known they had an elite defensive anchor on their hands, but they suspected that there was a chance, else they would not have gone to those lengths. The question, though, is why they didn’t go one length further, Asik’s contract called for no third year, not even an option, and now they’re paying the price for that. The question of why such a coveted long term project was not signed long term is a valid one.
This all sounds a bit hindsighty, and that is unfortunately unavoidable. But it is a struggle to see what rationale existed for giving neither of the duo three year contracts. They have now lost valuable contributors they deemed to be of excessive cost when they could have initially been signed at a negligible cost, using only the cap room they already had. Whereas it could have cost very little, it has now cost an awful lot.
It is entirely possible that the respective players and agents demanded two year contracts, in anticipation of a big pay day in year three. This, while rare and risky, worked out absolutely bloody perfectly if it was indeed planned that way. Failing that, another tenuous explanation may have been the two team’s respective desires to keep open 2012 salary flexibility, a policy that seemingly required as little committed salary as possible, even the small ones. Or maybe they just didn’t value them that highly.
Whatever the logic or the circumstances, though, the two teams had the opportunity to retain these players THIS summer, two summers ago. And they didn’t.
Without Looking, Guess Which Seven Teams Have Never Paid The Luxury Tax
July 26th, 2012
……OK, now look.
I have compiled a spreadsheet containing to-the-dollar information on all luxury tax paid to date. In the 11 seasons since the luxury tax was created, it has been applicable in nine seasons; in those nine seasons, 23 NBA franchises have paid over $850 million in payroll excess. The exact details can be found here.
Please use the spreadsheet freely for resource purposes, and feel equally free to suggest any improvements. However, please do not just take it, and if you do cite its data somewhere, please acknowledge its source. While the content is not my IP, I did spend a bloody long time sourcing the relevant information, and in return, I seek only credit for that. Thank you.
Before the sign-and-trade of Ryan Anderson to New Orleans, Orlando had one TPE, totalling $4.25 million, created in the Glen Davis/Brandon Bass trade of last offseason. That $4.25 million TPE is set to expire on December 12th.
Orlando used some of that TPE in the Anderson deal to absorb the returning salary of the criminally overlooked Gustavo Ayon, who is to earn $1.5 million this season. The Bass TPE, then, is now $2.75 million big, and thus can be used between now and December 12th to absorb incoming player salaries of $2.85 million (as $100,000 leeway is allowed with TPE’s).
By absorbing Ayon with the Bass TPE, Orlando were essentially trading out Anderson with no incoming salary. This then meant another TPE was created equal to the amount of Anderson’s outgoing salary. The issue is what that amount is.
Anderson signed a deal that will pay him exactly $8.7 million next season – however, whilst the concept of Base Year Compensation (which now isn’t called that, or indeed call anything, but which term will suffice here) was largely eradicated in the latest CBA, it does still apply to sign-and-trade deals. The basic principle of BYC is that, if a team signs and trades a player using Bird or early Bird rights, and the player receives a raise in the first year of the new contract greater than 20% in the first year of the new deal over the last year of his previous one, then his outgoing salary is deemed to be only half of his actual salary.
Anderson earned only $2,244,601 last year, so he easily earned more than a 20% raise, and thus is BYC-eligible. His actual salary of $8.7 million was therefore assessed to be $4.35 million for the purposes of the trade calculations, and thus that, as his de facto outgoing salary, is also the size of the TPE created.
Orlando has one year to the day from the date of the original deal in which to use this TPE. Between that and the remainder of the Bass one, they have some trade leverage. And we surely know they’ll be making a trade soon.
Whatever you may feel about Jeremy Pargo – personally, I’m quite shocked at how poor his rookie season was and firmly believe he could do considerably better given a faster paced team with better spacing – it is only important to know that in today’s trade featuring him, he was merely a salary. So too was D.J. Kennedy. In trading Pargo, his $1 million guaranteed 2012/13 salary and a second-round pick for Kennedy (whose minimum salary of $762,195 is fully unguaranteed), Memphis does a salary dump and nothing else. Even the $1 million TPE they open up in doing so (created as Kennedy’s salary is absorbable via the minimum salary exception) is of little use, being so small.
The Grizzlies are trying to dodge the tax. They did so last year, managing to dip under the threshold upon trading the redundant Sam Young to Philly, and are now threatened by it again. This, to their credit, has not stopped their spending this summer – they paid to re-sign both Darrell Arthur and Marreese Speights, giving them a strong frontcourt with good depth, and were similarly unashamed to spend what it took to upgrade their big hole at the backup point guard spot. Dodging the tax again is unlikely to happen, though. The $3,006,217 given to Arthur, $3 million to Jerryd Bayless, $4.2 million to Speights and $1,110,120 to Tony Wroten has put them back above the $70.307 million tax threshold – after today’s trade, Memphis has $73,053,277 committed to 12 players, not including the unguaranteed salary of Kennedy. It is more than likely the case that Memphis will not be able to avoid a small tax penalty this season. But if it only costs a mid-to-late second-round pick to lessen that hit by $2 million, on a player who was being pushed out of the rotation anyway, then the reason for the trade is apparent.
Cleveland, meanwhile, essentially pays $1 million for a second rounder, even less if cash was also involved, and gets a look at a possibly viable backup along the way. There’s no need for the team to keep both Pargo and Donald Sloan, and they may yet opt for neither, but the inclusion of the second-round pick makes it a worthwhile exercise to bring in both and have them fight for the spot.
Here is the official list of tax paying teams, and their amounts paid, in the 2011/12 NBA season.
Los Angeles Lakers: $12,557,264.
Boston Celtics: $7,365,867.
Miami Heat: $6,129,340.
Dallas Mavericks: $2,738,843.
San Antonio Spurs: $2,514,275.
Atlanta Hawks: $666,199.
Total: $31,971,788
By opting to keep Jerry Stackhouse for the full year, then, Atlanta paid the price.
It is of note that that is the smallest amount of league-wide tax paid in any season since its inception, and by quite a long way. The previous lowest was the $55,564,006 paid in 2006-07. And in that season, $45,142,002 of that bill was New York’s.
Tim Duncan also may or may not be about to get a pay rise
July 22nd, 2012
This post is essentially an addendum to this previous post. That post talked about an NBA contract that had accidentally been created and ratified in violation of a Collective Bargaining Agreement. Specifically, it talked about Zach Randolph and the Memphis Grizzlies.
It appears now, however, that that is not the only instance of the rule in question being violated. The rule in question – whereby the salary in a player option year cannot be for less than that of the year immediately preceding it, explained at much greater length in the previous post – also appears to be broken in the case of Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs.
Per official league salary figures, Duncan’s new contract, signed this month, calls for salaries of $9,638,554 in 2012/13, $10,361,446 in 2013/14, and an even $10 million in 2014/15. The final year is a player option year, NOT a year immediately following an early termination option (again see previous post), and thus the salary in the 2014/15 season should not be any lower than the $10,361,446 of the season before it. It appears, however, that it is.
It was previously said that it is very rare to see the league make a mistake on a matter such as this, and it still is. But to make the same one twice is even more so.
Zach Randolph may or may not be about to get a pay rise
July 19th, 2012
In April 2011, Zach Randolph received a four year, $66 million extension that will pay him through the 2015 season. Notwithstanding the very valid arguments that a man who doesn’t have any athleticism in the first place is going to decline slower than most, and that Memphis have to pay particularly big dollars in order to retain quality their quality players, it is unmistakably a big contract.
The contract called for a $15.2 million salary in 2011/12, a $16.5 million salary in 2012/13, a $17.8 million salary in 2013/14, and a $16.5 million salary in 2014/15, which is also a player option year. The vast majority of contracts around the league increase in their every year, yet, aside from a couple of particular instances (contracts signed with either rookie scale exception or the minimum salary exception), this doesn’t have to be the case. Contracts can go up, down, stay flat, or some combination thereof, as freely as the signing parties so choose and if done in accordance with the acceptable parameters. (The maximum increase percentages are the same as the maximum decrease percentages.)
Zach’s contract structure makes sense. The Grizzlies, clearly, are trying to reconcile their hefty salary bill in the coming few seasons with the fact that Zach’s play will decline towards the back end of the deal, facts that the staggered contract structure seeks to partially alleviate. However, in doing so, they seem to have accidentally violated a CBA rule.
It is important to express at this point that Randolph’s 2014/15 contract is officially listed as a player option year, and not an early termination option. It is often expressed that the two are by and large the same – including repeatedly by this website – and they are. They are both seasons within a contract that only come into force if the player decides that they want them to. There are, however, differences in the minutia. And one of those differences is the issue here.
In an unnecessarily long run-on sentence, Article XII Section 2 of the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement states that player option seasons cannot contain a level of guaranteed salary smaller than that of the preceding season. [Section 1 says the same about team options whilst exempting rookie scale contracts.] The problem is that this is exactly what Randolph’s contract calls for. Were Randolph to have an Early Termination Option, however, this would be allowed; the salary can go down in the season immediately following a declined ETO. But it isn’t a season immediately following an ETO – it is a player option year. This differentiation, rarely important, is here vital.
Randolph’s final year, then. should not be valid in its current form. However, it has been deemed to be so, signed by all parties and long since ratified by the league office. The question now is what can be done about it.
As I understand it – based solely upon a combination of supposition and analogous precedent – there exist two options. Firstly, the league can perhaps modify the contract in order to make it accord with its own rules – that is to say, adjusting the level of guaranteed compensation within the option year to equal that of the season before it. This solution, were it to happen (or to be even be possible) would mean $1.3 million more going to Zach, and $1.3 million less in future salary wiggle room for Memphis. A previous case somewhat analogous to this may be the case of George Hill, who, upon signing his rookie scale contract, got stuck in a conflicting overlap between two CBA rules. Hill’s contract paid only 80% of the rookie scale in his third season, which, as he was drafted so low, was due to pay him less than the minimum salary for third year players that season; he was to get $771,440 when the minimum was $854,389. When the time came that that season became current, the conflict was resolved by the season’s salary was bumped up to that of the minimum. The league therefore modified a ratified contract to adhere to its own rules, a situation akin if far from identical to this one.
Alternatively, perhaps nothing will happen. While the Grizzlies may have made a mistake in drafting the contract, it is not that big of a faux pas. It is not as embarrassing as it may seem. Put simply, errors happen all the time. Just because a team knows all the rules, it doesn’t mean they consistently remember them all when it comes to applying them. The human element exists. Whilst usually addressed in the formative stages, mistakes do happen – see also, Matt Barnes to Toronto – and it is the prerogative and jurisdiction of the league office to catch them. In this instance, they did not, and so while the Grizzlies accidentally flouted the rule, teams unintentionally do that often. It is still the job of the league office to approve them. By doing so on a contract that does not adhere to the rules, the league may have denied itself any remedy.
This brings us, then, to an incredibly inconclusive conclusion. The contract has been created, and ratified, in such a way that it shouldn’t have been. From this, we can unhelpfully conclude that the contract will either be modified, or it will not. I suspect that it will not. If it is, it’s a tough break on Memphis.
Either way, Zach Randolph’s agent should start petitioning.
[Edit: multiple people have queried whether the fact that the contract was signed under the old CBA makes any difference here. It does not. The relevant passages are the same in both the 2005 and 2011 CBA’s.]
Somehow, we salvaged an NBA season out of that lockout. It was good, too. Whether you liked the outcome or not, the storylines – the good guy/bad guy Finals, of LeBron finally winning, the brief Celtics resurgence and the unflappable-until-they-were-flapped Spurs – wrote themselves rather nicely. As soon as that weren’t supposed to happen go, that one was pretty good.
Of course, to get to that point, we have to suffer through a lot. The lockout burned and burned badly, a scarring five months of indecisiveness and stagnancy that sullied reputations and left thousands out of pocket. Worse still, the party stopped. The NBA and the Players Union refused to give up their seats to pregnant women, gave Chinese burns to school children and punched puppies in the face, so determined were they to ruin everyone’s fun. After achieving a great high in the 2010/11 season, the NBA decided it had to hurt itself.
Regardless of what happened in the past, though, we now get to look forward. The NBA Draft of last year had something of a Thelma and Louise feel to it, yet despite driving itself off that cliff, the NBA still lives on. This year’s draft will be more of a Disney epic, or a Steve Carell comedy caper. Men and women will fall in love. Anthropomorphic animals will smile and embrace and then go on impossibly happy jaunts to soothing walking-away music. Everything will resolve itself in the happiest possible way from the most unlikely scenario. And no one will die.
Maybe.
(This post is long. Very long. If you don’t have 90 minutes to kill, skip to a certain pick number below. Once there, click the pick number to return to the top)
As ever, ESPN carries the draft night coverage, but this year they have switched it up. After two years ago drowning out the entire broadcast with his heavy breathing, and last year undermining it all with a variety of basic factual errors, awkward silences and forced punch lines, Stu Scott has been replaced by the unfailingly-smooth Rece Davis. Davis doesn’t have much experience with the NBA, but he doesn’t need it – all he needs to do is bring his chemistry with Jay Bilas from College Game Day broadcasts, help Jeff Van Gundy pick his perfect spots, and keep the whole thing flowing. Even those who love the NBA Draft so much that we’re prepared to write 11,000 words about TV coverage of it acknowledge that it flags a bit at times, and needs an ultra-smooth link man to power it through. In 2011, Stu Scott wasn’t that. Indeed, Stu was so off his game last year that a small patch of brown liquid would have been more beneficial to the broadcast. However, instead of a small patch of brown liquid, we have Rece Davis. And Rece Davis is good.
The other significant change to the line-up sees Jon Barry replaced by Chris Broussard. Barry has done the last few NBA Draft broadcasts, and yet, for such a strong NBA role player, he never found his role on the draft team. Whereas Bilas did all the scouting reports, and Van Gundy did the funnies, Barry was left ostensibly to analyse the NBA’s team needs. Unfortunately, he didn’t do it very well. This is a man who last year said that Cleveland doesn’t need a point guard because they had Baron Davis, only for Davis to be paid $29 million to go away two working weeks later. He then said having Anthony Randolph was a good reason for not taking Derrick Williams. Jon Barry’s role had become taking fleeting looks at NBA depth charts and seemingly basing everything he said around them. Van Gundy was doing a better job of the NBA analysis than he was, and at least had the dignity to not make wild stabs in the dark as to what the draft prospects were like. (Know your limits.) Barry just didn’t bring anything to the table. And so he’s no longer at it.
Barry’s absence might create a lack of things to be dumbfounded at, which is good news for the viewer, but not such good news for the person who writes an NBA Draft Diary. Mercifully, into his place steps Broussard, who provides plenty of potential for such, and who also seems to have dyed his hair black for the occasion. Heather Cox once again is deemed to be the cream of the ESPN interviewer crop, winning the rights to bounce around the green room (or “black plaza,” as it perhaps should be known) taking in incoherent thoughts from people too happy to talk. Ric Bucher and Andy Katz are positioned far away from the set, ready to break news of trades and transactions long after anyone who’s got a Twitter feed will have already learnt about them. And Mark Jones retains his place as the sideline-interviewer-so-far-left-of-stage-he-may-as-well-be-outside man, a role he won off Stephen A. Smith two years ago and has thrived in since. Jones will once again be forced to conduct standing interviews with men far taller than him shot with an unnecessarily close-up lens; this is big news for ergonomics fans and ardent chair haters, but not such good news for us purists who like to see interviewer and interviewee be at least in the same atmospheric level. Jones isn’t unduly short, but he is still towered over, nothing that standing a little further back couldn’t fix. Alas, it does not happen.
It seems that every year, we know who the first pick will be from the minute the NCAA Tournament ends. Normally, we still have to go through something of a will-they-won’t-they pretence, just as we briefly had to do last year before Cleveland inevitably took Kyrie Irving. It’s hilarious. It’s not.
This year, though, seemingly we were saved the bother. We still had Hornets War Room shots – potentially tantalising glimpses inside the inner chambers of an NBA team’s executive offices that only turn out to be shots of men in suits staring at TVs – but it is refreshingly acknowledged that the decision has already been made. The only reason we weren’t given official word that the New Orleans Hornets were going to take Anthony Davis is because we weren’t allowed to, due to some NBA gag order thing in place. (God forbid someone ruins the drama of who might go first.) The fact is not published, but it is known. Indeed, the entire 30 minute build-up was devoted to this very subject. Maybe the only person who didn’t know was Anthony himself, who turned up in Mavericks colours.
Included in this build-up show was a rather forced graphic that attempts to describe how, every five years, a dominant NBA big man is chosen first overall in the draft. The graphic starts off well, as it shows us David Robinson in 1987, Shaq in 1992, and Tim Duncan in 1997. But it wavers slightly with the presence of Yao Ming in 2002 (who, while awesome, wasn’t those guys), and then Thelma and Louises itself by mentioning Greg Oden in 2007. Under pressure to justify it, Davis scrambles to point out the problems Oden has had in his NBA career, without going as far as to mention that his NBA career is essentially dead. But he also doesn’t point out that Oden wasn’t even dominant in college to begin with. And the need for symmetry overlooked Dwight Howard going first overall in 2004. Rece Davis isn’t going to succeed if the graphics guys work to undermine him like this. Just let it flow.
This montage is follow soon after by an advert break, which advertises a “Miami Heat Championship Pack” for the amazingly uncompetitive price of $89.99. For that money, you can get a DVD (which presumably is of highlights and player interviews done to the tune of uplifting string music, and not like Under Siege 2 or something), a towel, a hat and a t-shirt, all emblazoned with Miami Heat symbols. If you’d rather save your money, and yet still want to share in the magic, the always consumer-friendly ShamSports.com recommends the following steps:
1) Buy a plain white t-shirt. Arbitrarily, lets say a Fruit Of The Loom one from QTag.com. This will cost roughly 99 cents. 2) Forgo the towel. You don’t need corporate iconography when drying yourself. 3) Buy some special t-shirt pens for roughly $5. 4) Use the pens to draw this on the t-shirt:
Your child won’t be the envy of the rest of the school like this, but then, he wasn’t going to be anyway. And you were only going to buy it for your child, right? Right.
[NB; Product ideally suited for those with unusually wide necks.]
The intro show deals almost exclusively with Davis (Anthony, not Rece), although a fleeting run-down of the other lottery picks is given. One storyline given a bit of focus is the plummeting draft stocks of both Perry Jones III and Jared Sullinger, both projected high lottery picks last year who returned to school, only to have injury red flags kill their draft stock this year. Action is thrown over to Andy Katz, who explains that Sullinger is red flagged due to “bulging dicks.”
And NOW, we’ve started.
Pick 1: David Stern comes out to the podium to announce that the team who made its decision four weeks ago now has five minutes in which to make a decision. He does so to a special kind of booing – not the usual level of booing we see for Stern, but an extra vitriolic, heartfelt, passionate boo, one of those ones which so much depth and feeling that it almost creates its own vowel sound. Last year, in the run-up to the inevitable and ugly NBA lockout, David Stern was booed vociferously; this year, in its aftermath, the booing is less playful. Misplaced wife-beating jokes and all, Stern built the league that we know and love, and yet in return, we boo him as loudly as we know how. And he LOVES that, else he wouldn’t keep mentioning Miami. He might as well embrace it fully, turn heel, ditch the suit, don a cape, and suplex Adam Silver. (Who, incidentally, needs some entrance music of his own.)
For the purposes of drama, New Orleans takes those full five minutes. This gives Jay Bilas – who clearly won the panel’s internal “who can best pull off the top pocket silk look” sweepstake – a lot of time to break down Davis’s game. He does so citing the usual factors and employing all the usual Bilasisms – athleticism, wingspan, second jump ability, every possible physical characteristic you can think of – while also detailing Davis’s smooth, well developed skill set. There is seemingly so much to praise about Davis that at no point is his rebounding mentioned, despite Davis grabbing one rebound every 3 minutes last season. All the while, Davis is seated in the black plaza, listening to the broadcast being pumped throughout the arena. It must be a weird and polarising experience to be seated maybe 50 feet away from a group of people praising you relentlessly to an international audience of millions, when you have no right to reply or means of interacting with them in any way. Mind you, it probably has its advantages.
Eventually, the Hornets complete the formalities and pick Davis, thereby ensuring all our mock drafts are still intact. In a break from protocol, Stern doesn’t announce which school Davis played for, but he could not be less bothered about it. Davis uses his long wingspan, athleticism, second jump ability and explosive first step to bound up to the podium, whereupon he is greeted by Stern in the traditional fashion. The microphone picks up what Stern says: “congratulations, you’ll always be number one. Now look straight ahead and then to the right.” An insight into what really goes on up there. How….anticlimactic. Davis then interviews with Mark Jones, giving some of the most boring, cliché, non-confrontational answers out there. This is to his utmost credit, even if my description doesn’t sound like it.
Davis (Rece) tells the story of how Davis (Anthony) was only 6’2 in high school, and played the point guard position before his growth spurt, which may explain where his passing, shooting and court vision skills (as well as preference for facing up) all come from. True enough. But you know who else this is true of? Tyrus Thomas. I present that without comment. Because, well, obviously not.
For all the lauding of his play, no mention is made at any time about Davis’s legendary, spectacular, and completely unjustifiably insane unibrow. Davis is so synonymous with this brow, and such a poster child for having one, that he now heads up the Wikipedia page for them, and yet somehow ESPN declines (or is ordered not) to mention it. The same will not be true of this blog, however. Here is what two minutes in MS Paint suggests Davis would look like if that thing was the other way up.
Pick 2: There is some genuine drama to be found as early as pick two. Charlotte owns this pick, but they don’t want it, or at least, they want to trade down to bag extra talent and still get the player they covet. Cleveland is the trade partner with whom talks go down to the wire, yet not even the internet (who knows everything about such matters) reports a deal getting done in time. Charlotte, then, holds onto her own pick.
Charlotte and Bob Katz famously presided over the worst season in NBA history last year, and famously still didn’t land the first overall pick in the total-fix-that-totally-wasn’t-a-fix non-fix fix. Nevertheless, it’s always fun to kick a man while he’s down, and Rece Davis seizes the opportunity to point out that Charlotte’s .106 winning percentage looks more like a breathalyser test result. Davis is already forty times better at this gig than Stu Scott, who probably would have made a zip code joke.
During a montage of Bobcats personnel looking sad – in reality, a blatantly blatant manoeuvre to get on TV a picture of Michael Jordan’s new model fiance – new Bobcats head coach Mike Dunlap is also pictured. All I take away from the experience is that, with his live-in star and significant side parting, Dunlap faintly reminded one of Christoph Waltz’s character in Inglourious Basterds. If that doesn’t make you play hard, nothing will.
The Bobcats then shatter any and all previously unbroken mock drafts, picking another Kentuckian, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. The pick is met with some surprise, not least of which is felt by Michael himself, who is barely able to go through the process. He is on the cusp of tears during his time on the podium with Stern, and remains so during his interview with Mark Jones, where he is barely able to get a word out. Those that he does manage are mostly “wow,” and for no apparent reason, two of the others were “Anthony Davis.” MKG wears his emotions on his face, and in this instance, there’s rather a lot of them – combined with a stuttering problem he has long battled, MKG’s time with Jones is endearingly, heart-warmingly awkward. It is the polar opposite of the Anthony Davis interview, and yet this too is to his utmost credit. After all, he’s only saying what we all were thinking.
Bilas recovers quickly from the surprise of the pick and launches into an appraisal of MKG’s game, one that is highly complimentary. For the most part, Bilas focuses his analyses on his body type and “relentlessness,” going out of his way to point out the innate nature of someone’s motor. Anyone can be motivated by money, fame or what have you, but only a few have that other-level energy level that separates them. Just like apathy, you either have it or you don’t.
Unfortunately, by going to such extremes to point this out, Bilas implicitly makes another pertinent point. Kidd-Gilchrist is a good player and will continue to be so, but his physical tools and motor are listed ahead of his skillset for a reason. His upside may be more equal to that of Gerald Wallace than that of Scottie Pippen. This is fine, because Gerald Wallace has long been a very good player. Charlotte, of all teams, knows that. But with the second pick in the draft, you need to be sure you’re landing the likely second-best player. Will a man with Gerald Wallace’s upside be that? We’ll know in time, but it trusts an awful lot to luck for it to be the case. Nevertheless, a team staggeringly short of talent just got some, and Kidd-Gilchrist becomes by default the best player Charlotte has ever drafted. A Kemba Walker/Ben Gordon/MKG/Bismack Biyombo line-up is starting to take shape. It’s not much, but it’s a start.
Pick 3: Washington does the expected and shores up its weakest position with one of the draft’s better prospects. They take Bradley Beal, who is instantly lauded as one of the draft’s better shooters and more efficient scorers, despite hitting only 34% from the college three-point line last year.
Washington certainly needs more shooting. John Wall is the foundation, and John Wall can’t consistently shoot from three, but neither can those around him. Of the accompanying pieces, Jordan Crawford might be the best shooter, and yet his career-high three-point percentage is all of 28.9%. If Beal brings his high school jump shot, he’ll be an instant help in this regard. And if he does, we can start calling him the BB Gunner. (Thus creates the first terrible nickname of this diary. Beal’s own choice for a nickname seems to be Real Deal Beal, but frankly, I’m not listening.)
Beal’s interview goes the way of Anthony Davis’s, steeped in clichés and vows of working hard, whilst never directly answering the questions posed of him. This, while boring to the casual fan, is somewhat comforting, as it demonstrates a good understanding of professionalism in a league where nothing less than that is acceptable. Rece Davis throws it back to Broussard, who, for the second time in the broadcast, pronounces Nene’s name as “Nay Nay.” So I’m not the only one out there, then.
Broussard then talks in reverential tones about Beal as a “man,” just as the panel had also done previously about Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist. He then talks about the Wizards’ need to resolve what he calls a “knucklehead factor,” something JVG piles on with, saying to call it that is to be kind. The players who left the Wizards in the last few months = JaVale McGee, Nick Young, Roger Mason. Have those guys been stabbed in the back? No. They’ve been stabbed in the front. Without ever naming names of who is meant, reputations have just been blackmarked indelibly forever. And I don’t mean Roger Mason’s.
A graphic flashes up that shows how the 2012 Draft is the first since 1986 to have all of the top three picks come out of the same conference. The three in 1986 – Brad Daugherty, Len Bias, Chris Washburn. One managed only eight years due to chronic back trouble, one died of a cocaine overdose before ever playing a game, and one averaged 3.1 points and 2.4 rebounds for his career, playing less seasons than he had failed drug tests. Let’s hope for slightly more here.
Pick 4: The Twitter era is great, but it’s trying its best to ruin the NBA Draft. Multiple figures, most noticeably the venerable Adrian Wojnarowski, are scooping picks a matter of seconds before they are officially announced, which rather pisses on the chips of those of us purists who still try to read Stern’s body language and lips as he makes the pick in the blissful ignorance of his authority. Since you can’t help but find out these things by accident if you’re on it, it’s impossible to use Twitter at this time.
That said, even when you know who it is, the pick can sometimes still be a surprise. And that’s what happens here. Cleveland takes Dion Waiters from Syracuse, a man adjudged to be barely a first-rounder a few months ago, coming off a 12.6 point per game season as a score-first type of player. A suitably damning assessment of the pick was made by Jonathan Givony back before the pick was even made:
I can only imagine the conversation an owner will have with their GM in two-three years if Dion Waiters ends up being a bust… “So you took a 6-3 SG 6th man who everyone had in the 20s in May in the top-10 despite no workout, physical or interview? You did that why?” “But, a front office with a history of bad decisions promised him at the end of the lottery! I figured they HAVE to know something we don’t” If he was some kind of long-armed athletic freak with a superb attitude and intangibles, I could maybe understand. But of course he’s not…
In essence, then, Cleveland just picked Voshon Lenard with the fourth pick. You can see why they wanted to trade up.
Givony is not the only person to be denouncing the pick, or the idea of Waiters going that high before he had even done so. It probably doesn’t help that Mark Jones further points out Waiters’ problems with “maturity,” which is totally what you need to hear from a man with a questionable skillset and average physical tools. But not even the most cynical of men had him going as high as number four. Cleveland made a similar shocker of a pick at this spot last year when they took Tristan Thompson. in a move that’s going okaayyyyyyyyyish, but now they’ve done it again. And this one is rather harder to justify. Waiters may well go on to be a capable scorer in the Gary Neal mode, but that is no justification for picking him so far ahead of tangibly, measurably better prospects.
Still, the Draft has at least spawned some controversy. In a largely trade-free build-up, that’s something.
Pick 5: Right after Cleveland picks Voshon Lenard at four, Sacramento picks Kris Humphries at five. Kris Humphries in this instance is Thomas Robinson of Kansas, and the Kings are extremely pleased about it. Not only do they get the opportunity to bag the draft’s second-best big man when they didn’t think they would have the opportunity to do so, but they also had the awkward should-we-take-Dion-Waiters decision taken out of their hands. Because they really would have gone there. You know it. (And I base that on absolutely nothing.)
Sacramento is thrilled with the pick, as well they should be. They get the second-best big in the draft when they really shouldn’t have been able to, and also now have an excuse to not pay Jason Thompson, which should please ownership. Robinson should be a double-double guy in the Humphries mould for many years, and if a Humphries comparison is interpreted as a pejorative, it really shouldn’t be, as Kris Humphries can play. Robinson should also surpass Humphries as a player, as he is better on both ends of the court. There’s no reason why, with a clean bill of health, Robinson couldn’t put up 14/10. Or maybe more. He has the physical tools, the skill, and the motor to do so. And between him and DeMarcus Cousins, they won’t miss a rebound all year.
Upon being drafted, Robinson cries, and is lauded for his high character. Robinson raises his younger sister as though he were her father because he lost much of his family within a three-week span last year – it is, by all accounts, completely true to say he is a high character guy. Yet everyone thus far – apart from perhaps Waiters, who nonetheless received praise for maturing somewhat – has been lauded for this reason. Whose decision is it to place such an emphasis on that this year? Was it ESPN, an NBA directive, or merely the panel’s own imperative? Whichever it is, it is overused to the point of being strained. Surely we should already be assuming that people are nice until we learn otherwise.
In previous years, draftees have commemorated their selection normally by hugging and kissing people, rather than breaking down in tears. This was punctuated by Jan Vesely, who last year all but frottaged this cheeky young thing:
There’s been none of that this year, and the voyeur in me misses that. There’s also been little by way of awkward handshakes and bro-fives, which the awkward man in me also misses. Indeed, the closest thing we’ve had to awkward celebratory interaction came inevitably from the chair-jumping John Calipari, a man who always knows where the camera is and who always wanted to be in its line of sight. After the Waiters pick, we were subjected to a behind-the-scenes clip of Coach Cal telling Davis and Kidd-Gilchrist quite how and when they were to get him into shot. It was in jest, yet it wasn’t. Bad times. The draft has started badly.
What we do get instead is our first pre-teen interview of the night, as Heather Cox draws the tough assignment of interviewing Robinson’s young sister. Understandably crippled with fear, the sister manages few words, the awkward silences harkening back to the Stu Scott era. The talk in NBA circles is always about “putting people in a position where they can succeed,” and neither Heather nor the sister were put in such a position. Nevertheless, Heather succeeded.
About this time, Jonathan Givony tweets that a backstage Thomas Robinson “looks PISSED.” Maybe they weren’t happy tears after all.
Pick 6: Brief recap for anyone just tuning in – the draft so far has gone Tyrus Thomas, Gerald Wallace, Ray Allen, Voshon Lenard and Kris Humphries, while Jared Sullinger has an erection.
When questioned about Portland’s possible intent, Chris Broussard mentions that they should go for a point guard. It is certainly true that they need one, after the Raymond Felton experiment went so horribly wrong. But one of two things is happening here. Either Broussard is falling into the Jon Barry trap of believing all picks should be made with an eye to balancing the depth chart, when in reality it is very difficult to imagine a situation in which anything other than the best player available should be taken, or he happens to know that Portland are likely to take a point guard here.
Given what we know of Chris Broussard – who all night has spoken only in definitive statements of what teams think, rather than opinions, thereby constantly reaffirming himself as a guy who knows guys and is unwilling to engage in independent thought – it is clearly the latter. Portland does not disappoint by taking Damian Lillard, who has been on a meteoric rise up draft boards over the course of the year, in a way not entirely unlike Dion Waiters has. Lillard clearly knew this was coming, resplendent as he is in Trail Blazers colours, but I fear he may have over-accessorized the outfit:
What Lillard has that Waiters doesn’t is many years of quality production. It came against weakened opposition, but is huge production against average opposition better than average production against quality opposition? Yes, if you have the prerequisite skills and physical tools to make it translate. And Lillard does. A graphic flashes up that shows Lillard and Rodney Stuckey as being the only two players drafted out of the Big Sky Conference in the last 36 years – not only is it a nice piece of trivia, it’s also quite a good comparison.
In Lillard’s interview with Mark Jones, Mark asks him what he learnt from speaking to Gary Payton. Lillard’s response: “GP never talked to me about being successful.” Gary Payton can now be found walking the streets of Seattle, again with a knife in his chest. We’re selling some people out here tonight.
Tom Penn is also in on tonight’s broadcast, and is getting better at it year on year. His peripheral role once again involves standing off in some unknown part of the auditorium, pointing at a screen. At least this year, the font size is legible. What kind of NBA franchise could you make with Tom Penn as GM, Van Gundy as head coach, Bilas as head of scouting and Davis/Jones as announcers? A likeable one, that’s for sure.
When Lillard is drafted, an almighty scream goes up, and the camera cuts a few seconds later to a slavering bunch of females cheering and jiggling at Lillard’s success. They must hunt in packs.
Still no tongues since in this draft. Still no trades, either.
Pick 7: There won’t be a trade here. Golden State has been oft-rumoured as trying to trade this pick for a small forward, but now they don’t need to, as Harrison Barnes falls to them and is quickly snapped up. Barnes struts to the stage like a panther, and then proceeds to give the most clichéd interview possible. There’s been two types of interview tonight, the cliché and the tearful. It’s good, but it also makes me miss the third way – the broken non-English speaker. Jonas Valanciunas may have inadvertently retired that last year.
Barnes will join Klay Thompson on the wing in Golden State, giving the Warriors two good offensive components. But both are finishers rather than creators, scoring in the teens without ever being a go-to player, and it’s difficult to project either Thompson or Barnes as ever becoming one. Given a clean bill of health, a Steph Curry/Thompson/Barnes/David Lee/Andrew Bogut lineup is pretty solid, one that has enough both inside and out, a legitimate defensive anchor with just enough help on the wing to put together a decent unit on that end, and no offensive holes. The floor will most definitely be spaced. But it’s also a team with a probable upside of a late-seeded playoff team. Late playoffs is better than late lottery, but it’s not great either.
Enough of that, though. I know you’re more interested in how Harrison Barnes would look with Anthony Davis’s eyebrows.
Bad day for Harrison Barnes’s reputation as a hat wearer.
Pick 8: Another surprising pick comes in as Toronto drafts Terrence Ross from Washington. The consensus best wing players left on the board were Duke’s Austin Rivers and UConn’s Jeremy Lamb; nevertheless, Toronto takes Ross, perhaps with an eye to a potential pairing with DeMar DeRozan in mind. (Taking players on account of their fit is justifiable only if all else between two prospects is equal, or very close to it.)
Jay Bilas immediately trolls the pick by pointing out how Ross averaged 25 points per game last season……in the NIT. Designated international expert Fran Fraschilla, who hasn’t had anything to talk about yet, reminisces about Jonas Valanciunas, picked the year before. Long night for Fran Fraschilla. Dude’s lonely right now.
The reaction to Ross’s pick is the closest thing yet to stunned silence. Even more so than for the Waiters pick; at least that one was vaguely rumoured. It’s also perhaps still in the minds of the audience that the last time the Raptors surprised us at #8, they picked Rafael Araujo, a man who recently retired from the game in order to write a book about how unpleasant the game was for him. (True story.) Nevertheless, Ross’s selection is only a bit of a reach, and he has upside to his game – frame, athleticism, a sweet shot and a decent basketball IQ. The holes in his skill set can come later – in fact, even if they don’t, and he makes his living as a shooting specialist, it’ll do.
If you’re a firm believer in the idea that you can tell when a player knows they’re going to a particular team based on the colour of the outfit that they are wearing, then it is safe to say that Terrence Ross had no idea. His Vaudevillian porn star outfit combined a green bowtie with a blue-and-white shirt and a grey jacket – when the ensemble was topped off by a red Raptors hat, Ross now had a colour for every occasion. And looked ridiculous doing so.
Despite his mispronunciations – spotlighted again by an unnecessarily-syllabled attempt at VAL-AN-CHOON-ASS – Broussard nevertheless provides a role in this draft. He is plugged in, and he does know what teams intend to do, even if he can’t (or won’t) rationalise it. On one hand, this helps him blend into proceedings and carves him the niche Jon Barry so sorely lacked. On the other hand, he’s making Ric Bucher redundant.
Pick 9:Andre Drummond goes next to Detroit, a risky pick with a possibly high reward that a team so thoroughly moribund until this point can afford to make. Drummond, who looks like the love child of Amar’e Stoudemire and Al Horford, takes to the stage to the sound of his own biological field notes, as Jay Bilas goes to town with the phyical description of this unpolished athletic specimen. Bilas’s penchant for doing this led to a drinking game being created in his honour a few years ago, and Bilas, a man of the world, knows about it. He even referenced it in last year’s broadcast. Jay Bilas, it seems, wants to get you drunk.
(Remember Amar’e and Al’s wedding? I do. Cracking afternoon. Good buffet spread, I seem to remember. Oh no wait they hate each other.)
Drummond joins the growing list of criers tonight, while Mark Jones describes how Drummond first left high school early to go to UConn, and now leaves college after only one year to come to the NBA. This is potentially disconcerting news framed in a positively light (heartbreaking loyalty, etc), and the only real surprise comes when Drummond doesn’t walk off from his interview half way through.
(This would have been the worst joke of the night had Jones himself not topped it, first asking Andre about his questionable motor, then wrapping things up with the punchline “Detroit knows about good motors, right?” I really like Mark Jones in this role, but not even my dad would laugh at that. Still, cheers for falling on your sword for me there.)
Pick 10: The running message we get on draft nights, and thus the running joke that stems from it, is that every team is amazed that the player they wanted was still on the board when they picked, and that they’re overjoyed to have landed the one player they wanted all along. This is the story we get even in those instances (like, say, Cleveland above) when a team clearly tried to trade its way out of that spot but got stuck with it anyway. It is very true at the moment, however, as New Orleans bags the terribly-facial-haired Austin Rivers at #10, a man they probably didn’t think would be there then. And who arguably shouldn’t have been.
Rivers, who likely won’t have to do the traditional draftee thing and buy his parents a house, now pairs up in New Orleans with Eric Gordon. Gordon is a restricted free agent this summer, and, as the only top quality shooting guard on the market, might not be easy to retain. But if New Orleans pays whatever it costs to keep him – and they really must – they now have a strong young core of him, Rivers, the aforementioned Anthony Davis and the always-underappreciated Gustavo Ayon (who will be so much better than you expect next year). What isn’t obvious is how Rivers and Gordon will pair – both are undersized twos that can’t really play point guard, and yet unless they want to spend a year subbing in for each other, one of them will have to. However, acquiring talent and taking the best player available is always the right way to go, and Rivers is that. Something akin to the Gilbert Arenas/Larry Hughes backcourt of yesteryear, back when both were good, may just work.
With that in mind, Jarrett Jack is now back in his rightful position – as the league’s best backup point guard. It’s where he should always have been.
ESPN’s on-screen graphics have carried a feedback poll on every pick made so far. For the Rivers pick, fans have voted for a rather high 14.7% F-rating. This seems bafflingly high. Then again, even Anthony Davis got 5.3% F’s. The lesson, as always – people are dumb.
In keeping with their policy of signing brothers, Phoenix will now sign Jeremiah Rivers.
Pick 11: Portland are up again, this time with their own pick – their previous #6 pick came via the hands of the newly-Brooklyn Nets, who gave up a high lottery pick in a deep draft for a short-term rental of Gerald Wallace whom they can then renounce in order to have the cap room for Dwight Howard, should they be able to trade for him, which they can’t, because they haven’t the assets, because they gave their best one to Portland in exchange for a short term rental of Gerald Wallace. (It’s genius, really.) Needing a bit of everything, the Blazers opt for a centre, reaching slightly to pick Meyers Leonard.
It is of note that Leonard has gone before Tyler Zeller, a man to have outperformed him at every level they have played at in their careers to date. This, then, is an upsidey-pick, made on the basis of Leonard’s superior size and athleticism. Indeed, “upside” is the general theme of Bilas’s blurb, in which he also cites Leonard as needing to “get nastier.” Soft and raw, then. Good stuff.
Leonard is a genuine offensive talent, which is rare to find in a seven-footer. He should be better than B.J. Mullens in all facets of the game. But I suspect he’s going to go through his career flawed, permanently tantalising, never quite maximising what he’s got. At #11, however, you can live with that. And anyway, centres always maximise their potential in Portland.
Like Damian Lillard before him, Meyers’s fashion choices, while questionable, suggest that he knew this was coming.
Jay Bilas really is invaluable to these broadcasts. He does the vast majority of the actual analysis, thereby letting Van Gundy thrive and pick his spots, and is the most irreplacable person there. All in all, the trio of Bilas, Davis and Van Gundy have struck quite a harmonious trio. Broussard isn’t really fitting with the conversational chemistry, but he is at least playing a role.
Between picks, Wizards head coach Randy Wittman is interviewed, where he reinforces everything previously said about the Wizards’ determination to build character and improve the locker room. If you mean it, amnesty Andray Blatche.
Pick 12: Recent years have seen remarkably few quality shooting guards taken, but this year bucks that trend. Houston takes Jeremy Lamb at #12, when he probably should have gone at #8. Or #4, considering he’s better than Dion Waiters in all facets of the game.
Apart for one more airing for the phrase “fine young man,” every single aspect of Lamb’s breakdown is saved for his offensive game, yet this ignores his defence; when he’s in the right mind to play it, as he was more regularly in 2010, Lamb can be a highly effectively two-way player. Combine that with Courtney Lee (solid in all aspects of the game), and Houston have a solid tandem at the two guard spot.
Of course, they also have a third guy. With the Dwight Howard thing not likely to work – thereby making the trade with the Bucks even more pointless, as they essentially traded a starting centre in order to move up two spots for a guy who was likely to still be there at #14 anyway – Houston is now said to be going the other way, possibility amnestying Kevin Martin in order to open up cap room for Deron Williams. This would be an amazingly risky thing to do, and for that reason, a completely unnecessary one. Martin has value outside of that. Here’s my idea: trade him to Chicago for Kyle Korver and a signed-and-traded Omer Asik. If the Bulls will pay a little tax, it’s a win win. Maybe.
At this point, I am struck by the realisation that the NBA’s logo looks like a merman taking out the trash.
Pick 13: Phoenix avoids picking an inferior sibling (Marquis Teague) by picking a different point guard, Kendall Marshall, who managed the rare feat of recording more assets than points last season. Others to have done this include Dontell Jefferson and Doug Gottlieb. But Marshall is not those guys. Marshall isn’t readily comparable to anyone at all, really. He plays like Jason Kidd, yet to compare him to Jason Kidd instantly reads as though you’re saying he’s as good as Jason Kidd, which can never be true. What he is the ultimate pass-first point guard. Who just so happens to be a little slow.
Marshall is not at the draft, so the camera cuts to his college coach Roy Williams, whose teeth are so white that they’re actually a little blue. I can’t help but wonder how this must feel to those who ARE here, when a player considered unlikely enough to be drafted high that he wasn’t even invited to appear still somehow gets picked ahead of you. I also wonder why anyone who knows they are guaranteed to be drafted, if not where exactly, would not go to the draft. Party with your family later. Just get there and do the damn thing. It is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Baseless prediction:Steve Nash will not re-sign with Phoenix this summer. As a result, nor will Grant Hill. Shannon Brown will, as will Aaron Brooks. Those two will pair with Marshall and Jared Dudley to create a backcourt and wing rotation that will be fun as hell. This rotation will also feature Josh Childress, the forgotten man, who hasn’t been good for four years (and somehow set an NBA record this year for most minutes played without making a free throw) but who must surely still have a spark on the fire. In addition to drafting Kendall Marshall, therefore, the Suns also effectively drafted Josh Childress tonight.
Another baseless prediction: Childress will be amnestied this summer. Now my bases are covered.
Pick 14: Milwaukee, who had just traded down to get Sam Dalembert, were reported to be trying to trade back up in order to get John Henson. As it turns out, they’ve gotten him anyway.
Between those two and Ekpe Udoh, Milwaukee has an exceptional shot-blocking trio of length and athleticism, if not a great deal of girth. And between those three, Larry Sanders just lost his job. Henson also continues a strong Milwaukee pedigree of right-handed big men who are really better with their left hand. This seems relevant.
Tyler Zeller remains on the board. Someone’s going to get five years of solid, unspectacular contribution late in this thing. In unrelated news, I think Zeller should add a consistent three-point shot and go for a Raef LaFrentz thing. I miss Raef LaFrentz.
Pick 15: Philly picks next, but they too don’t seem right for Zeller, having picked the similar Nikola Vucevic just last year. Sure enough, they don’t, instead opting for a more awkward fit.
Whilst picking for need over quality is not really the way to go, it’s always nice if you can pick players who are both. The Sixers have obvious needs – anyone who can consistently score, some outside shooting, an athletic shot-blocker and a big man with plenty of bulk. Inevitably, then, they just someone who is none of those things; the artist formerly known as Mo Harkless (who now wants to be known as Maurice), who can learn how to be the next Thaddeus Young under the direct watch of Thaddeus himself.
The panel unanimously agrees that this duplication doesn’t matter, as long as the player involved is the best available and/or has the highest upside. This is a frankly refreshing viewpoint that I guarantee Jon Barry doesn’t share.
After spending all of last year’s draft hanging outside the side door of the Cavaliers office, without so much as an interview with Chris Grant or an upskirt shot of Moondog getting out of a taxi, Jeanine Edwards is again standing outside the war room of the team who picked first, waiting for a tepid interview. She finally bags one with Hornets GM Dell Demps, and she promptly makes the first unibrow reference of the night. This throws up the first chink in Rece Davis’s unflappable armour, as he admits that, before the broadcast began, Davis warned the panel not to make any puns about it, as he “owns the trademarks to some of the phrases.”
I guess the unibrow is here to stay. By the way, here’s what Fab Melo would look like with only one eyebrow.
Pick 16:Royce White goes next to Houston, whom Jay Bilas instantly compares in style-of-play terms to Charles Barkley. I would counter and say he’s more of a Pero Cameron. But then, that’s the kind of guy I am. One who makes Pero Cameron references. Never apologise for who you are. Unless you’re a psychopath killer.
White is a very talented offensive player who will struggle to utilise his great talents in the NBA in anything approaching an optimum way because he’s too slow and can’t guard anybody. (You know who he needs behind him? OMER ASIK. Morey, Chicago will probably match any free agency offer, so you’re going to have to trade Kevin Martin for him. It’s how it is.) Nevertheless, White will produce numbers across the board….if he gets to play. Houston now has three backups to Luis Scola, including Marcus Morris and Patrick Patterson, their late lottery picks of the last two years. You’d better believe Scola is looking over his shoulder now.
This news might be bad for White’s oft-documented fear of flying. According to Weakside Awareness, Houston fly the third-most miles of any NBA team in a season. Van Gundy and Davis rather flippantly dismiss the issue by pointing out how nice NBA charter planes are, which they reason should help cure White’s problem, but Bilas cuts them down, pointing out the possible severity of the problem and White’s role model status for those who also suffer from it. Jay Bilas = analyst, humanitarian, lad.
(On the flip side, is there a more inappropriately named team for a man with a fear of flying than the Rockets?)
Pick 17: Zeller finally goes, picked by the Mavericks at #17, where he will not stay. In its continued bid to ruin the surprise, Twitter (with the assist to Woj) announces that Zeller will be traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers, the first trade of the day.
Of course, Zeller doesn’t know this, and talks in his interview about how much of a work ethic he will learn from Dirk Nowitzki. Zeller also talks about his brother Luke (whom Phoenix are now desperately trying to sign), and states how “he’s played in the D-League and knows the NBA lifestyle.” It’s like knowing what heaven’s like because you spent two years in hell. It’s not the same.
(Brothers normally play similarly in style, but the Zellers couldn’t be much more different. Tyler is a seven-footer who does a bit of everything inside the arc except shooting from deep range; Luke is a seven-footer who only shoots from deep range. You know what you’d have if you blended them together? Raef LaFrentz. I miss Raef LaFrentz.)
Pick 18: Seemingly not satisfied with the four power forwards they already have, Houston adds a fifth in Terrence Jones. He replaced Patrick Patterson at Kentucky, and now has the chance to dislodge him here. He also absolutely has to dislodge him here, or else he’s not seeing a single minute.
(Of course, Houston will probably have made 14 extra trades by opening night. But still. As of right now, that’s a hugely unbalanced roster.)
Jones now becomes something of a poster child for “players who shouldn’t have returned to school,” as he was projected to be a top five-to-ten pick last year who now finds himself out of the lottery altogether. The same is true of his namesake, Perry, who continues to sit in the green room and looks apathetic about it all. Every year, it seems, there has to be one fall guy. This year, it seems, it’s Perry Jones.
The draft so far has consisted of a couple of surprising picks, but few shockers, scant little in the way of accidental humour, and only one trade. Right on cue, Ric Bucher walks into shot carrying Adrian Wojnarowski’s bags, announcing the Zeller trade for the TV audience. In exchange for this rotation centre, Dallas receives the #24, #33 and #34 picks, and presumably a lesser player. Why? It probably has something to do with the fact that the cap hold for the 17th pick is $1,302,600, while the cap hold for the 24th pick is $963,600. In an offseason where cap space is imperative, that is not insignificant.
But here’s my question – if cap space is that important to Dallas, why was Kelenna Azubuike signed to a guaranteed minimum-salary contract for 2012/13 so late last season? And why was Vince Carter signed at all?
Pick 19: The first international player is taken, but not really. Orlando takes Andrew Nicholson from St Bonaventure, and Jay Bilas immediately launches into another detailed physical profile. I’m teetotal, yet even I’m getting drunk off of it now.
After Bilas is finished, we cut immediately to a commercial, which means Nicholson mustn’t be here. (Seriously. Why wouldn’t you go?) Upon returning, Jeff Van Gundy, unaware that the broadcast has started, can be overheard making an overdue joke; “his last name should be Meyers and his first name should be Leonard.” I agree. And I think the same about Harrison Barnes.
Interspersing the broadcast tonight is a very tenuous ladder motif, in which players walk around with a ladder, occasionally opening it up into its A-frame shape to help spell the word “DRAFT.” I have now watched the draft twice and I still don’t see the significance.
This is what a Leonard Myers should look like.
Pick 20: The NBA draft usually attracts some form of xenophobia, which this year’s broadcast has so far lacked. But an opportunity presents itself when the first truly international player, Evan Fournier, is picked by Denver in an apparent draft-and-stash. Denver once took a foreign bust in the first round, so it follows that because Skita was bad, so will be Fournier. Danilo Gallinari? Danilo Schmallinari. Europe sucks. Or something like that.
Fran Fraschilla finally has a shiny new toy to play with, but isn’t especially fawning of Fournier, other than to cite his potential. This is fair enough, since Fournier, while thoroughly projectable, is the rawest player picked so far other than perhaps Harkless and Drummond.
A group of French people are shown. They are promptly booed for being French.
Pick 21: Boston are now on the clock. Jeff Van Gundy, who has been very limited in the last few picks, now gets something in his wheelhouse – an analysis of the future of a decent NBA team. He is nonetheless overshadowed by Broussard, who does the same thing, but seemingly basing it exclusively off of what he has been told by others.
Boston makes a great value and highly popular pick in Jared Sullinger, whose slump is finally ended. Jay Bilas describes him in a way that makes him sound more Brian Scalabrine than Marcus Fizer, neither of which is the ideal prognosis. Glen Davis is a better comparison, which Bilas also brings up, taking care to point out that Sullinger is actually better than Baby. That, ultimately, will be determined by his back.
At this point, it bears repeating quite how much better Rece Davis is than Stu Scott at this. There are no cheesy gags, no unnecessarily awkward set-ups, and no dead air. This does mean less things to take the mickey out of, but I’m OK with that.
Pick 22: Boston picks again here, yet for some reason we have to wait another five minutes and change before they do. (Couldn’t they call in the two at once?) Moments like this are why the draft starts to drag. Nevertheless, the Celtics eventually pick Fabulous Carmelo, giving themselves a product big with Mouhamed Sene or Omer Asik potential (or, if you’d rather think highly, Dikembe Mutombo potential).
Melo went from being a complete disappointment in his freshman season to a partial disappointment as a sophomore. He finally figured out how to defend in the zone, which won’t help him much in Boston but which did at least mean production, yet he developed little offensively, fouled a ton, and rebounded fairly sedately for one so physically dominant. Furthermore, as his production increased, so did the drama, including being suspended for the NCAA Tournament due to academic issues. Relative to expectations, Melo didn’t really work out in Syracuse. At least by being drafted this late, expectations in Boston are quite low.
If Kevin Garnett returns for Boston, and Melo (and to a degree Sullinger) want it enough, they’re about to get quite the education.
Jay Bilas continues to get to do all the talking (much of it negative in his Melo analysis) as no trades are coming in. It’s been a bad night for Bucher, and especially Katz, what with the bulging dicks and all.
Tom Penn then confuses Tristan Thompson and Tyshawn Taylor. Not his best night either.
Pick 23: Right after Penn champions the logic of looking for specialists in the late first round, the ultimate specialist is selected as John Jenkins goes to Atlanta. Jenkins is the best shooter in this draft; indeed, he could be the best shooter in most drafts. But he is also the very definition of a one-dimensional player, as the rest of his game is somewhat average. So much so, in fact, that scant little time is dedicated to his analysis. It doesn’t take long to cover one dimension.
Tangenting significantly, an interview with Christoph Waltz/Mike Dunlap takes place (bizarrely with NFL reporter George Smith), one which prompts Van Gundy to talk about Michael Kidd-Gilchrist instead. JVG warns that he doesn’t know if MKG will be a star. This isn’t what you want to hear about a number two pick, and it’s made doubly weird by the phrasing of this as being a good thing. Charlotte at this point needs absolutely everything. But you know what they need most? Stars.
Pick 24: Dallas, now picking here post-Zeller trade, takes Jared Cunningham from Oregon State, giving an old team a fresh set of athletic young legs. If they do turn over their backcourt, lose Vince and the Jasons, and bring in Deron Williams, then he, Cunningham, Roddy Boobwar and Dominique Jones will make an exciting, dynamic and good backcourt. But if Cunningham alone is asked to push the tempo, it might make little difference. Who else will run with him? Shawn Marion and….Brian Cardinal?
Apropos of nothing, ESPN really should bring back the “must improve” captions.
Pick 25: With Memphis on the clock, a long discussion takes place as to what the Grizzlies need the most. It is concluded – rightly – that they need a shooter. The Grizzlies were one of the worst shooting teams in the league last season, and have just let their best shooter become an unrestricted free agent, for fear that he might accept his QO were he offered. With Jenkins having just been taken, then, attention turns to the other good shooters out there.
Naturally, then, Memphis takes Tony Wroten, one of the worst jump shooting guards out there. To further emphasis quite how much Wroten needs to work on, Bilas points out problems with his decision-making, shot-making, and work ethic. Let’s call him a project, then.
It is difficult at this point in the draft to strike a balance between “best prospect” and “most helpful tomorrow,” especially as we are now dealing with players who likely won’t manage more than a few years in the league, if that. It is also true that Memphis regularly prioritises athleticism above all else, which again seems to be the case here. Nevertheless, backup point guard has long been a problem for Memphis, especially in the wake of Jeremy Pargo’s bizarre ineffectiveness in the NBA. So they do still scratch an itch.
Andy Katz cuts in to explain Perry Jones’s plummet down the draft board as being due to possible health issues with his knee. He definitely said “knee.” Not “dick.” Katz’s night is improving.
Pick 26: Unusually for them, Indiana is the next team to overvalue athleticism. They pick Miles Plumlee out of Duke, who just completed a 6.1 ppg senior season, his main offensive weapon being the alley’oop. Just like the Zellers, the oldest of the three brothers is the weakest.
That said, Plumlee produced what he did at Duke because he played a role there, and he’ll only be playing one in the NBA too. Sometimes it makes more sense to make role players into role players rather than trying to turn stars into them. At best, he projects to be Jeff Foster’s replacement, or P.J. Brown once P.J. got old. At worst, Plumlee will be what he already is – a physical specimen of size and athleticism who can’t do much other than rebound.
In trying to be complimentary, Bilas rather trolls the pick, stating that Plumlee is only good when he doesn’t think about what he’s doing..
Pick 27: Not an awful lot of time is spent talking about Plumlee because Miami are on the clock, and ESPN needs to get in some more Heat love. They get in a montage and some chatter – in which Van Gundy advocates playing Chris Bosh full time at centre – before Stern comes out to announce the pick. Stern’s been booed all night, but the boos are slightly more pronounced this time – a double-stamped boo, incorporating boos for David Stern and boos for the Miami Heat. Stern pauses to let the boos die away, but all this does is reinforce the boo, and the double-barrelled boo gets a second wind, creating a four-part booathon. It’s a tough moment, then, for Arnett Moultrie to realise his NBA dream and be drafted.
Ric Bucher hasn’t told us this year, but Twitter announces that Moultrie won’t stay with the Heat for long. He’s instead off to the Sixers, where he’s either going to try and become the shot-creating scoring two-guard they sorely lack, or join an incredibly packed rotation already full of physical athletic rebounding fours. Time will tell.
I lied about quitting Twitter.
Pick 28: Fittingly, but awkwardly, Oklahoma City picks next. Jeff Van Gundy points out how the Thunder built what they currently have; by landing Kevin Durant and continuing to suck for two more years in order to get Russell Westbrook and James Harden. This, then creates a juxtaposition. If we hate the Miami Heat for the way they built their team – the suspected collusion and definite buddying-up – why do we not harbour similar resentment for teams who make themselves deliberately terrible in order to land top talent? What makes one more noble than the other? Both teams did what they could, and while a good guys/bad guys storyline is inevitable and not unwelcome, the Thunder deliberately took many steps backward in order to take a giant leap forward. It’s no more honourable than the other.
That said, OKC have long had a simple way of doing things that largely involves choosing the best players available. They do again by salvaging Perry Jones’s night. As the last man in the black plaza, Jones is still here, and he takes to the stage with a facial expression drizzled in apathy and resentment, with a creamy topping of relief. He seems similarly antagonised in his interview with Mark Jones, who is also still here, not quite able to knock off for the night.
Fran Fraschilla is called in to analyse this Big 12 player, and calls a Jones a possible Serge Ibaka replacement. This is true if you discount Ibaka’s shot-blocking, which is to say, it isn’t true. Broussard goes Barry on us and says the Thunder need a backup point guard because Eric Maynor was injured last year, overlooking the importance there of the word “was.” And Jay Bilas provides another refreshing take – while many fault Jones for his supposed passivity, Bilas says that it’s fine. In a way, it is. Jones’s main crime is not being as good as everyone else says he should be, yet in over-emphasising that, we can readily overlook quite what he does do. For some people, we instinctively look for the positives, and some the negatives. That’s just how it is.
Here’s Perry Jones, again, deficient in the eyebrow department to the tune of one:
Pick 29: Only one pick all night has not been leaked in advance, and it comes from the notoriously tight-lipped Chicago Bulls. That said, it was still a predictable one – the minute it became obvious Marquis Teague was falling that far, it should have been obvious that the point guard-less Bulls would take him.
Teague has more upside than a lot of the players who were still available at this slot. That said, his usefulness is extremely limited, particularly in Chicago. If Teague wants to push the ball, Joakim Noah (who runs the fast break better than any other centre alive, particularly as a decoy) and Luol Deng (who runs a lot without being fast) will happy go with him. So will Rip Hamilton, if he’s able to take the court. But in the half court, where the Bulls need the most help, Teague will provide little. The Bulls sorely lacked offensive creators even before Derrick Rose went down – now that he has, they have precisely zip. Bar a massive infusion of scoring talent (see also – Kevin Martin trade idea), which they can’t afford due to luxury tax concerns, it will be like the Chris Duhon era all over again, and without a Ben Gordon to occasionally bail them out. Whoever plays point guard for Chicago is unfortunately but inevitably charged with being the answer to this problem. And Marquis Teague likely won’t be.
The reason for the prioritising of the short term prognosis here is deliberate, because the Bulls need short term help from a point guard, and only short term help. If Teague can run some basic pick-and-pops with Carlos Boozer, and dribble the ball until his hands turn orange waiting for Hamilton to get open off a screen, then he might be all right. But then, surely any NBA point guard can do those things. And surely many other point guards could do so while demonstrating better understandings of time and score, while not driving wildly into traffic, and while shooting better than this. There’s a very good chance that Teague gets overused and thus exposed next season, which will not be fun.
The long term aspect cannot be completely overlooked. Teague represents excellent value for his draft slot, and his physical tools and age give him tremendous upside potential. He can already impact the game for the better through his transition game and good defensive intensity, which, if he gets the right veteran to platoon with (i.e. not Kirk Hinrich), will see him effective in a backup role. If asked to just come in, press, break, hit open J’s and not bog down the offence, Teague may succeed. But this would be easier to do on a team featuring star wing players who can take more than two dribbles. This is absolutely not the case in Chicago, where the point guard exclusively dominates the ball.
If this pick was a pancake, it would be a good pancake, or at least a pancake with potential to flourish into a good all-around breakfast. But we don’t turn to pancakes for every meal.
Pick 30: The last pick in the first round is Festus Ezeli, who has outperformed Fab Melo in their careers to date, but who disappointed in his senior season, not helped by injury problems and a ridiculous suspension. Ezeli isn’t here, which is just as well, because the David Stern quad boo was again in full effect, which would have tarnished things for Festus.
Ezeli struggles badly with turnover and foul problems, yet the latter of these is less problematic in a limited minutes player, which Ezeli will be. Golden State’s long time search for a centre – which this year included the bizarre signings of Mickell Gladness and Mikki Moore – looks to be over, with Andrew Bogut the starter and Ezeli the projected backup. Now, they can finally use the amnesty provision on Andris Biedrins.
Oh no wait, they already used it Charlie Bell. Good talk.
The second round begins with a typically raucous reception for Adam Silver, who, like the French people who were booed simply for not being American, is cheered simply for not being David Stern. In a way, this is problematic for Adam. It is already common knowledge that Stern will retire at some point in the next five years, with Silver succeeding him, but Silver must consider if that is really what he wants. Right now, the man is really, really popular. When he becomes the face of all that is wrong with basketball, real or perceived, this popularity will decline sharply. In fact, it’ll be the complete opposite. Sexy Silver needs to consider whether the increase in pay, responsibility and authority is worth the decrease in respect. I wouldn’t do it.
Time constraints, unfortunately, prevent a similar breakdown of the second round of the draft beyond Silver’s intro. (To be honest, without Targuy Ngombo or Chukwudiebere Maduabum in it, the second round was destined to flag anyway.) We conclude this post, then, with an answer to that age-old question – what would NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver look like not only if he had Anthony Davis’s unibrow, but if he had a second smaller unibrow as a pencil-thin Poirot moustache and a flower pot on his head?
ShamSports.com – NBA News That Doesn’t Really Matter.
What does amateur football do right that professional basketball can’t?
February 24th, 2012
On New Year’s Day, I stood in a field and got rained on for two hours, in what must have been most rainswept match in the history of football that was somehow never called off for a rain. In a pitch so waterlogged that sliding tackles went on for upwards of 15 metres, Tonbridge Angels drew 1-1 with Bromley FC in a tight, competitive and bloody soaking Blue Square Bet South proverbial six pointer, amidst a day-long rain storm that saw the car park get flooded, the pitch get destroyed, and my shoes get slightly soggy. The link to basketball will follow shortly.
Some 905 of us foolhardy, brave, somewhat heroic souls braved these horrific conditions, and paid our £12 for the privilege of watching a game which neither team won. (And 904 of us manage to do so without being hit by the ball and knocked on our arse. No prizes for guessing who that was.) The travelling Bromley faithful had come all the way from Bromley for the occasion, a distance determined to be 25.5 miles by the AA Route Planner, while half the town of Tonbridge made the walk across town to watch their beloved Angels, just as they did the week before, just as they did the week after, just as they will do next week. All to watch a bunch of amateurs, who double on the side as manual labourers and management consultants, play a determined but unattractive style of football that culminated in nobody actually winning.
The Blue Square Bet South is a semi-professional standard of football that is only on the sixth tier of the English football system. It wasn’t exactly a demonstration of how ‘the beautiful game’ can be when played at its best. Therein, however, lies the pertinence to basketball. Why can a semi-professional, forgettable-unless-you-live-there football team from a small town in Kent compete attendance-wise with the D-League?
It’s not something exclusive to the aforementioned town of Tonbridge, either. Indeed, hundreds and hundreds of towns around the country enjoy similar such enclaves and core support, despite their amateur status, and despite the relative unimportance of it all. Without wishing to sound too jingoistic, something is wrong with the American sports model if the Atlanta Hawks, in particularly down years, can’t sell as many tickets as the less than stellar Thurrock FC. A team that plays here:
To some, it’s a palace.
This isn’t the first time that this issue has been addressed on this blog. In an unnecessarily aggressive piece from four years ago, back when unnecessary aggression was the thing, this very similar piece spoke of the same problem highlighted by the same circumstance. And in this piece from last year, when the need for NBA players to take the prospect of playing European basketball seriously became apparent, I wrote at length between the differences between the two experiences. In both cases, certain aspects of the American basketball experience were called into question. They are about to be again, because the problem has only worsened since then.
The reason it is fun to pay to go and stand in a soggy field for two hours is because of what you do when you there. To be sure, you watch the action. But you also sing, cheer, shout, joke, berate, banter, and bond. Someone brings a drum, and whoever pipes up first is the one who determines what song you sing. There’s a range, too, from the seminal “Tommy Warrilow’s Blue And White Arrrrrrr-my” to the always appealing “Oh Tonbridge Is Wonderful,” sung to the tune of “Oh When The Saints Go Marching In” (which relied upon a very liberal understanding of basic syllable recognition, and which also got a bit filthy during the middle eight). You watch the football, no doubt, and you do so with an intense interest in the outcome of every pass, every shot, every tackle, and the score. But you also go there for the experience. And you make the experience for yourself.
With scant few exceptions, this isn’t the case in basketball.
The American franchise model, that lacks for promotion and relegation, is entrenched, by design and by precedent. The desire for parity, thirty franchises even in financial resources and team performance, means teams don’t grow or shrink. More pertinently, perhaps, it means they can move. And they do. If a franchise does not work in one city, it moves to another. There is very little in the way of deeply rooted local ties, and, because of this, there is very little in the way of hardened, relentless, thick-or-thin support.
As evidence by Tonbridge, Bromley, Thurrock, and countless others, you support your local semi-pro outfit because they’re YOUR team, YOUR boys, representing YOUR town. There is pride to be derived from that; there just is. You hope for the club to expand, to get promoted, to grow, to make fairytale cup runs, to win the incredibly prideful local derbies. And if they don’t, you’ll be there for hope for it again next year. No such comparison exists in the NBA. You might default to supporting the Knicks if you’re from New York, but that isn’t the same.
That is, in and of itself, fine. It is merely the product of a different culture, and neither culture is better than the other. And there are also reasons for it. It is of course highly relevant to point out that basketball, by its very nature of constant scoring, is not especially conducive to such a style of support. It is difficult to cheer every point as if it is the best when there about 100 of them in every game; it is further difficult to maintain a high level of atmosphere when you’re called upon to do so at least 41 times a season. The sheer size of the NBA’s schedule dilutes the importance, and thus emotional investment, in any one game.
That said, whilst acknowledging the hefty schedules as a factor, raucous basketball fandom can be done. College games are a testament to this. When there is an institution or a team that is ingrained, getting people to support it passionately is not especially hard. You don’t have to have been at Duke for 50 years to wear 50 years of pride on your face, while jumping around like twats in matching ill-fitting t-shirts to the tune of some mighty fine amateur drumming. NCAA games, tournament or otherwise, testify to the validity of obstreperous, strident, bloody loud fandom in a basketball context. And this is not just limited to the amateur game. In basketball crazy countries, such as the Phillipines, making the fan appreciate the game score is not a conscious exercise. It doesn’t be. You don’t, for example, need to tell these Panathinaikos fans that the result matters, or when they need to cheer. They’re waaaaaaaay ahead of you.
The above is a bit of an extreme example, given that such events are often accompanied by mindless indefensible violence. However, there exists a huge middle ground between that and this, one that the NBA ought to lose itself in. (And the NBA has shown before that it can do it. It took a unique set of circumstances – the right team, the right timing, the right city – but this entire series showed what can be done. if we could have at least 60% of that reproduced with regularity, we’re making headway.)
It is further important to emphasise the family friendly nature of the NBA, as opposed to the universally un-PC nature of fanatical football support. Of all the songs sung by the Tonbridge faithful on that day, the one with the steadiest rotation was a seminal smash that listed the town’s main attributes, specifically the fact that it is full of “tits, fannies and Angels.” [Needless to say, the half time entertainment was a let-down.] It was fun. But it is also limited. Something of that nature wouldn’t work in an NBA arena. You can’t chant a song about Cleveland being full of factories, foreclosures and unemployment, regardless of doing so in jest, because it is not considered acceptable. It is a different culture, one with cheerleaders, arena music and kiss cams. Family friendly PC fun is the name of the NBA’s game. That, in itself, is fine. It is not a coincidence that the NBA is a corporate monster.
However, it might also not be a coincidence that the NBA is having problems with attendance. Wider socio-economic factors notwithstanding, not enough people are going to NBA games, and it is not only limited to the franchises struggling on the court. Tickets go for pittance in the hope that when you’re there, you’ll buy a burger and a beer. Somehow, the game seems secondary. Or tertiary. Or flat out irrelevant. If you can pay that little to go to a game, it’s difficult to believe that anyone there is really bothered about how it turns out. For all its emphasis as an “experience,” the NBA may have lost sight of the actual game being of primary importance.
The NBA, and by association the D-League, may have reached a point where it can now never achieve this. It’s too far gone, it’s too bloody expensive, and, moreover, it flat doesn’t want to.
But perhaps it ought.
Start with less arena music. Let the culture of singing develop. This might mean less Busta Rhymes snippets, less unicycling ladies, less dancing girls. It might mean less yelling by PA’s who try way too damn hard, and it might mean less disco cams. [It might even mean smaller arenas.] These things are all kind of fun…..briefly. At some point, the novelty wears off. Stop before we reach the flares-and-coin-throwing stage, but let’s make something happen. The whole idea of making NBA games into borderline circus events with all the scripted entertainment doesn’t seem to be working if you can buy tickets for a single cent. Encourage people to make noise, but do so without actually yelling “make some noise!” down the PA at them. The fear that players will wind up playing in a library atmosphere without the deep-seated reliance upon arena music and effects is valid, but surely there must come a time where going to the game to root for a win becomes the most important thing.
If people aren’t going to NBA games, maybe they just aren’t that fun to go to.
