It took nearly a month of free agency to do it, but the last big free agency name was eventually taken off the board at the end of July. The Houston Rockets finally agreed to re-sign free agent centre Clint Capela to a deal reported to cost them only five years and $90 million, of which only five years and $80 million is guaranteed. My use of the world “only” there was very deliberate. That is not a lot of money for a player of some calibre, and who is a roughly ideal fit for what the Rockets are doing with their team. It is considerably less than the maximum salary of five years and $147,710,050 (or four years and $109,509,175 with another team) that he could have signed for, and it is a lot less than Houston probably expected they could get him for when headed into free agency. In a tough free agency period in which they lost Trevor Ariza to the Phoenix Suns and Luc Richard Mbah A Moute to the L.A. Clippers, and given a maximum contract to Chris Paul that will be of questionable value in the back end, the Rockets needed to win on this one, and they have done. In large part, this was due to their patience. Taking this full month allowed the relative impatience of the competition to take effect, and as the other cap space teams spent their money up, Capela quickly ran out of bidders. The Rockets have been significantly aided in this quest, though, not only by Capela’s restricted free agency, but also by a flat overall market for ‘big men’. Positional distinctions are increasingly hard to do these days. Still, with that disclaimer in mind, here is a list of all the new contracts given out to veteran ‘big men’ in […]
[Originally published on Hoopsworld, 30th September 2013.] The new Collective Bargaining Agreement is designed to save teams from themselves, and make reckless spending far harder to do. It works – most free agency contracts are now, frankly, well priced. But not all of them. After taking a look at the best contracts of the offseason last week, here, in no particular order, are ten of the worst ones from this past offseason: Al Jefferson – Charlotte Bobcats The harsh but undeniable reality is that the Bobcats, regardless of the presence of Michael Jordan, have to pay over the odds on the free agent market to compensate for their franchise’s position. They’ve done that with Al Jefferson, paying him three years and $40.5 million, including a player option in the third year. That player option makes Jefferson extremely difficult to trade until the summer of 2015. And while they haven’t necessarily signed him to trade him, a team with such little foundation as Charlotte must position themselves to permit that as soon as possible. They haven’t. Instead, they’ve paid Jefferson to be the cornerstone of the team for at least the first two years of the deal, which he simply isn’t. Jefferson, a poor defender, is also an inefficient volume scorer who contributes on only one end and leads on neither. It looks like a strong commitment to the present, just as Jefferson looks like he is a centerpiece to his team. But appearances can be deceptive. Josh Smith – Detroit Pistons As with most of the players on this list, it is not necessarily the price paid so much as it is the purposelessness of paying it. Detroit, like Charlotte, has to pay an invisible tax (manifested through inflated contracts) to attract free agents. This is a reality that has […]
Players acquired via free agency or trade: Greg Buckner (acquired from Dallas) Michael Doleac (acquired from Miami) Antoine Walker (acquired from Miami) Theo Ratliff (acquired from Boston) Ryan Gomes (acquired from Boston) Al Jefferson (acquired from Boston) Sebastian Telfair (acquired from Boston) Gerald Green (acquired from Boston) Players acquired via draft: First round: Corey Brewer (7th overall) Second round: Chris Richard (41st overall) Players retained: None Players departed: Mark Blount (traded to Miami) Ricky Davis (traded to Miami) Kevin Garnett (traded to Boston) Trenton Hassell (traded to Dallas) Troy Hudson (bought out) Mike James (traded to Houston) Justin Reed (traded to Houston) Bracey Wright (left unrestricted, signed in Greece) Bobbins: You probably want me, or expect me, to burn Kevin McHale in this space, as I have done in the past. But it’s not going to happen. I actually think he’s done a nice job this offseason, all things considering. The reason I say “all things considering”, is that McHale has done a rather nice job of restructuring a team that, apart from New York, was about the hardest possible team to reconstruct. With multiple long and bad contracts, and also with first-round draft picks still owed to Boston and the Los Angeles Clippers, the Timberwolves were roundly screwed. With only a couple of young players worth a damn and with only superstar Kevin Garnett providing any value worth a damn, McHale had only one option – to trade Kevin Garnett and start again. He could have gone the other way, signed a veteran, and made another playoff push, hoping that the impossible would occur and that the Timberwolves would suddenly have enough firepower to rival the West’s best teams. That would have been a stupid thing to do, though, It was also a stupid thing […]
