Max Deal The Way To Go With Irving
May 28th, 2014
(originally published elsewhere) Cleveland committed their future to Kyrie Irving. They picked him first overall, gave him all the reins, and gave him all the plaudits. And yet now there are reports that they do not want to give him a maximum contract extension. Whether or not Irving is worth the maximum salary is not really relevant here. The point is loyalty, and, more importantly, the perception of loyalty. It is not automatically disloyal to offer less than the maximum salary in an extension to a player you (rightly) do not feel is worth it, but to the player and his powerful agent, it is perceived as so. Anything less than undivided love is insufficient love, because the assumption – fuelled by perception – is that undivided love is available elsewhere. If you show anything less than undivided love, you do not show sufficient loyalty. And NBA players are driven by loyalty. Offer them less than the maximum and they will point to all those beforehand in comparable situations who received it. Blake Griffin, for one, or fellow point guards Derrick Rose and John Wall (particularly Wall, who had a long way to go at the time he received his deal, moreso than Rose). It matters not if they are not worth the maximum – the assumption was always that they were going to get it, especially after picking him first overall, openly stating he is the future and the foundation, and when given that they are one of the few bright spots for the franchise in the last three moribund seasons. The fact that the last three years have been poor is partly Irving’s fault, of course, but that is not how this particular process works. It could, then, be a situation headed for a messy divorce. Especially if […]
The Bulls should trade for Andrew Bynum
January 5th, 2014
This article was due to run on Monday on another site. However, it seems as though there can be no delay. Andrew Bynum’s time in Cleveland is all but over. After a poor first few months on the court, in which he has looked awful at times in trying to recover from serious knee problems, a recent suspension for off-court behaviour has seen him essentially placed on gardening leave, while Cleveland tries to find a new home for him and his contract. And they likely will. Cleveland signed Bynum for two reasons. Firstly, to potentially land themselves a quality player at a position of weakness – Bynum’s interior game on both ends once made him one of the best big men in the league, and based on age alone, he should still be short of his prime. And secondly, for the value – even at $24.6 million dollars over two years, Bynum nevertheless represented value if he didn’t work out on the court, based on the nature of his contract. Primarily, though, they wanted him to produce. Bynum, however, has not been able to produce. Save for a couple of strong outings, he has mostly looked like a shadow of his former self, still playing in severe pain and looking just as painful as he is said to be feeling. His inability to play through the kind of severe pain that would lead to most of us taking several months work has unfortunately led to ugly (and apparently open season) speculation about his ‘love’ of the game, for it is always easier to blame someone for things, yet whatever we think of Bynum’s commitment to the game, one thing seems apparent by this time – the former Andrew Bynum, the second best centre in the league, is not coming back. […]
The amount of cap room teams actually have, updated
July 25th, 2013
The previous post attempted to explain how much cap room all NBA teams would (or wouldn’t) actually have in this upcoming free agency period. It was a bit presumptuous. It had to be. Now, we can be reflective. Here’s what’s left. 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. No trades are assumed to be taking place here. Guesswork and speculation aren’t helpful. It is vital – VITAL – that you understand what a “cap hold” is before you read this. An explanation can be found here. Atlanta Hawks Committed salary for 2013/14: $53,314,578 (view full forecast) Possible cap space: $6,878,477. Committed salaries: Al Horford: $12,000,000 Paul Millsap: $9,500,000 Jeff Teague: $8,000,000 Kyle Korver: $6,760,563 Lou Williams: $5,225,000 Elton Brand: $4,000,000 DeShawn Stevenson: $2,240,450 Dennis Schroder: $1,348,200 John Jenkins: $1,258,800 Jared Cunningham: $1,208,400 Shelvin Mack: $884,293 Mike Scott: $788,872 Jeremy Tyler: $100,000 Cap holds: Lucas Nogeira: $1,419,200 Ivan Johnson: $1,250,854 Anthony Tolliver: $884,293 Total: $56,868,925 = $1,810,075 in cap room. This amount can be increased. Stevenson is unguaranteed with no guarantee date, as is Mack, and Scott can be waived for no cost before August 15th. Waive them three, renounce Johnson and Tolliver, and, after adding two roster charges, Atlanta now has cap space of $6,878,477. With a cap room MLE to spend after that. Note, however, that DeMarre Carroll is to be factored in. His signing is agreed upon but not yet finalised, and when it happens, figures are to be adjusted accordingly. Charlotte Bobcats Committed salary for 2013/14: $52,392,131 (view full forecast) Possible cap space: $6,222,408 Committed salary: Al Jefferson: $13,500,000 Ben Gordon: $13,200,000 Ramon Sessions: $5,000,000 Michael Kidd-Gilchrist: $4,809,840 Cody Zeller: $3,857,040 Bismack Biyombo: $3,049,920 Josh McRoberts: […]
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 […]
The Jeremy Pargo trade was a salary dump
July 26th, 2012
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 […]
2010 Summer League Rosters: Cleveland Cavaliers
July 17th, 2010
Jerome Dyson There was a time when averaging 20/5/5 at UConn meant a guarantee to be drafted. Not so for Dyson. For all the scoring numbers, Dyson is far from a complete scorer; for all the assist numbers, Dyson is far from a point guard. And at 6’3, he’ll struggle to be a shooting guard as well. Much of his production comes from the fast break, where he is unbelievably good. He can snake his way to the basket with blistering speed, and finish with athleticism despite his small size. In the half court, however, he can’t get to the basket as readily. This is due in no small part to his jump shot, which doesn’t really exist. And while Dyson has the athletic tools for perimeter defence, he lapses. If he goes to the D-League – and he should, because he’s going to be on the cusp of a call-up – then he could put up similar numbers to that. But without a jump shot, his ridiculously tremendous upside potential is limited. Christian Eyenga When he was drafted at #30 in 2009, Eyenga was playing in the Spanish third division for DKV Joventut’s feeder team, CB Prat Juventud. This season, aged 20, Eyenga made it up to the big club. In 29 AC games for the team, Eyenga averaged 3.9 points, 2.0 rebounds and 0.7 blocks in 12.6 minutes per game, shooting 50% from the floor and 35% from three. Now that LeBron James has left, it’s probably quite comforting to know that a first rounder was used on such an impact player. (Sarcasm aside, Eyenga is starting to get somewhere. For a 20 year old in the ACB, where 20 year olds don’t usually play, that’s not bad.) Marquis Gilstrap Gilstrap was covered in the Bobcats summer league […]
Why Derrick Rose Isn’t Very Good At Drawing Fouls
April 19th, 2010
In game one of the 2010 NBA Playoff series between Chicago and Cleveland on Saturday night, Bulls point guard Derrick Rose shot 13-28 from the field, 0-2 from three-point range, and 2-2 from the foul line, for a total of 28 points on 28 shots. He added 10 rebounds and 7 assists, and generally played well; it was his scoring bursts in the second half that kept what could (and perhaps should) have been a blowout down to a single-figure game for much of the fourth quarter. He also didn’t run away from Mo Williams on defence as much as I thought he might, although this didn’t prevent the rest of the team from doing so. However, had Rose been the beneficiary of some foul calls, his stats would have looked even nicer, and the game would have been even closer. Shooting 28 field goals to only two free throw attempts is not easy to do, even if Rose has done it before, and for a man who takes only pull-up two-point jump shots, floaters and lay-ups, it’s very hard to do. But it happened. And the reasons as to why it may have happened are evident in the following video. (video removed by uploader) Derrick Rose honestly doesn’t get fouled a lot. He tries to avoid contact so as to maximize the percentage of making his shots, and, because of his great athleticism and body control, he is able to do this to great effect. This is the main reason why he doesn’t get to the line much, and also why he shoots such a high percentage. Only one play in this clip is shown from the first half of the game, and in that first half, Derrick Rose took 16 field goals and zero foul shots. This is […]
As you all know, first prize is a Cadillac El Dorado
October 4th, 2009
Training camp. Love it. Ever since I grew up with a mild addiction to the Championship Manager series of computer games, I have nurtured a mild fascination for transactions in sports. I know it’s not healthy, but I also know I’m not alone. It might be harsh on the players involved, but it’s always fun to us hardened losers when players change teams. It gives us something to think about, something to analyse, and something to find important. Judging the people that are competing at the highest standard in a profession we could only dream of competing in is strangely fun, hence the existence of this website and the presence of your eyes on these words. We love it. Maybe we’re crazy. Oh well. – Atlanta have well and truly played the training camp game. Teams are allowed a maximum of 20 players under contract in the offseason, and as of last week, Atlanta had only 12. Yet now they have the full compliment of 20, re-signing two of their own free agents (Mario West and Othello Hunter) and bringing in six more (Aaron Miles, Mike Wilks, Juan Dixon, Frank Robinson, Garrett Siler and Courtney Sims), playing the game in the spirit it deserves. The first four of those latter six are guards, which isn’t a coincidence given the Hawks’ lack of depth there. Miles and Wilks are journeyman point guards with NBA experience, and Dixon can pretend to be one on occasion; in case you missed it, the Hawks are openly in the market for a third point guard. Robinson is an undersized shooting guard who was also with the Hawks in training camp last year, and Siler and Sims represent two decent offensive centre prospects. The eight are fighting for a maximum of three spots, but with […]
Where Are They Now: 2009 NBA Summer League Teams Part 1
September 2nd, 2009
It’s been roughly two months since summer league started, and most of the players involved have been rehomed now. The following is a list of where everybody currently is, or where they might be going. This list gets a bit long, so if you want to just skip to your favoured team, you can do so. I’ll allow that. Boston Celtics – Nick Fazekas: Fazekas has signed in Europe for next year, with Dijon of France. The longer this goes on, the more it looks like Fazekas is never going to get back into the NBA. Even though he led this Celtics summer league team in points and rebounds, the NBA doesn’t seem to want to know. If that continues to happen, it’ll be…..well, it’ll be strange. – J.R. Giddens: Giddens is still with the Celtics, as Boston tried valiantly to convince Indiana that they wanted him as a part of a Marquis Daniels sign and trade. The Pacers refused. – Lester Hudson: Hudson hasn’t signed with the Celtics yet, but it’s likely that he will do. The Celtics really should try and find a veteran backup option first, even if the pickings are pretty slim now. But if they were going to do that, they probably would have done it already. – Coby Karl: Karl remains unsigned. He also played on the Nuggets’ summer league team. The Nuggets are publicly in the market for a good-shooting two guard. Coby Karl is a good-shooting two guard. The Nuggets’ head coach is George Karl. George Karl is Coby Karl’s dad. It’s going to write itself. You can just feel it. – Chris Lofton: Lofton is unsigned, but won’t be returning to Mersin, who have already replaced him with Richie Frahm and Jimmy Baron. – Bryan Mullins: Southern Illinois’s very own […]
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: Cleveland Cavaliers
July 11th, 2009
– Christian Eyenga: Everything I know about Christian Eyenga can be found here. Nothing has happened since then to really advance my knowledge. But I’ll add this unoriginal thought: This is a Cavaliers team that is trying to win now. If you trade for Shaquille O’Neal, you’re trying to win now. They’re the rules. So why then would you take the biggest prospect in the draft with your sole first-round pick? I’m not saying that any of them are brilliant players or substantial difference-makers, but players like Sam Young, Dejuan Blair, Jermaine Taylor….these are potentially useful pieces immediately, and as things stand, the Cavaliers bench is pretty bare. Would it not have been worth taking one of their ilk instead? What is the percentage possibility of Eyenga becoming a better NBA player than these others? I don’t know. But it’d have to be quite a way above 50% to make this make sense. – Jamont Gordon: Jamont Gordon fills up the stat sheet in all categories, but he has his flaws. He’s an inefficient scorer at times, he turns it over too much at others, his own hairline hates him, and he’s short for his scoring skillset. But one of the biggest flaws has always been his jump shot. And, based on last year’s play, it still is. Gordon averaged 11.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.4 steals in 24 minutes per game for Upim Bologna last season, but shot only a below-par 32% from three-point range. He drew a lot of foul shots as per usual, but also missed a lot as per usual, shooting 68% from the stripe. Gordon’s an unconventional kind of smallish guard, and he’s quite a good one, bullish and athletic with some moves in his bag. He’s just going to have to improve his […]
Wayne Simien retires
May 23rd, 2009
Former Kansas star and Miami Heat first-round draft pick Wayne Simien retires from professional basketball, as explained in this email (courtesy of Eurobasket): ‘The family and I are un-jet-lagged, unpacked and officially settled. It is great being back’, said Simien, who lives with his wife and two children in Lawrence. ‘We had a fabulous time in Spain and it was a great cultural experience. I had a good season on the court and we made some really great friends.’ ‘As far as my basketball future is concerned, I am officially retiring from playing professionally. I still love the game of basketball, can play at a high level and make a great living, however I have more of a passion to pursue other things. That passion being for Christian ministry and youth athletics. “I will be ministering through the ‘Called To Greatness’ organization (iamctg.org) that I started last year, as well as working with Morningstar Church ministering to the youth and college students.” Simien had been playing in Spain this past season, for a team called Caceres in the LEB Gold (second division). It wasn’t the greatest standard of basketball in the world, and Caceres only finished 11th with a 15-19 record, but Simien produced, averaging 16.8 points and 8.2 rebounds on 62% shooting in the 15 games that he played. More importantly, the stay in Spain represented a return to basketball and to full health for Simien, who hadn’t played the previous season, and who only played eight games in 2006-07 due to contracting salmonella. This, sadly, is what many people will mainly remember him for. God knows how you catch it twice, but Simien did, and it’s a legacy he probably doesn’t want. Simien’s college career was brilliant, but his NBA career was less so. Drafted by the Heat […]
30 teams in 36 or so days: Cleveland Cavaliers
September 25th, 2007
Players acquired via free agency or trade: No one Players acquired via draft: No one Players retained: Ira Newble (opted in) Players departed: Dwayne Jones (left unrestricted, unsigned), Scot Pollard (signed with Boston) Recap: They didn’t do anything. Next season: So they’re still not good enough.
