Market Adjustment: Good NBA big men are bargains right now
August 27th, 2018
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 […]
Sham’s 2010 NBA Draft Night Recap, Part 2
June 27th, 2010
Part One (that’s a link) Due to the length of this post, I have included links so that you can skip to specific picks, if you want. Of course, you may want to read all of it. Or….none of it. 31 – 32 – 33 – 34 – 35 – 36 – 37 – 38 – 39 – 40 – 41 – 42 – 43 – 44 – 45 – 46 – 47 – 48 – 49 – 50 – 51 – 52 – 53 – 54 – 55 – 56 – 57 – 58 – 59 – 60 The following players will be second-round steals: Artisom Parakhouski, Terrico White, Devin Ebanks, Solomon Alabi, Latavious Williams, Jerome Randle, Hamady N’Diaye, Samardo Samuels and Stanley Robinson. The following people will not be second round steals: Sherron Collins. Pick 31: Atlanta get at least five minutes to make the 31st pick, although it’s nearer fifteen minutes by the time deputy commissioner Adam Silver makes it out. When he does, Silver is greeted to the biggest cheer of the night, and takes it well with a wave and a big grin. The man who looks like a freshly-goosed Henry Abbott then announces that Atlanta, who obtained the 31st pick from New Jersey in the Damion James/Jordan Crawford swap, use it to draft German big man Tibor Pleiss. Pleiss takes almost the full two minutes just to make it to the podium. He waits twenty seconds before even standing to acknowledge his selection, and then is forcefully dragged to the stage by an angry-looking official that kind of looks like Dale Davis. Before he’s even got to the stage, Pleiss has been sold; the Hawks have decided to sell his draft rights to the Oklahoma City Thunder. Fittingly, the Thunder (in their Sonics guise) […]
