The Value of Minimum Contracts In The NBA
May 8th, 2014
[Originally posted on Hoopsworld, 7th October 2013.] The most fun part of preseason is being able to get wildly carried away with the results and performances in the mostly meaningless games. This is particularly true of the performances of individual players who simply were not expected to shine, but did. Two such players have already shown their faces, in Houston’s Omri Casspi and the L.A. Lakers’s Xavier Henry. Casspi shot 9-10 for 20 points on his debut, whilst Henry topped that with 29 in his, an impressive amount for a player whose career high to this point is only 19. Whilst this level of production is obviously not sustainable, Casspi and Henry are set to earn only the minimum salary next season. Casspi’s is fully guaranteed, but Henry’s isn’t even guaranteed for one single dollar. These two players, then, have shown they could potentially be valuable contributors for as good of as value as is possible. Casspi has struggled since his rookie season when he showed true promise as a free roaming off-the-ball offensive player, but who started to succumb to similarly free roaming tendencies defensively. Henry, meanwhile, was nothing short of poor in his first three seasons, struggling badly to make a shot from any portion of the court, not being able to create any, and not being consistent with his potentially good defence. There’s a reason these players were available for so cheap – they weren’t working out, and multiple teams had given up on them ever doing so. However, this doesn’t mean the players are, or suddenly became, talentless. Casspi and Henry were first-round picks as recently as four and three years ago, respectively, and are 25 and 22 years old. There is still some talent in the fire. Someone just needs to throw a log on […]
2008 NBA Finals Talk
June 10th, 2008
By unpopular demand, I won’t talk about baseball. Instead, I’ll talk about basketball. I shall retread the observations of the hundreds of other writers who are covering the subject, while adding no unique spin. It’s how we roll around here. 1) There’s no reason why Lamar Odom shouldn’t be able to defend Kevin Garnett better than he does. None whatsoever. He has the length to bother his jump shots as well as anyone can bother them, the athleticism to prevent any easy drives to the basket, and the reasonable man-to-man post defence to cope with the rare times that Garnett plays back to the basket. But he doesn’t do it that well. And not only does he struggle at it, but he doesn’t do it much at all, as Pau Gasol seems to end up with the assignment a lot of the time. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Also, this is somewhere where Andrew Bynum would come in handy. 2) Something that also doesn’t make a lot of sense is Vlad Rad starting and playing as much as he is. I understand the Lakers’ need for shooting and spacing. I do. But Radmanovic is bad in all other aspects of the game. (His rebounding numbers in this series have been quite good, but try and think of a single Radmanovic rebound. You can’t – they were all gimmies that his replacement could have gotten, too.) And when you’re matched up against a team that starts Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Garnett at the 2-3-4 spots, you’re left with the unattractive prospect of having Radmanovic guarding one of those three, particularly when Kobe Bryant spends so much time on Rajon Rondo. And Radmanovic just can’t do that. Leave him in as a token starter if you must, but […]
