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 […]
The False Allure Of Multi-Year Contracts
May 8th, 2014
[Originally posted on Hoopsworld, 15th October 2013.] Unguaranteed or partially guaranteed final seasons are quite the trend nowadays in the NBA, and they have these days almost completely superceded team options. In fact, excluding rookie scale contracts, there are only eight team options in the entire league, belonging to Chauncey Billups, Darius Morris, Timofey Mozgov, Marreese Speights, Carrick Felix, Chandler Parsons, Jae Crowder and Rodney Williams. All other contracts referred to in the press as ‘team options’ are, in fact, unguaranteed salaries. 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 percent of the scale amount). Nothing else has to be guaranteed. It is self evident why so many contracts are nonetheless fully guaranteed – players want that, and teams want players to want them. Yet the unguaranteed contract fad has its basis in logic. Essentially, 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) Non-rookie scale 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 on or before 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 it is often the latter, […]
2010 Summer League Rosters: Philadelphia 76ers
July 6th, 2010
Ryan Brooks Ryan Brooks is a shooting guard whose nose is a different colour to the rest of his body. He just graduated from Temple, where he led the team in scoring in his senior season with 14.6 points per game. He also chipped in 4.2 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, while turning it over only 1.2 times, an incredibly solid number. He’s a solid all-around player and a quality college guard; unfortunately, there’s nothing that stands out about his game. Brooks is slightly undersized, a mediocre athlete, a crafty scorer but not a standout shooter, an interested and pretty effective defender without the physical tools to be so at the next level, a man who doesn’t make many mistakes but who doesn’t create much either. That’s a summer league calibre player, but not an NBA calibre player. Not at 6’4, at least. But he’ll make some money in Europe. Ndudi Ebi Sandwiched amongst all their vetoed Timberwolves first rounders from the Joe Smith debacle came Ndudi Ebi, a half-British man who was a first-round draft pick of the team in 2003 out of high school. He did not justify his draft billing and failed to even get to the third season of his rookie contract, but not before a shambolic a moment that saw the Timberwolves ask the NBA if they could send Ebi down to the D-League for his third season, in circumvention of the rule that states only rookies or sophomores can be assigned by teams to the D-League. Their justification for the request? Ebi hadn’t played much, and thus didn’t really have two years experience. The NBA denied the request, and Ebi was waived to accommodate the incoming Ronald Dupree. After leaving the NBA, Ebi spent a couple of years in the D-League (fittingly), playing […]
2009 NBA Summer League round-up: New Jersey Nets/Philadelphia 76ers
July 13th, 2009
To save money, and to add purpose, the Nets and Sixers agreed to share a summer league team this year. It’s not a practice I’m keen on, because I think the more spots given out to random nobodies, the better, and by having only one team that makes 12 less spots for random nobodies. So that’s a shame. But at least they bothered at all, unlike some teams. – A.J. Abrams: Abrams’s college career consisted of three things – decent defence for his size, running around endlessly trying to get open, and then shooting jump shots. And a really bloody college career it was, too. However, Abrams is only 5’11. There are plenty of 6’6 guys who spend their entire careers trying to get NBA teams to notice that they specialise in exactly the same things, and (Kyle Korver excepted) they usually fail. So how likely is Abrams to do the same with his half-a-foot height disadvantage? He isn’t, really. He’s small even for a point guard, but the fact that he’s an off-ball guard counts heavily against him. Heavily. Abrams’ only chance to become an NBA player is to develop his ball-handling ability, and rework himself into a crude Jannero Pargo imitation. But Pargo isn’t exactly a regular rotation player in the NBA himself, so A.J’s chances are very slim. – Jeff Adrien: Adrien was covered in the Grizzlies round-up. It’s pretty industrious of him to have wriggled his way into the summer league rosters of three teams, which really maximises his options. It was also a damn good idea to get onto the Grizzlies and Nets rosters, the two teams with the worst power forward rotations in the league last year. That’ll help his limited chances a bit. And, despite Adrien’s limitations and damaged prospects as […]
2008 NBA Draft Night Diary, Part 2
June 27th, 2008
Part 1 – Pick 16: The awesomely-named Marreese Speights goes to the Sixers. But I missed this pick, too, due to more connection difficulties. Hmmmmm. I should probably move to America if I’m going to take Stu Scott’s job. This whole streaming thing isn’t getting it done. – Pick 17 is made by Toronto for Indiana, as a part of the Jermaine O’Neal deal, which is now being reported as “done”, even though it isn’t. (I’d like to think that Maceo Baston’s inclusion was a deal-breaker.) The Raptors select Roy Hibbert out of Georgetown, and instantly, a video fires up showing Hibbert performing the oft-celebrated Grandad Run™. This can’t be good news, because as we know, grandad runners are not stars, merely gamers who come home every night with mud on their uniform. So if Hibbert isn’t athletic, his life is basically over. But still, at least he’s not Undershirt David Harrison. Of all the people that were invited to sit in the Green Room – a name that seriously needs reviewing, since it’s neither green nor a room – only Darrell Arthur remains. ESPN uses the short interval after the Hibbert pick to take the time to focus on Arthur’s misery, and to really reinforce his humiliation in front of an international audience of millions. I wish they wouldn’t do this. (Someone I know went to the draft as the personal guest of Adam Silver. They inform me that Doris Burke was genuinely concerned about Arthur, comforting his family off-camera, and waiting until after they had had their “moment” to interview them after he was finally drafted. God bless Doris Burke and all who sail within her.) – Pick 18: JaVale McGee goes to the Wizards. David Stern announces that McGee is not here. Question: if you […]
