Ten Of The Best New Contracts This Offseason
May 8th, 2014
[Originally published on Hoopsworld, 23rd 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. Here, in no particular order, are ten of the best ones from this past offseason: Paul Millsap – Atlanta Hawks Millsap signed with Atlanta for two years at $9.5 million per year, a significant chunk of cap space for a team who have worked so diligently to cut as much payroll as possible. Reversing the direction of the franchise is initially tough to reconcile, yet it is worth it because of how good of value his deal represents. Millsap is signed to an amount comparable to his talent, for a short period of time. His deal only being two years long is of big help to the Hawks, both on their court and potentially on other teams. He provides Atlanta with the talent boost that will keep them out of the cellar – if you want bums on seats, you need that – while this contract makes him extremely tradeable. Millsap is a valued commodity around the league as a quality, versatile, two-way role player, and by getting him at the right price, Atlanta put themselves in a position to take advantage of that. And as long as they do, he’ll help them significantly as a player. Even rebuilding teams need that. Matt Barnes & Darren Collison – Los Angeles Clippers The two are listed together as they were both acquired via the non-taxpayer mid-level exception. On his first substantial multi-year contract, Barnes will earn $3.25 million next year with one further guaranteed year, while Collison gets the remaining $1.9 million. Collison comes from Dallas where he was somewhat exposed as […]
30 teams in 36 or so days: Milwaukee Bucks
September 15th, 2007
Players acquired via free agency or trade: Desmond Mason (two years, $10.4 million) Jake Voskuhl (one year, $3 million) Awvee Storey (one year minimum) Players acquired via draft: First round: Yi Jianlian (6th overall) Second round: Ramon Sessions (56th overall) Players retained: Maurice Williams (re-signed, six years, $51.263 million) Players departed: Ersan Ilyasova (signed in Spain, rights retained), Charlie Bell (unsigned, rights retained for now), Damir Markota (waived on general principle, see blog entry), Earl Boykins (opted out, unsigned), Jared Reiner (signed in Spain), Ruben Patterson (signed with Clippers), Brian Skinner (team option declined, unsigned) Bobbins: It’s difficult to convey how I feel about the Bucks offseason and recent past without stealing too much directly from my own recent blog entry. So that’s exactly what I’ll do. After a poor 2004-05 season in which they finished with a disappointing 30-52 record, the Bucks beat long odds to win the lottery, and also had maximum cap room available to them. This offseason, they once again had potentially maximum cap room, and a high pick (#6) in a supposedly powerhouse draft. And once again, they have not taken advantage. 2005’s offseason yielded Andrew Bogut with the first overall pick, one of the better players of a weak draft but far from the best. The cap space was spent on re-signing Michael Redd to a maximum contract (decide amongst yourselves whether it was worth it), signing the Most Improved Player of the previous season (Bobby Simmons) to a $46.4 million contract only to then see him miss one season and disappoint in the next, and re-signing Dan Gadzuric to a considerably overpriced deal, all while letting the younger, cheaper and better Zaza Pachulia sign with Atlanta, unchallenged. This offseason brought much of the same. They signed another starting small […]
