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 amount of cap room teams will actually have
June 8th, 2013
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. NOTE: All cap space amounts are calculated to an estimated salary cap of $58.5 million. This inexact figure is the most recent (and thus accurate) projection released yet, and will suffice for now. When the actual amount is calculated/announced, the sums below will be altered accordingly. 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: $22,497,415 (view full forecast) Projected cap space: At most, $35,504,580, but not really. If Atlanta renounce (or lose) Josh Smith, and renounce their remaining free agents (Kyle Korver, Devin Harris, Zaza Pachulia, Johan Petro, Ivan Johnson, Jeff Teague, Dahntay Jones, Hilton Armstrong, Erick Dampier, Etan Thomas, Randolph Morris and Anthony Tolliver), waive DeShawn Stevenson ($2,240,450, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date), Shelvin Mack ($884,293, fully unguaranteed with no guarantee date) and Mike Scott ($788,872, fully unguaranteed until August 15th, thereafter $100,000 guaranteed) and sell or renounce their first-round draft picks (#17 and #18, cap holds of $1,348,200 and $1,280,800), they will have a cap number of $22,995,420 (the committed salary plus nine minimum salary roster charges of $490,180 for having less than twelve things on the cap). (If you want to get really absurd, they could even amnesty Al Horford. Hypotheticals are fun.) This is, however, a maximum amount. And it’s not a realistic one. Smith’s cap hold will be equal to the maximum amount for a nine year veteran, and, while this amount will not be known until the new salary cap figure is determined, a slight increase in the cap will mean a slight […]
Bookkeeping The Retired Guys, 2013 Edition
March 19th, 2013
Every now and then, it’s fun to comb through the list of recently retired players (almost, but not quite exclusively, NBA ones), and track down their current post-playing career whereabouts. The last such list was compiled two years ago and is rather out of date now, so here’s a fresh one. Tariq Abdul-Wahad – Abdul-Wahad is now the head coach at Lincoln high school in San Jose. Shareef Abdur-Rahim – Still the Kings assistant general manager. Last year returned to university to finish the degree he left unfinished 16 years earlier. Maurice Ager – Ager hasn’t played since a four game stint with the Timberwolves at the very start of the 2010/11 season. Instead, he’s turned to music, and is now a producer and occasional rapper. Ager’s first album, “Moe Town,” was released last month; here’s a video clip of a bonus track, called “Pistons.” You’ll recognise one sample. Briefly mentioned at the end is “Sports ‘n’ Music”, a radio show Ager also hosts. Here’s an episode of that. Cory Alexander – Last time we checked in, Alexander had had some problems. He’d lost all his money, and was suing Bank of America to get it back, claiming it was their fault. It is unclear how successful this action was. But what is clear is that Alexander turned his occasional commentary role on Virginia games into a bigger media career, and is now an analyst and announcer on the ACC Network. Courtney Alexander – Now coaching high school basketball at Dominion Christian High School in Marietta, Georgia. Alexander also still runs his not-for-profit, Georgia Press, although the website has changed location since last time. It now points to a subdirectory of imsopure.com. Alrighty then. Derek Anderson – After initially going quiet in retirement, Anderson has made numerous waves in the […]
Bulls might waive Nate Robinson to save money (and possibly for another reason, one for which I have no evidence)
December 19th, 2012
K.C. Johnson reports that the Bulls, despite being a number four seed without having their MVP on the court, are sorely tempted to waive Nate Robinson. In one of the most unheralded high quality moves of the summer – unheralded because the dominant Bullsean narrative of the summer was rightly one of cost-cutting and player-dumping – the Bulls were able to sign Robinson to not only a minimum salary contract, but a partially guaranteed one at that. Of the $1,146,337 Nate is owed – an amount which, if he’s kept for the full season, the Bulls will owe only $854,389 of – only $400,000 is guaranteed, becoming fully guaranteed if not waived on or before January 1st [not the 10th, as reported elsewhere]. In an industry where the permanent goal is to sign as good as quality of player as is possible for as cheap of a price as is possible, this is an incredibly good contract. The institutional maligning of Nate as a player that dates back years cannot (or should not) ignore the fact that he’s a hugely talented player who can single handedly turn the outcome of NBA games. And the Bulls should know this, because he’s done that more than once for them this season. The move would be, of course, patently ridiculous. Even if the season was a wash, you don’t waive a most vital contributor to save on what, by NBA standards, is a nominal fee, and by no standard is the season proving to be a wash in the first place. Nate is third on the Bulls in PER, the only man who can consistently create a shot off the dribble in Rose’s absence, arguably the team’s best ball handler, its only creative backcourt player, and one of its best shooters. He’s even […]
Nazr Mohammed and Trade Kickers
December 4th, 2012
Even though he signed a one year minimum salary contract using the Minimum Salary Exception, Nazr Mohammed has a 15% trade kicker in his current contract. Trade kickers in contracts are somewhat rare. They are particularly rare in small contracts, as becomes obvious upon a study of the current trade kickers in the league today: Ray Allen – 15% – $3,090,000 Andrea Bargnani – 5% – $10,000,000 Nic Batum – 15% – $10,825,000 Chris Bosh – 15% – $17,545,000 Jose Calderon – 10% – $10,561,982 Vince Carter – 10% – $3,090,000 Tyson Chandler – lesser of 8% or $500,000 – $13,604,188 Pau Gasol – 15% – $19,000,000 Manu Ginobili – 5% – $14,107,492 Eric Gordon – 15% – $13,668,750 Blake Griffin – 15% – trade kicker is in his extension, beginning next year Udonis Haslem – 15% – $4,060,000 Roy Hibbert – 15% – $13,668,750 LeBron James – 15% – $17,545,000 Amir Johnson – 5% – $6,000,000 DeAndre Jordan – 15% – $10,532,977 Brook Lopez – 15% – $13,668,750 Robin Lopez – 15% – $4,899,293 Shawn Marion – 15% – $8,646,364 O.J. Mayo – 15% – $4,020,000 Mike Miller – 15% – $5,800,000 Nazr Mohammed – 15% – $1,352,181 (cap number of $854,389) Steve Nash – 15% – $8,900,000 Derrick Rose – 15% – $16,402,500 Josh Smith – 15% – $13,200,000 Jason Terry – 7.5% – $5,000,000 Jason Thompson – 5% – $5,250,000 Anderson Varejao – 5% – $8,368,182 Dwyane Wade – 15% – $17,182,000 Deron Williams – 15% – $17,177,795 Metta World Peace – 15% – $7,258,960 Furthermore, many of those trade kickers are in contracts that are already paying the maximum salary to the relevant player. As kickers cannot be used to increase a salary to an amount greater than the max, those kickers are thus pretty much […]
Addendum to Teague story: the Bulls's salary cap picture, and how it came to be
August 2nd, 2012
When the new maximum salary figures came in, Derrick Rose’s 2012/13 maximum salary contract went from $15,506,632 to $16,402,500, an increase of as-near-as-is $900,000. Luol Deng’s salary went down by $60,000, but that barely offsets the increases, and it’s an increase that put the Bulls right up against the “apron”. After all the roster turnover, the Bulls breakdown of 2012/13 salaries currently looks like this: Derrick Rose: $16,402,500Carlos Boozer: $15,000,000Luol Deng: $13,305,000Joakim Noah: $11,300,000Richard Hamilton: $5,000,000Kirk Hinrich: $3,941,000Taj Gibson: $2,155,811Marco Belinelli: $1,957,000Jimmy Butler: $1,066,920Nazr Mohammed: $854,389Vladimir Radmanovic: $854,389Nate Robinson: $854,389Total: $72,691,398. Only listed above is committed salary, not any cap holds. Cap holds aren’t relevant at this juncture. What is relevant is how much the Bulls have left to spend.The process by which the Bulls put together that roster is more important here than usual. The new CBA created a level, known colloquially as the ‘apron’, which subjects any team with a payroll above that level to further payroll restrictions. The line exists $4 million above the luxury tax threshold of $70,307,000, so the Bulls are not over it. It is more important to note, however, that there is absolutely no way they can now go over it, because of what they have done thus far. The Non-Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception cannot be used by teams over the apron, or by teams who would finish above the apron upon using it. Also, if you DO use it, you can’t then go over the apron under any circumstances. The same is all also true of the Bi-Annual Exception. And the Bulls have used both – Hinrich received $3.941 million of the $5 million MLE, while Belinelli got the full BAE. Proximity to the apron – which, it bears repeating, they CANNOT now go over – is now the Bulls’s major problem. They […]
Marquis Teague is still unsigned, and you're probably not going to like why
August 1st, 2012
Of the 30 first rounders drafted in June, 29 have signed their rookie scale contracts. There are to be no international draft-and-stashes in the first round this year; 29 are signed and ready to play in the NBA next year, while the other one should be. The 30th player, the lone unsigned warrior, is Marquis Teague. He was drafted 29th overall, and while the 28 ahead of him (and Festus Ezeli behind him) have all been signed, Teague still awaits his first NBA contract. He has not been renounced, a la Travis Knight back in the day, but he also has yet to sign. As most people are aware of in these days of increased cap transparency, first contracts for first-round draft picks are (for their first three years after being drafted, at least) bound by the amounts set forth in the rookie salary scale. This is true no matter what your salary cap situation is. The 29th pick in the 2012 NBA draft has a rookie scale amount of $857,000 in the first year – the only scope for negotiation that teams, players and agents have is being able to sign for as much as 120% or as little as 80% of that. In practice, almost everybody gets the 120%, even when drafted late. The exceptions to this are very few and far between. But there have been some. In the doing I’ve been doing this, there’s been all of seven. Sergio Rodriguez signed for only 100% in 2006, while the next year, Ian Mahinmi got only 80% in year one, rising to 100% in later years. Donte Greene got only 100% in 2008, whilst the man drafted two picks above him, George Hill, got 120% in his first two years then only 80% in the last two (an […]
Omer Asik should still be a Bull (and Landry Fields should still be a Knick)
July 28th, 2012
Omer Asik is now officially a Rocket, his offer sheet (identical to that of Jeremy Lin’s) going unmatched by Chicago. This gives Houston an absolute defensive wall at the centre position, someone who last year was one of the best defensive big men in the league. On a par with Dwight Howard and Tyson Chandler, albeit in considerably less time. We’ll see how well this holds up when he becomes a 25mpg+ player outside of the comfort of Tom Thibodeau’s defensive system; nevertheless, by paying him upon a highly favourable prediction of future performance, Houston got their guy, someone who can now break out akin to how Joel Przybilla did at the same age, if not better. Asik’s value to Houston is more than it would ever have been to Chicago, which is why an expense that is difficult to justify for one team is much easier to justify for the other. In a situation very similar to that of Marcin Gortat and Orlando three years ago, Chicago had an awesome backup centre, and knew it, yet the secret was out. And while Houston could pay Asik to be a starter, Chicago couldn’t. Their self-imposed budgetary restrictions, combined with the presence of having a better player in front of him (and one with whom Asik has an ill-fitting skillset, making it unlikely the two could ever play alongside each other), made it a tough ask to match. While Carlos Boozer’s contract is the problem, losing others is its solution, and with Taj Gibson similarly up for a pay day, the Bulls had to choose between the two. They went for the better two-way player. The choice Chicago faced concerned whether to play $8.3 million a season to a player you can only play 15 minutes per game until the guy […]
Without Looking, Guess Which Seven Teams Have Never Paid The Luxury Tax
July 26th, 2012
……OK, now look. I have compiled a spreadsheet containing to-the-dollar information on all luxury tax paid to date. In the 11 seasons since the luxury tax was created, it has been applicable in nine seasons; in those nine seasons, 23 NBA franchises have paid over $850 million in payroll excess. The exact details can be found here. Click to view spreadsheet.Please use the spreadsheet freely for resource purposes, and feel equally free to suggest any improvements. However, please do not just take it, and if you do cite its data somewhere, please acknowledge its source. While the content is not my IP, I did spend a bloody long time sourcing the relevant information, and in return, I seek only credit for that. Thank you.
Orlando's TPEs
July 26th, 2012
Before the sign-and-trade of Ryan Anderson to New Orleans, Orlando had one TPE, totalling $4.25 million, created in the Glen Davis/Brandon Bass trade of last offseason. That $4.25 million TPE is set to expire on December 12th. Orlando used some of that TPE in the Anderson deal to absorb the returning salary of the criminally overlooked Gustavo Ayon, who is to earn $1.5 million this season. The Bass TPE, then, is now $2.75 million big, and thus can be used between now and December 12th to absorb incoming player salaries of $2.85 million (as $100,000 leeway is allowed with TPE’s). By absorbing Ayon with the Bass TPE, Orlando were essentially trading out Anderson with no incoming salary. This then meant another TPE was created equal to the amount of Anderson’s outgoing salary. The issue is what that amount is. Anderson signed a deal that will pay him exactly $8.7 million next season – however, whilst the concept of Base Year Compensation (which now isn’t called that, or indeed call anything, but which term will suffice here) was largely eradicated in the latest CBA, it does still apply to sign-and-trade deals. The basic principle of BYC is that, if a team signs and trades a player using Bird or early Bird rights, and the player receives a raise in the first year of the new contract greater than 20% in the first year of the new deal over the last year of his previous one, then his outgoing salary is deemed to be only half of his actual salary. Anderson earned only $2,244,601 last year, so he easily earned more than a 20% raise, and thus is BYC-eligible. His actual salary of $8.7 million was therefore assessed to be $4.35 million for the purposes of the trade calculations, and thus 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 […]
2011/12 Luxury Tax Payers
July 25th, 2012
Here is the official list of tax paying teams, and their amounts paid, in the 2011/12 NBA season. Los Angeles Lakers: $12,557,264. Boston Celtics: $7,365,867. Miami Heat: $6,129,340. Dallas Mavericks: $2,738,843. San Antonio Spurs: $2,514,275. Atlanta Hawks: $666,199. Total: $31,971,788 By opting to keep Jerry Stackhouse for the full year, then, Atlanta paid the price. It is of note that that is the smallest amount of league-wide tax paid in any season since its inception, and by quite a long way. The previous lowest was the $55,564,006 paid in 2006-07. And in that season, $45,142,002 of that bill was New York’s.
Tim Duncan also may or may not be about to get a pay rise
July 22nd, 2012
This post is essentially an addendum to this previous post. That post talked about an NBA contract that had accidentally been created and ratified in violation of a Collective Bargaining Agreement. Specifically, it talked about Zach Randolph and the Memphis Grizzlies. It appears now, however, that that is not the only instance of the rule in question being violated. The rule in question – whereby the salary in a player option year cannot be for less than that of the year immediately preceding it, explained at much greater length in the previous post – also appears to be broken in the case of Tim Duncan and the San Antonio Spurs. Per official league salary figures, Duncan’s new contract, signed this month, calls for salaries of $9,638,554 in 2012/13, $10,361,446 in 2013/14, and an even $10 million in 2014/15. The final year is a player option year, NOT a year immediately following an early termination option (again see previous post), and thus the salary in the 2014/15 season should not be any lower than the $10,361,446 of the season before it. It appears, however, that it is. It was previously said that it is very rare to see the league make a mistake on a matter such as this, and it still is. But to make the same one twice is even more so.
Zach Randolph may or may not be about to get a pay rise
July 19th, 2012
In April 2011, Zach Randolph received a four year, $66 million extension that will pay him through the 2015 season. Notwithstanding the very valid arguments that a man who doesn’t have any athleticism in the first place is going to decline slower than most, and that Memphis have to pay particularly big dollars in order to retain quality their quality players, it is unmistakably a big contract. The contract called for a $15.2 million salary in 2011/12, a $16.5 million salary in 2012/13, a $17.8 million salary in 2013/14, and a $16.5 million salary in 2014/15, which is also a player option year. The vast majority of contracts around the league increase in their every year, yet, aside from a couple of particular instances (contracts signed with either rookie scale exception or the minimum salary exception), this doesn’t have to be the case. Contracts can go up, down, stay flat, or some combination thereof, as freely as the signing parties so choose and if done in accordance with the acceptable parameters. (The maximum increase percentages are the same as the maximum decrease percentages.) Zach’s contract structure makes sense. The Grizzlies, clearly, are trying to reconcile their hefty salary bill in the coming few seasons with the fact that Zach’s play will decline towards the back end of the deal, facts that the staggered contract structure seeks to partially alleviate. However, in doing so, they seem to have accidentally violated a CBA rule. It is important to express at this point that Randolph’s 2014/15 contract is officially listed as a player option year, and not an early termination option. It is often expressed that the two are by and large the same – including repeatedly by this website – and they are. They are both seasons within a contract that only […]
2012 NBA Draft Diary
June 30th, 2012
Somehow, we salvaged an NBA season out of that lockout. It was good, too. Whether you liked the outcome or not, the storylines – the good guy/bad guy Finals, of LeBron finally winning, the brief Celtics resurgence and the unflappable-until-they-were-flapped Spurs – wrote themselves rather nicely. As soon as that weren’t supposed to happen go, that one was pretty good. Of course, to get to that point, we have to suffer through a lot. The lockout burned and burned badly, a scarring five months of indecisiveness and stagnancy that sullied reputations and left thousands out of pocket. Worse still, the party stopped. The NBA and the Players Union refused to give up their seats to pregnant women, gave Chinese burns to school children and punched puppies in the face, so determined were they to ruin everyone’s fun. After achieving a great high in the 2010/11 season, the NBA decided it had to hurt itself. Regardless of what happened in the past, though, we now get to look forward. The NBA Draft of last year had something of a Thelma and Louise feel to it, yet despite driving itself off that cliff, the NBA still lives on. This year’s draft will be more of a Disney epic, or a Steve Carell comedy caper. Men and women will fall in love. Anthropomorphic animals will smile and embrace and then go on impossibly happy jaunts to soothing walking-away music. Everything will resolve itself in the happiest possible way from the most unlikely scenario. And no one will die. Maybe. (This post is long. Very long. If you don’t have 90 minutes to kill, skip to a certain pick number below. Once there, click the pick number to return to the top) 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – […]
What does amateur football do right that professional basketball can’t?
February 24th, 2012
On New Year’s Day, I stood in a field and got rained on for two hours, in what must have been most rainswept match in the history of football that was somehow never called off for a rain. In a pitch so waterlogged that sliding tackles went on for upwards of 15 metres, Tonbridge Angels drew 1-1 with Bromley FC in a tight, competitive and bloody soaking Blue Square Bet South proverbial six pointer, amidst a day-long rain storm that saw the car park get flooded, the pitch get destroyed, and my shoes get slightly soggy. The link to basketball will follow shortly. Some 905 of us foolhardy, brave, somewhat heroic souls braved these horrific conditions, and paid our £12 for the privilege of watching a game which neither team won. (And 904 of us manage to do so without being hit by the ball and knocked on our arse. No prizes for guessing who that was.) The travelling Bromley faithful had come all the way from Bromley for the occasion, a distance determined to be 25.5 miles by the AA Route Planner, while half the town of Tonbridge made the walk across town to watch their beloved Angels, just as they did the week before, just as they did the week after, just as they will do next week. All to watch a bunch of amateurs, who double on the side as manual labourers and management consultants, play a determined but unattractive style of football that culminated in nobody actually winning. The Blue Square Bet South is a semi-professional standard of football that is only on the sixth tier of the English football system. It wasn’t exactly a demonstration of how ‘the beautiful game’ can be when played at its best. Therein, however, lies the pertinence to basketball. Why […]
Creative Financing in the NBA, 2011
January 20th, 2012
The only beardless picture of Rashard Lewis I could find. It’s a part of him now. “Creative financing.” A fun term, one that’s actually employed by financiers and accountants, yet one brought into the world of the NBA when it was used, once, in a pre-emptive justification for one of the least creatively financed transactions of a generation. Nevertheless, even if the man who gave reverence to the phrase isn’t the role model for its usage, creative financing does exist in the NBA. Or at least, it did.In amongst the lockout, the protracted negotiations, and the almost complete loss of a season/confidence in the NBA’s product, a new Collective Bargaining Agreement was drawn up that sought to curb spending, introduce more payroll parity, and get the league back into the black. For those of us who enjoy looking at, and looking for, means to creatively manipulate, it was a confusing time. Of course, some teams acted like nothing had happened. Detroit gave $25.5 million to Rodney Stuckey to come back, gave $18 million to Jonas Jerebko to come back, gave $28 million to Tayshaun Prince to come back, and gave $14.5 million to Rip Hamilton to go away, committed as they were to retaining the core of a team that’s gone 57-107 over the last two seasons. Meanwhile, Philadelphia spent only what it cost to re-sign Thaddeus Young and replace Darius Songaila with Nikola Vucevic; hamstrung as they were by incumbent contracts, the team had too little wiggle room to do very much, something which will likely continue to be the case for the final 18 months of the Elton Brand era. Most others, however, recognised the changing environment, and were willing (or able) to adapt accordingly. Perhaps the most prominent example of this is the defending champion, Dallas Mavericks. […]
Summer Signings, Round 1
July 4th, 2011
In lieu of having any NBA transactions to talk about, we’ll look at the world at large instead. Of all the players to have finished last season on an NBA roster, six have already signed abroad. One of the first to go was Mustaka Shakur, who started the year with the New Orleans Hornets and ended it with the Washington Wizards. For whatever reason, the Wizards did not offer him a qualifying offer, seemingly moving on from Shakur’s prolonged tryout. He thus moved to France to sign with Pau Orthez, the fallen giant who continue to rebuild. Also signing in France was Hilton Armstrong, a somewhat forgettable inclusion in the Kirk Hinrich trade whose NBA days might now be numbered. In five years of trying, Armstrong has never demonstrated much NBA talent outside of having a long neck; given that he spent much of those five years in the New Orleans Hornets rotation, he can’t lament not being given an opportunity. When he signed with the Wizards, Armstrong said he wanted to be a starter. He may now be one, but it’ll be in France. (ASVEL have a strong youth regime that often churns out good prospects. Bangaly Fofana, whose starting spot Armstrong looks likely to take, was a draft-and-stash prospect in the most recent draft, albeit a faint one, and Edwin Jackson is a solid candidate for next year’s one. But if Jackson is a legitimate draft candidate, or if Fofana had been picked 59th this year instead of Adam Hanga, isn’t it a conflict of interest for them to be taken by the Spurs? After all, Tony Parker is the Spurs’s starting point guard, and also ASVEL’s Vice President of Basketball Operations with a 20% shareholding. Even if it is done with the very best of intentions, isn’t […]
What Happened Prior to July 1st Other Than A Bunch Of Ultimately Unproductive CBA Negotiations
July 2nd, 2011
Even though a lockout is upon us, one which might last us through until the very end of existence in late 2012, there’s still some bookkeeping to be done. July 1st is (or should be) the date on which one season ends and the next one begins, and thus June 30th is an important cut-off date for certain transactions. Players with player or early termination options had to decide if they were coming back; the few players with team options awaited an uncertain future; players eligible for QO’s had to see if they got them. We also had the added bonus of 2012/13 team options for rookie scale contracts being decided considerably earlier than usual – after all, when the usual end of October deadline comes around, the lockout may still be going on. All the results are in now, however, and there follows a list of who did what before July 1st. The following players opted in: – Boston = Ray Allen – Charlotte = Boris Diaw – Cleveland = Ryan Hollins – Golden State = Charlie Bell and Louis Amundson – L.A. Clippers = Brian Cook – L.A. Lakers = Matt Barnes – Miami = Eddie House and Zydrunas Ilgauskas – New York = Ronny Turiaf – Phoenix = Mickael Pietrus – San Antonio = Tim Duncan – Toronto = Leandro Barbosa The following players opted out: – Denver = Nene – L.A. Lakers = Shannon Brown (who has now completed the rare achievement of doing this in consecutive seasons) – Miami = James Jones – New Orleans = Aaron Gray and David West The following players had their 2011/12 team options exercised: – Houston = Goran Dragic – Memphis = Sam Young – Utah = C.J. Miles The following players had their team options declined: – Sacramento […]
2011 NBA Draft Diary
June 25th, 2011
David Stern and Billy Hunter drive towards a cliff. Hand down, man down. After one of the best seasons ever comes one of the worst drafts ever. With the NBA riding a wave of talent, a draft comes along that sees not a lot more talent being added. There’s no getting around the fact that, relative to years past, the talent level of this draft is not very good. There’s also no getting around the fact that this is the last dollop of NBA we are going to see for a while. There’s going to be a lockout starting in nine days time; after today, everything is into the realms of the unknown. That fact will make this draft the last NBA action in the foreseeable future. It also will make children cry. This is what they want. They want your children to cry. The former of these things makes the draft a bit of a downer. But the latter of these things actually makes it more exciting. When you can only get one more taste of something before it is taken away from you forever, then you’re going to enjoy that final thing. This is the reason behind Death Row last meals, and was also a key philosophical plot vehicle within the seminally dreadful movie, Thelma And Louise. With the impending stench of bureaucratic disappointment blowing gustily in our face, dammit, we’re going out in style. (This post is long. Very long. If you don’t have 90 minutes to kill, skip to a certain pick number below. Once there, click the pick number to return to the top) 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – 16 […]
Sham’s unnecessarily great big draft board: Power forwards
June 23rd, 2011
(Listed in no order other than the order they were thought of.) Enes Kanter – There is very little to know about Enes Kanter, for the man has played very little. In the 2008-09 season, aged only 16, Kanter made some infrequent appearances in the Fenerbahce first team, appearing in spot minutes of 9 games. That summer, he appeared at the under-18 European Championships, and absolutely tore them up, averaging 18.6 points and 16.4 rebounds in only 28.4 minutes per game. This is especially impressive considering that, in one game, Kanter recorded only 2 points and 1 rebound. The previous summer, Kanter had averaged 22.9 points and 16.5 rebounds per game at the Under-16 championships, on yet more dangerously efficient shooting. And then came the whole Kentucky debacle. Because of the Kentucky debacle, Kanter has played nothing but practice and at the high school level since those championships. He dominated in those championships as a man amongst boys, which is fine, but it does raise concerns about what he’s like as a man amongst men. Without much to go on other than some tape, it is hard to answer. But the tapes are highly favourable. By all accounts, he is really very good. I am not about to dispute that. Bismack Biyombo – Biyombo exploded onto the scene by leading the ACB in shot blocks, by a long way, at an age when players rarely appear in that league at all. He recorded 2.3 blocks per game last season – tied for second place were crafty veteran D’Or Fisher, currently of Real Madrid, and the man Biyombo backed up, upstart late blooming Argentinian big man Gustavo Ayon (who has had a hell of a year, but we’ll save that for another day). Biyombo put up his 2.3 blocks in only […]
Sham’s unnecessarily great big draft board: Small forwards
June 23rd, 2011
(Listed in no order other than the order they were thought of.) Derrick Williams’s underarm hair. Derrick Williams – From a barely recruited forgettable college prospect to one of of the best current NBA prospects in only two short years, Williams has had quite the stretch, And he has the potential for more. Williams is a combo and/or positionless forward with good small forward size (6’8), a tweener’s game, yet terrific athleticism. He is strong, big enough, runs the court, creates in the post, creates off the dribble, can shoot from mid-range, can shoot from three, has good hands, can pass (although he should do it more), rebounds in big numbers, defend the post, and defend the perimeter. He is unfathomably productive, averaging 19/8 in only 29 minutes, with a PER of 32.5 and a true shooting percentage of over 70%. He even shot 57% from three. Williams does a bit of everything to startling efficient levels, and nothing about his physical profile says that it won’t translate. The current rumour state that Minnesota – a team who either place absolutely no value on holding their cards close to their chest, or who have laid the most intricate series of double bluffs in modern history – are threatening to take Enes Kanter at #2 instead of Williams, the assumed logical candidate. This is unless they can trade the pick, which they have been remarkably up front about doing. The latest rumour seems them trying (and maybe yet succeeding) to trade the #2 to Atlanta in exchange for Josh Smith. I can get on board with a trading of the pick (and, by proxy, Williams), but not necessarily in that deal. Because Williams may yet become the equal of Josh Smith. So stick with the younger, cheaper guy. And stop making […]
Sham's unnecessarily great big draft board: Shooting Guards
June 23rd, 2011
(Listed in no order other than the order they were thought of.) I want to see this afro grown out, Marshon. It has as much upside as you do. Marshon Brooks – Brooks was the second highest scorer in the nation, although this was largely ignored until a 52 point outburst against Notre Dame (in a game that his Providence team still lost). That, the subsequent scrutiny, and the final workout cycle, has seem his stock continue to grow. It is self-evident that Brooks is a highly talented scorer, although he is not flawless. Brooks’s 24.6 points per game came on a very tidy 48.3% shooting, but the pace of play that the Friars played was a factor in that, and that pace also biases his 7.0 rebounds per game average. He’s mainly a scorer from the mid-range area (mainly via pull-ups or turnaround jumpers) and the free throw line (due to his aggression), as even though he takes more than six three pointers per game, he is not especially good at them right now, hitting only 34% of them. Brooks can defend with the best of them when he wants to, as evidenced by his 1.5 steals and 1.2 blocks per game averages, but he doesn’t always want to, only sometimes applying himself in that end. And the common theme amongst all this is discipline – Brooks takes bad shots, makes bad decisions, doesn’t always play hard, complains, and gives sometimes intermittent defensive effort. Nevertheless, an apologist could blame that on the wider struggles and ill-discipline of the rest of his team, and the apologist may well be right. You could say that Brooks was emblematic of the team’s chucking, defensively-disinterested ways, or you could say he was held back by them and a coaching staff that didn’t instill […]
Sham’s unnecessarily great big draft board: Point guards
June 22nd, 2011
(Listed in no order other than the order they were thought of.) You’d look happy if you were about to go first overall, too. Kyrie Irving – Irving is this draft’s most complete player, which is why he will inevitably be the first overall pick. His Duke career didn’t last very long – Irving played the first eight games of the campaign, before suffering a broken foot that would normally have led to a medical redshirt. However, be it due to “heart,” or an implicit acknowledgement that this was always going to be his only college season – or both – Irving came back ahead of schedule and made it back in time for the NCAA tournament. Irving’s season averages are not overwhelmingly dominating – 17.5 points, 3.4 rebounds, 4.3 assists, 2.5 turnovers and 1.5 steals in 27.5 minutes per game. They are certainly impressive, though, and none is more impressive than his sheer efficiency. Irving shot 53% from the field, 90% from the line and 46% from three point range, and while much of his time was spent against non-conference opposition, it was against some damn good non-conference opposition. In the 11 games Irving played as a Dukie, only four games were cakewalks; Hampton, Colgate, Oregon, and Miami Ohio. The rest of his games came against Princeton (a tournament team, if not on the level of others), Butler, Michigan State, Michigan, Arizona, Marquette and Kansas State. This meant matchups against decent-to-good defenders such as Shawn Vanzant, Shelvin Mack, Jacob Pullen, Darius Morris, Kalin Lucas, Keith Appling, Doug Davis and Momo Jones, amongst others. And yet in those seven games, Irving averaged 19.4 points, 4,7 assists and 1.6 steals on 51% shooting. A point guard with adequate size, good speed, a 70% true shooting percentage and a 36.2 PER ticks […]
Sham’s unnecessarily great big draft board: Centres
June 21st, 2011
(Listed in no order other than the order they were thought of.) Any time you watch a game with Jonas Valanciunas in, randomly pause the live action, and I guarantee he will be making this face. Jonas Valanciunas – Valanciunas was a big minute player in the EuroLeague aged only 18. You just don’t do that in the EuroLeague, unless you’re Ricky Rubio. Right now, he compares somewhat to Joel Przybilla if Joel Przybilla had any offensive finesse. Valanciunas runs the pick-and-roll to a Lithuanian standard, is smooth, polished, controlled, never rushed, and highly poised, with good touch around the basket and a very nice free throw stroke. He does not shoot jumpers yet, but he’s such a quick learner and such a good foul shooter (89% in the EuroLeague, 125-158 and 79% across all competitions) that it won’t take long. He is an extremely good rebounder through size, smarts and effort, and he blocks shots with his great wingspan and aforementioned effort level. More than likely, he will not stay Przybillay for long. This is in no small part because of his much higher offensive skillset. The free throw percentages already mentioned are a testament to that. Nonetheless, there are still flaws. Valaciunas is finesse more than power, doesn’t have a go-to move other than the pick-and-roll, and still has to beef up some. He was also consciously and constantly attacked by opposing EuroLeague offences, for he was the young and experienced one. And it is true that he struggled with that at times, giving up fouls on his pick-and-roll defence, and not always being in position. But it is also true that he improved noticeably during the season. Such is the common trend amongst Valanciunas’s story – if there’s something he can’t do, he learns it incredibly quickly. […]
