THJ gets PAID (4 years/$71M Deal with the Knicks)
That's awesome, he deserves it! Great to see hard work come to fruition.
Not that ridiculous when you see what the owners are making and how much NBA franchises have increased in value just in the last 7 years. Players are getting paid as a result, also the tv deals, only 15 players on a team, 81 games, strong players union, etc.
has embraced Hinkie and wanted him to stay on. If Philly ownership let him do his thing, Hinkie would've drafted Kristap instead of them forcing Okafor on Hinkie. The future is bring for the Sixers with Simmons, Fultz and Embiid. These three are potential superstars which is more than most teams can say.
Who is in better position that Philly ? Cleveland, GS, Boston, Lakers, Spurs, rockets, OKC and that's all I count
- I think Minnesota is someone to look out for - they've been quietly building a promising young squad and will make some noise this season with Jimmy Butler, KAT and Wiggins. They're not going to beat the Warriors but 29 other teams have that problem as well.
- Jury is still out on LAL. I *hope* we're in the mix come next season, but we're still saddled with the awful Deng contract, Ball & Ingram are not yet sure things and Cap Space has never scored a single basket in NBA history
- The other side of the coin is necessarily OKC. They will be one of the teams on the shortlist this season. It's an open secret their newest acquisition PG13 wants to go to LA but right now they have what we don't have - a proven superstar to pair with him. The $5 million question is whether he'll re-up with the Thunder next season, which would likely incentivize Westbrook to do same. If that happens, they'll be a contender. If not, it's a slippery slope to 5-seed purgatory.
The better question is who is in better position 5 years down the line? Because that's what Philadelphia is building toward. They will be competitive in the next few years, but who will be in position to win it all when James is gone and Curry is starting to age?
I think Boston is. They have Jaylen Brown, Tatum, and Thomas. All young guys. They also have the potential to have high first round picks for the next couple years, so they can afford to take a shot at winning now as well as in the future.
I suspect the Spurs are just because Leonard is so talented and their ownership is consistently great and forward-thinking.
I don't know about OKC and the Rockets. They are absolutely in better position to win over the next half decade. But Paul is aging and Westbrook/George/Harden will be in their early 30's by that time.
And I actually think Minnesota is in arguably the best position of them all. Between Rubio, Butler, Towns, and Wiggins, you have the core to win now and later.
That would put the 76ers somewhere in the Top 5 in terms of potential post-James/Curry. I'll take that.
Rubio is in Utah...
And Isiah is 28, only one year younger than Curry, so when Curry is "starting to age", Thomas will be too.
That said I pretty much agree, Minnesota should be strong and as much as I despise Manu Ginobili, I respect the Spurs and think they'll be contending for as long as Popovich is around.
Good points. Now that I think about it, Celtics are not yet positioned to succeed long term.
If they can draft well in the next few years, they'll be good, but they currently have a bunch of young wings and not much else.
And Rubio is secondary to Towns and Wiggins in Minnesota, so that's fine. I forgot that Rubio moved. It's been a crazy off-season.
Uhh as a Sixers fan Hinkie is very well liked around these parts. #trusttheprocess might as well be the new team slogan.
The Coangelos are mediocre at best and got super lucky that Silver and the rest of the owners hated what Hinkie was doing. Add some nepotism and cronyism to the mix and you got our current front office. Doesn't take a genius to do what the Coangelos are doing now in drafting Fultz once you got your 3 outta 4 future players in Simmons, Saric and Embiid.
Everyone in town knows who to truly thank if the 76ers climb back to the top of the league in a few years.
It's not impossible to build up while fielding a good team, but it's very, very difficult.
There are three main ways to do it:
(1) Acquire a franchise player and draft really well around him (Spurs and Warriors)
(2) Acquire a franchise player and get him to attract other high end players (Warriors and Heat(?))
(3) Fleece a bad team of their draft picks so that you can pick high while winning (Celtics)
Meanwhile, the list of middling teams who have tried to build up while getting to the playoffs is long.
76ers fans didn't have to be "sold" on short-term failure for long-term success. We were fed up already and excited by Hinkie's plan of action.
The fan base didn't have to be sold on buying tickets (with an increase in price!) through 19, 18 and 10 win seasons with no guarantee anything great will happen at the end? Please.
Um....that's called marketing. All teams do it.
What I'm talking about is interest in the team. Nobody gave a damn about the team after the Iverson years were over. Hinkie and The Process got people interested again.
That said, we aren't pushovers. We only started investing once the Process began producing fun players to watch. This is from a recent article:
The 76ers finished 18th in the 30-team NBA last season in attendance with an average of 17,730 fans per game. The previous season the team ranked 28th at 14,881 fans per game. In the season prior to that the team ranked last.
Before that, we were consistently in the bottom third of attendance because we were consistently mediocre. This year we will probably sell out because the 76ers have put in the time and energy to field a good team.
At least 76'er fans can look forward to something. As a Knicks fan, I have been suffering to crap season after crap season just like Philly without any light at the end of the tunnel. I would swap last 10 years with 76'ers any day of the week!
Also a Knicks fan. You're not convinced Dolan would blow a tank job in a spectacular way?
leads to years of bad basketball like signing bad long term contracts. At least by not wasting money, you retain flexibility if you want/need it in free agency and you have a better chance of landing a star in the draft. Dramatically overpaying mediocre players is the worst thing you can do.
become an increasingly all-around player, so if by next year he's at 20 does he fit your bill? Honest question.
The thing that I often see on this board is people who rounded on Michigan players as kids still not quite believing their eyes when they succeed. Thankfully not the players' problem.
Actually he averaged 14.5 ppg last year and that was his career high.
I'm a big THJ fan but I think this is a bad contract for the Knicks. $17M a year for a guy who (at this stage of his career, anyway) is a pretty streaky shooter, doesn't rebound that well, and is just OK as a defender. I hope he can prove me wrong about that and keep developing his game.
He averaged 18 points a game in the 30 or so games after the Hawks traded Korver. THJ was definitely coming into his own and everyone had commented on his improvement on the defensive end. Yes, the Knicks overpayed, but not by as much as most around here would assume.
but ppg can be highly misleading stat. Does not take into account pace or efficiency. But he did shoot pretty well during that stretch. He is an above average offensive player already. But despite his improvements on defense, he's still below average on that side of the floor.
Knicks will have to get improvement on both ends of the floor for this to be worth it, but it's not outlandish to think he's still on the upswing at 25 years-old.
This offer sheet is definitely high, but I'm not sure it rises to the level of ridiculous. Also, the salary cap number is a phony number. Last year the salary cap was around $94M, but 23 teams were over the cap, some significantly so. There are so many exceptions to the cap, that the figure is meaningless to guaging how much an individual player is worth.
THJ was a solid starting SG at the end of last season. The Hawks were apparently pegging his value at $45M, or about $11M a year. Knicks are definitely high, but it's not like they're paying $17M a year for a guy most thought was a $5M a year uy.
The question isn't whether the Knicks can afford to pay him this contract (they can) but whether it makes sense under the salary cap.
It's awesome for THJ to get this deal but I fear Knick fans won't be too patient with him (in fact, some already seem to be melting down at the moment).
Love to see him succeed....but $71 million is absurd to play Bball for 4 years, especially for a guy who isn't the face of a franchise.
Hawks should match the deal
To be young and rich in New York. Good for him. Unfortunately the Knicks will continue to be a tire fire for years.
Unequivocally yes. How do I know? Because someone was willing to pay it, which is the only genuine measure of value that exists.
I really wish I'd practiced more basketball. My parents made me waste so many damn hours practicing the piano I could have put to better use.
Maybe, maybe not. THJ is a great player, and I'm not prepared to say whether he's being overpaid. But consider:
Notre Dame and Kansas paid Charlie Weis $64M in guaranteed money.
Darko Milicic made $46.9M over a nine year "career" with the Pistons, Magic, and Minnesota.
And on and on.
By your measure, these guys were totally worth it.
https://www.fanragsports.com/cfb/dont-blame-charlie-weis-guaranteed-contracts-given/
Dated, but a pertinent read - http://grantland.com/the-triangle/the-nbas-that-dude-made-what-all-stars/
and at the time of the transaction, that's exactly what their value was. No more, no less. To be sure, if the parties had re-transacted at a later date the value would have dropped. Precipitously.
My main operative points here about value (objective monetary value, not sentimental, moral, ethical, or any kind of subjective value) are these:
1. There is no such thing as inherent monetary value of a good or service. Value can only be imposed externally by the market, even if there's only one idiot in the world willing to pay that sum to the bewilderment of everyone else. Basketball players, houses, broccoli, Berkshire Hathaway Class A stock, it doesn't matter. They're worth what someone will pay for them at the time. If I make a bona fide offer of $1000/lb. for broccoli, that broccoli has a value of $1000/lb. If I re-sell it 10 seconds later, I'm probably going to find the value has tanked. Which is a nice segue to point no. 2:
2. Value is not static. Retroactively looking at a contract signed 5 years ago and saying "well, that was a total dog of a deal" is fine, but it doesn't change what the value was at the time of the transaction. Values ebb and flow, so Darko and Coach Schematic Advantage saw a major decline in value as their skills (or lack thereof) were revealed. The fact I or you or literally everyone else in the world thought those contracts were unadulterated stupidity the day they were signed doesn't matter--the market spoke.
The problem is that you're equating "market value" with "worth". It's fine to say that "markets determine (market) value" - that's not illogical (but but also not all that interesting, because it doesn't say much).
But you seem to go a bit further, equating "market value" "value" and "worth". "Worth" seems much closer to the concept of "utility". So while Darko got market value for his contract, he really wasn't worth much to the team.
You're introducing hindsight analysis for the "worth" part of your assessment above, and I'm saying that "value" would track that assessment to the buyer. The Pistons signed the deal because that's what they thought he would prospectively be worth to the team. They were wrong, but that doesn't mean his value (to the team) was any different at the time, only that it trended downward (or would have, in a hypothethical re-negotiation of the contract at a later date) as the utility to the team dwindled.
Even if everyone in the NBA agreed he wasn't worth what they were paying him at the initiation of the deal, the assessment of "worth" from the Pistons perspective yielded the value. They're not different, per se, except maybe that "worth" requires looking a longer time period to answer the question "was so and so worth it?" whereas value is an instant snapshot in time.
UM was willing to pay David Brandon a base salary of $900,000 in 2014, so by your value metric, Brandon was worth it.
LOL.
that's just a fundamental pillar of economics. Yes, Brandon was worth exactly what Michigan agreed to pay him at the time. By 2014, you can rest assured they would have agreed to pay less (as in zero), but that doesn't retroactively change his value at the time the parties transacted in 2010.
So you're just begging the question (in the original sense). Your logic boils down to "if the 'market' says that someone is worth $X, then that person is worth $X."
IIRC my philosophy classes correctly, this is logically valid. It also adds zero information, because your conclusion is included in your premise.
Exactly right. "If the market says that someone is worth $X, then that person is worth $X." I couldn't have stated it better.
"worth" I think is typically tied to "deserves", which is not particularly helpful, since it relies on value judgments that people can argue endlessly.
More precise would be expected utility benefit from the transaction. We can safely assume that THJ just got a ton of producer surplus since the contract is guaranteed.
But while the Knicks believe they will get consumer surplus (otherwise they would not have done the deal), many others do not.
You can always book an asset for the price that you paid for it, but you may have to do a writedown later when it is clear that the expected benefit at the time of the transaction has not and will not materialize.
worth is the first clause doesn't mean the same thing as worth in the second clause.