thecampster

http://theondeckcircle.net/2008/07/01/nba-free-agency-guide-part-1-salary-cap-rules/ First, read the above article. It is chocked full of good information that should help you avoid throwing around crazy trade scenarios and should advance our discussions on certain topics. What I found interesting in this article is what is missing. It's dated, but it applies in theory. It's a short version of this article. http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm Now this article is too long to read unless you are far nerdier than I am (a hard accomplishment). Specifically what I want to draw your attention to is Question number 14 of this article which explains how a teams salary is computated. Much of the information out there is technically, factually incorrect when explaining how much money a team has under the cap to sign players due to this one restriction •A roster charge if the team has fewer than 12 players (players under contract, free agents included in team salary, players given offer sheets, and first round draft picks). The roster charge is equal to the rookie minimum salary for each player below 12. The roster charge only applies during the offseason. The minimum NBA rookie salary is: $473,604 So using three example teams (Knicks, Miami, Chicago) you come up with a problem in those teams signing players and also sign and trade deals and why they are a problem or a help. Bulls - 8 players under contract - Cap hit 4 x $473,604 = $1,894,416. So in the Bulls case, there is as much as a 1.9 million dollar incentive to take back your trash players in a sign and trade for JJ. The Bulls could take 4 players from your bench (signed by you) and trade two quality players to you to save themself 3 cap hit in signing JJ. It is lost salary against the cap to them and inhibits their signing another player. Knicks - 5 players under contract - Cap Hit 7 x $473,604 = $3,315,228. This team gets super tricky in the sign and trade department. It is in their best interest sign and trade their own players to you in signing JJ (see Duhon, Harrington, JJ, House, Rodriguez) in that they can take back extra players from you in doing so as they are under the cap (ie, Bibby - Zaza) and therefore clear up cap space for you. Additionally, you would want to make that trade because you can go over the cap to sign JJ then you can take back players in his stead but you could not just sign those players outright. Additionally, the Knicks are in a worse spot than it looks. They may have tons of cap space but they have to sign 7 players (some rookie with set salaries) in order to meet the minimum roster space requirements. Some of those salaries will have to be decent as they can not sign all low experience players and expect to also sign big name free agents. Those 7 roster spots are deadly to them. Heat - 6 players under contract - Cap Hit 6 x $473,604 = $2,841,624. Very similar issue as to the Knicks. Even if they signed 2 big name free agents, they will need to fill 4 additional roster spots minimum and there is currently a 2.841 million they can't use to sign players based on cap penalties. Players they could sign and trade in deals included, Jermaine O'neal, Quentin Richardson, Udonis Haslem, Carlos Arroyo, Rafer Alston, Jamal Magloire. Remember, we do not need to take back equal salary from them in sign and trading JJ, we only need to take back similar salary to what extra pieces are included. So for an example, the Hawks sign and trade Joe Johnson (at 17 million) and include Bibby, Zaza (roughly 10 million in salary), the Heat sign and trade back Haslem, Richardson, Alston (for let's pretend 16 million total). Miami nets 3 players on their roster making about a 1.4 million dollar improvement in their cap hit situation for signing another player and then filling their roster. The net change to the Hawks is gaining a better backup point guard for our talent, a solid big man in Haslem and a decent part time backup in Richardson. This is a big deal when considering who can sign, when and where. Just because a team has money to sign 2 big time free agents, they still have to fill out a roster with 9 deep players to compete.

There is a difference between lost money and lost money against budget. These numbers are almost assuridly lost money against budget. How does that work? Here are depictions of the two. Lost money ... Total gross - Total costs = profit or loss. So for example 100 million - 110 million = 10million Lost money against budget ... Total Gross - Total costs - projected profit = profit or loss. So for example: 100 million gross - 110 million - (projected profit of 10% of gross (10 million)) = 20 million Same budget, in one we lose 10 mil but in two we report losing 20 million. This is common procedure on most company ledgers. ASG did not lose 20 million on the Hawks, they were 20 million over budget which was probably 10 - 20 million profit projected. This was how the owners for MLB argued with the arbitrators years ago when doing their collective bargaining agreement. The reason they do this is because it's reasonable to assume money invested returns a profit. The same money they own the team with could go into bank CD's and earn 3-5% so it stands to reason they could assume a profit in their books.

You left out what I think is the biggest possibility. JJ wants to play for a winner and that means whatever team he signs for will need to have an established talent base. They will have a SG to move. Whatever team signs JJ is going to want to move dead contract weight. This sets the Hawks up to take back something of real value from another team by packaging the 24th pick which is guaranteed but low money to another team for a player from their roster that won't count against our cap just like JJ does and we move down in the draft out of the first round to draft a player with a non guaranteed contract. This helps give us the money to sign Chillz and 1 lower tier free agent. I think this is much more probable than the Hawks standing pat at 24. An example of this kind of player would be taking Eddy Curry off the Knicks hands for one year and getting a player thrown in to equal JJ's salary. We do the Knicks a favor by eating 1 year of Curry's contract and giving them the money to sign talent that fits the system. They repay us with a player and draft considerations. We send the 24th pick over this year so they aren't cap dinged for not having 9 players under contract. What that means is we'd be drafting for someone else.

Agreed. It's not like we're picking 6th anymore. Picking anywhere after 15 is a crap shoot and no team should expect that player to start.

OY!!! Ok, so you have two guards now under 6'2" starting. You don't even have Marvin in the rotation as you have Mo as the backup Small Forward. You don't have Zaza in as the backup Center and instead want a rookie and Siler as the only backups to Horford. Let's forget the cancerous actions of Iverson in the past. Forget the trainwreck that has been his last 3 stops in the NBA. Forget the trainwreck that has been McGrady the last 2 years. Iverson of 8 years ago, McGrady of 8 years ago and yes this lineup would win and Horford would go to jail for killing at least one of his teammates for their antics.

I'll eat crow if JJ is back this year. I don't buy it, it's too long term an investment when you can send him packing in a sign and trade taking back an exemption and bring back Childress. Signing Joe means getting rid of other pieces to sign Horford (who I think will require 12 million per).

I was thinking the same thing.

That is a fair point but because of the exact issues you raise, there is no fair way to calculate that. I've given countless math related posts to show a players value. Most come to the same conclusion. That although Joe is a good player, he is not a max contract player. If you go with the base premise of my post and realize that a few games missed here and there and minutes divided are based on players value, you realize this is pretty close to accurate. The conclusion states Joe was worth 73% of the money paid to him which = 10.933 million. That still shows him to be a fine player but not a max contract player. A rebound stops the other team from getting another chance at the basket or gives you another chance. NBA statistics show that each shot attempt is worth about 1 point. Assists are worth 2 points in the real world of the NBA as you only get an assist if you make a basket. So split the difference between the passer and the shooter and that's worth a point. So yeah, I have no problem with that. I consider rebounding and playmaking to be equally important to scoring in the game of basketball. Using this flaw in Joe's game to bear out the stats. If you go to 82games, you will see Joe had the ball in his hand an enormous amount of time for the team. That should lead to more assists (see Lebron/Wade), rebounds (following your shot) and points. But other players on the team were much more efficient with their touches. getting more assists and points per touch. I understand Joe draws a lot of doubles but his opportunities to score are much higher than everyone elses and that means his assist chances are just as high.

Cleveland Cavaliers - top 9 payroll $76,317,987 (skewed as Antawn Jamison's contract was only partial paid by Cleveland) Lebron James - $15,779,912 for 20.7% 29.7 ppg - top paid 9 on team 102.1 - 29.1% Rebound totals - 2477 - Lebron 554 for 22.4% Assist Totals - 1690 - Lebron for 38.5% The math (38.5+22.4+29.1) / 20.7 divided by 3. = 4.35/3 = 145% return on investment. FYI Shaq made 20 million. 26.2% of payroll. His percentages added up to 30.8% /26.2% /3 =39.2% return on investment. Yes, paying Shaq hosed them. To figure out what he should have made vs. his production you multiply his salary $20,000,000 x his return 39.2% and you get his team worth of $7.84 million dollars. Miami - top 9 payroll of 69,527,387 (Jermaine O'neal making 23 million kills them) Dwayne Wade - $15,779,912 - for 22.7% 26.6 ppg - top paid 9 on team 92.1 - 28.9% Rebound totals - 2843 - Wade 373 for 13.1% Assist Totals - 1001 - Wade 501 for 50% The math (28.9+13.1+50.0) / 22.7% divided by 3 = 4.05/3 = 135% FYI, Jermaine Oneal was similar in production to Shaq, Production minorly skewed because Chalmers is not top 9 paid. Phoenix - top 9 payroll of $57,084,458 Amare Stoudemire - $16378325 - for 28.7% 23.2 ppg - top paid on team 106.4 - 21.8% Rebound totals - 2826 - Amare 732 - 25.9% Assist totals - 1756 - Amare 82 - 4.7% The math - (21.8+25.9+4.7) / 28.7 /3 = 1.826/3 = 61% The reason Amare's is so low is he only scores and rebounds. No assists. He requires others to get him his points. Although he is a force, Without Nash and Richardson he would suffer. Additionally, the extra 10 million plus in salary this team is missing that would bring his salary percentage down was lost when the team traded for and then waived Ben Wallace last June. That would have skewed the numbers significantly. What this shows is that his value was closer to Josh Smith level money at about 10-11 million. Maybe twelve. This metric works extremely well to expose flaws/holes in a players game that should keep him from getting a max contract. There are 9 players competing for about 60 million dollars. That means the average player should earn 6.67 million. When we gave Joe over 15 million, we were saying we expected him to produce about 250% of an average player.

Totals on rebounds and assists. Percentages on points because the lower level players contribution was typically replaced by other marginal players. FYI, the 9 best paid, did have the highest scoring averages. I'll try the Lebron, Wade, Amare comparisons in a sec. This took me about an hour to compile on our team so give me a bit.

There is no flaw in this math at all. Joe wants to be paid 24% of the team salary, then Joe needs to produce 24% of the production. He's not worth that kind of money. The numbers bear that out. Maybe the best example of that (remember this is tangibles only), is Marvin's piss poor production against his salary.

In a post recently, I made the point that an NBA team is 9 players that are in the rotation and 3-6 who are there for practice and emergency fill. They aren't the real team, but just ornaments. When you consider that the cap + exceptions comes out to about 60 million dollars and most of that needs to go to 9 players, you understand what it takes to build a team. Looking back at the 09-10 Hawks, I decided to do a comparison of the top 9 paid players based on the percentage of the team money they earned and what percentage of team stats they got in the key stat areas of points, rebounds, assists. quantifying their defensive contribution would be much harder so I won't attempt that right now. Salaries according to hoopshype.com. Player ---------------Salary----------Sal%-----------Pts%----------Reb%--------Assist%-----%totals added Total/sal% Joe Johnson - 14,976,754 ----- 24.24%--------21%-----------11.1%-------21%--------------53.1----------------2.19 Josh Smith - 10,800,000 ------- 17.48%--------15.5%---------22.2%------19.5%------------57.2----------------3.27 Jamal Crawford - 9,360,000 --- 15.15%-------17.7%-----------6.3%------13.6%------------37.6----------------2.48 Marvin Williams - 7,500,000 ----12.14%--------10%-----------13.1%-------8.1%-------------31.2----------------2.57 Mike Bibby - 6,217,617 ---------- 10.06%---------9%--------------5.8%------17.7%------------32.5----------------3.23 Zaza Pachulia - 4,750,000 ------- 7.69%--------4.2%------------9.2%--------2.4%------------15.8----------------2.05 Al Horford - 4,307,640 ------------- 6.97%--------14%------------25.2%-------10.8%----------50.0----------------7.17 Maurice Evans - 2,500,000 ------ 4.05%---------5.6%-----------4.85%-------2.7%-----------13.15--------------3.25 Jeff Teague - 1,373,880 ---------- 2.22%---------3.1%-----------2.1%---------7%--------------12.2---------------5.50 ------------------------------------------- Total - 61,785,891 Points - These 9 players accounted for 101.6 PPG, 3172 rebounds and 1753 assists when they played. Their contribution percents are listed per those total numbers. The total% divided by the salary % gives you a "did we get our money's worth rating" on each of our players. What this chart does is say that based on the money we pay you, we expect that kind of production. Showing the investment is low for Teague and Horford, the return they gave was very high. Bibby's investment wasn't high...it was almost exactly average for his pay and so the expectation wasn't high based on pay. Look at the difference between Joe's Pay and Josh's. Similar pay. The number at the far right shows their return on investment. The number on the right should be divided by 3 for their categories. So in Joe's case, he scored a 2.19. divide that by 3 and you get 73%. They got a 73% return back on their investment in Joe back based on these 3 categories. The pay is the expectation level. Josh, Bibby, Evans all come in at about 107-109% return on investment. Marvin 86% return, Crawford 84% return, Zaza a 68% return on investment and no surprise at all, Teague a 183% return on investment and Al Horford a 239% return on investment. If you were a CEO, you would have to say you were paying JJ more than he brought back, same with Marvin and Crawford. You would consider firing Zaza and giving Horford a raise. for everyone saying pay JJ the max, this is what it does to us financially when you do that. Now consider defense a second. Josh, Al, Marvin get bumps for solid defense based on pay all have holes but all are above average defensive contributors....JJ again is expected to be stellar defensively (above average but not elite). Bibby and Crawford would get marked down for their defensive contributions against their salary. Both are average or above average salary wise but killed us defensively this year.

Just a question here, not a criticism but a question to help you validate your point. How many players that played the majority of their games at SF this year played better (statistically) than Marvin and earned less that 7.5 million. It's just a question, but a fair one I'd say. I'd be interested to see the list.

People complain about Josh's perimeter D, but I know that basketball is played from the inside out. Center positioning settles many things which is why Ewing's Knicks were so good for so long. He changed the floor spacing. It's not Al's lack of height, it's his lack of weight that hurt him against Howard. Howard backed him down with ease and that made the distance with the spot up 3's that much harder to cover when people came to double. if we get a center, he needs to be able to hold the block and that is where true defense begins.

There are some salary cap rules that would not allow this and aren't what you'd think. There are roster limits in the NBA. You have to carry a certain number of players at all time or pay a cap hit. Some teams currently in the Free agent mix are going to be in that boat because they won't have enough on the roster (I think both New York and Miami are). So without enough players under contract, Atlanta would take cap penalties for trading 5 players for 1 that would again make it impossible to sign talent.

The only issue you might have here is that the places you mention, also have to be places Joe wants to go. Joe is a southern boy. My guess is he wants to play close to home. That leaves the area from Texas to the Carolinas.

There are 2 motivations to consider. Joe's motivation in a sign and trade and the other team's. To make this easy to grasp, let's pretend players are ranked 1-10 and Joe Johnson is a 9 at his position. The team he is going to has a player that would qualify as a 7 but is making a Crawfordesk 10 million a year. Neither Joe Johnson, nor that player would want that player disgruntled playing behind him. Pretend Joe goes to a team that will have 10 million in cap space left when he signs and has a starting small forward/shooting guard that would qualify as a 7 and makes 9 million a season and is playing the small forward for that team. By using the sign and trade rules to move that player to us, they now have 19 million to spend on Lebron to take the small forward slot for that team. Without the sign and trade, they wouldn't have the money to bring in a player the team and Joe would like to play with. The team he is going to has enough room for 2 marquee free agents (say Joe and Bosh) plus about 2 million, by using the sign and trade rules they could offload a contract or two to us for bench players that won't get enough play and create enough room to get a good role player. Or, the team he's going to covets another one of our talents. By using the sign and trade rules, we could accept something more back than trading that one player would net (say bringing back a 12 million contract for Marvin's 7.5 mil or a 10 million for Bibby's 5.6 million). This give Joe and that team the ability to mold their roster into the type of team they are looking for. The bottom line is an NBA team is 9 players and 3-6 practice players that rarely see the floor. Sometimes, when building a team you get spare parts that are too expensive for what they do for you to be in that 3-6 group. Both Joe and the signing team know this. What may not be needed in their rotation, would be needed in ours and we would value more. It's a win, win situation, even for Joe. Joe wants to win to validate himself. The only way to do that is to surround himself with the best 8 other guys possible. The best way to do that is help his new team offload unneeded players much the same way we did when Josh Smith improved and Al Harrington became a luxury and not a necessity.

I hardly think so. In the last 2 years, Joe Johnson has missed 9 games. In those games we are 5-4. None of the losses are by double digits. Carry this out for a season and the record is 46-36. The team played basically on the same pace without Joe Johnson in the last 2 years as the 2008-2009 season when we went 47-35. This team is not better because Joe Johnson is on it and that little stat bares that out. The ball moves much better when Joe is not playing with the starters and everyone's effort improves because they know that, "Hey, I might get to touch the ball this possession. Now a better plan is sign and trade Joe and get back a piece we can actually use that is efficient offensively. Let me take you on a little trip down memory lane to the 2005-2006 season. That was Joe's first year in Atlanta. The Hawks record that year was 26-56. Joe Johnson was not the savior of the Hawks. If you want to credit him for the team winning 50+ games this year then you also need to credit him for the 50+ loss season in his first year. That goes for Woody too. Here is why the Hawks kept getting better. 2005 - In that same first season of Joe Johnson, Josh Smith matured a little. The Hawks drafted Marvin Williams who although he was a disappointment based on draft position, was an improvement. The Hawks signed Zaza Pachulia. 2006 - With the maturation of the Joshes and Marvin, Atlanta can afford to trade away Al Harrington for a future first. Hawks add depth by drafting Sheldon Williams. 2007 - Players keep maturing and they draft Al Horford, Acie Law ...the sign Mario West (this helps more than you might think...every team needs quality defensive practice players)..... a midseason trade finally brings them a point guard who can shoot in Mike Bibby and that is what Sheldon Williams gave them. 2008 - Hawks add players Maurice Evans and Flip Murray to strengthen the bench, all 4 young players keep maturing. 2009 - Hawks add Jeff Teague and Jamal Crawford as improvements over Acie Law and Flip Murray. The year before Joe Johnson joined the team, we won 13 games. The same year Joe joined the team, we added Marvin Williams and Zaza Pachulia. The team only improved 13 wins. Now you are going to tell me that the removal of Joe Johnson will be the death of this team. I strongly diagree. We added Joe to a team desperate for a star, gave him 2 extra pieces and he couldn't help us win 33% of our games that first year. It wasn't until you added and let mature Horford, Smith, Williams, Bibby, Crawford, Evans, Teague that this team ascended to the 3rd spot in the east. Trade Joe for something useful, bring back Chilldress and I can almost guarantee you we won't take a real step back. Half of the league is going to be in flux this next year with so many coaches and players changing hands. Just trade Joe for another teams depth and let's let our guys that were drafted here and want to be here grow more and shine.

I want to play poker with you. Seriously, the trade game isn't about value, it's about perceived value. Imagine you are a GM and you are trying to sell me a player. I present it like this. I've got this 24 year old kid who's averaged 12 points, 5.4 rebounds and only 1 turnover the last 3 years. He plays good 1 on 1 defense and has been a solid team player accepting the role of 4th option. He can shoot the 3 with some accuracy and finish at the rim. I'd like to throw in the 24th pick in the draft. He only makes about $7 million a year. He can play the 3 and the 4 but I've already got 2 players that can start the 3 and the 4 and I'm really trying to make room for a big so I can create a bigger team defensively. You're doing great so far until you say, "And all I want is your 5'9", bad defense, score first bad pass point guard who is too short and not a good enough passer to be a starter in the NBA." Marvin has value D. Not to you, but we aren't selling him to you now are we? Think about what team out there needs a 6'8 finisher that can play both inside and out. Not great at any one thing but good at most things (except walking upright and dribbling in traffic). Now go sell him big guy but don't come back saying that he and a first round draft pick are only worth a backup point guard.

First thing I noticed. No Maurice Evans. Hey Woody. There are nearly 2 free agents per team here. How could a guy consistently in your top 8 rotation not be on the list? Oh that's right. Because he shouldn't be on the floor. Second thing I noticed. Josh Childress is on the list. I keep forgetting he has restricted free agent status. In a summer when lots of teams have tons of money, it could be possible to dump Chillz to another team on the first day of free agency. We could play facillitator and move Chillz, package Bibby by adding a pick and make ourselves a player in free agency. Teams aren't allowed to tamper before July 1st but the Hawks could facillitate. Just throwing it out there. Never thought of it in that order before. Chillz' cap hold is 10 + million. What if the Hawks turned the reins over to Teague at the point and got Steve Blake for the backup? By dumping Josh Childress' cap hold and Bibby's salary, we could clear up enough room to bring back one more good piece. Additionally, there are other moves that could make this work, other point guards out there. With all the turmoil in Greece right now and all the money in New York, New Jersey, Chicago, Miami, this may be a perfect time for Chillz to bring back the fro.

LOL....you buzz kill.

The chance of JJ coming back is only slightly higher than Lebron ending up in Atlanta. There is too much money and good will elsewhere. JJ would have to do some serious fence mending with his play to be here and a new coach would have to be JJ skills friendly.

Alright, let's just play Devil's advocate if we can. Let's assume that Bradley was speaking in hypotheticals and he really wants this question answered. The only way to bring Lebron is to first get Cleveland to accept JJ in return and not let JJ walk. Second will be to send an additional player Cleveland's way because they are not going to give Joe the Max and build around him. They would be starting over. Third, we'd have to assume Joe agreed to go to Cleveland as a part of said sign and trade. Fourth, let's also agree that they will demand a draft pick compensation since we are not in a position to just sign him outright. Even in this scenario, this couldn't be completed until Chillz was signed and or signed and traded as Chillz has a ridiculous cap hold on his contract as long as he isn't signed. So let's 5. also assume Chillz sign's for the exemption for the privilege of playing with Lebron. Assuming all those things happen and it fits in the cap / trade rules of the NBA. Bradley is still wrong to assume the lineups he did. I would have to guess the player that goes with JJ to Cleveland would be Teague. I can't see any other scenario they do it in. That means the starting lineup is something like. Crawford/Lebron/Marvin/Josh/Al With a backup lineup of Bibby/Chillz/Insert SF here/Some PF/Zaza I suppose we could go 8 man lineup and rotate James to the 3, marvin out, chillz at the 2 when Marvin is out...Marvin back in when Josh is out, and do something like that. I would call that the best starting 5 in the league and would then call that the worst scoring bench in the league. Remembering Mo opted out. It sounds to me like Bradley was trying this out on NBA LIVE's trade.

Actually when I first started talking about this, you started chatting in that thread saying there was no reason they would give us anything. They don't owe us anything. By the end of the thread you admitted we weren't wrong, just short sighted. Your story changed multiple times in that thread alone. There are tons of reasons we could get something of real value back. FYI real value is not a star quality player, it's an upgrade. You trade away JJ and you give me a better point guard, better backup small forward, the chance to bring back childress and a 2nd round draft pick, I would call that a whole lot better than just losing JJ for nothing. I just find it interesting that you are now admitting a sign and trade is plausible but have changed to saying that nothing of value in return will be gained. If there was nothing of value to be gained, sign and trades wouldn't happen.

Didn't you already expose what you didn't know about this topic in this thread. http://www.hawksquawk.net/community/index.php/topic/344839-the-toronto-game-should-kill-the-life-without-jj-talk/ There are many things to be gained by trading away players. What isn't useful to one team and is a bad contract isn't bad to another. For example, Tyson Chandler would have looked really good in a hawks uniform during the playoffs standing next to Horford but for many teams in the league, his contract is terrible. Months ago I stated this would end in a sign and trade and at that time you stated it wasn't going to happen, there was absolutely no incentive for any team to do so. Now you come on this thread and say you and MrH have been real tight on this. MrH...absolutely, you...you're posing and the above thread shows it.