So I've been pretty adamant that right now is not a good time to spend money, and actually is the best to AVOID it.
Everyone else seems to disagree because the 2016/2017 vet max (30%) will only be 24.5% of the salary in 2017/18, effectively making the max, not max.
Let's look deeper. Let's start at the 2016 free agent mix and break it into 4 Tiers: Note this is opinion, and I probably forgot someone.
True Max:
Durant
Horford
Conley
Market Max:
DeRozan
Batum
Whiteside
Drummond
Barnes
Wade
Beal
Mid Market:
Mahinmi
Ezeli
Fournier
Motiejunas
Jones
Meyers Leonard
Mozgov
Rondo
Deng
Hibbert
Joe Johnson
Jeff Green
Ryan Anderson
Jennings
8-14 Mil:
Jordan Hill
Chalmers
Pachulia
Courtney Lee
Nene
Noah
Jefferson
David Lee
Eric Gordon
Mayo
Ilyasova
Marvin Williams
Henderson
Crawford
Now comes the thought experiment.
My Raptors standard for playoffs is Eastern Conference finals with one dominant round (first or second). Why? Because they need to show some serious progress because the last two years have been not so great...whole body of work here. What are you paying for?
Say DD put up about market max numbers, but we fizzle in the playoffs again. Clearly what we are doing isn't working.
3 options:
- Give him the max and hope we put it together in attempt number 4
- Give him the max to trade him mid season or in the following offseason
- Let him walk
Number 1 is a terrible decision.
Number 2 is an even worse decision. Why? Because the time-delay between the salary cap, and the player's salaries will be delayed by at least 2 more years. This doesn't mean that DD's contract won't be tradeable, actually that will be easy.
What will suck is the returning salary. We are going to have to take on at least two of those 3+ year contracts in the 8-14 mil range or the Mid Market range. Looking at that list of players doesn't inspire a lot of "yay let's turn a player into one of those great contracts!". We will come out of the deal with some bloated, long term contracts that will hinder resigning players and trades for the following two years after the deal. We could even end up with the whole process adding up to 3-4 years where we:
- dont change after 3 playoff disappointments (by keeping DD)
- can't change due to shitty contracts of mediocre players
That leaves number 3, my favorite: Do Not Spend Money.
You don't compete with this roster? You have the perfect opportunity to actually go in a new direction. Anything to try and recover assets out of DD will just delay the opportunities for the team developmentally, and hinder our ability to compete in the future free agent markets, or even take advantage of those over-spenders from the next two offseasons....
Now this is all moot if we turn into a serious contender in this years playoffs...but honestly I just don't see it with how we play. But I'm predicting another flub because I see many of the same problems as last year, just not masked behind Vasquez and Lou...
Also, what if we compete despite DD? Totally possible..
Anyways, this offseason is not a good time to spend money.
Everyone else seems to disagree because the 2016/2017 vet max (30%) will only be 24.5% of the salary in 2017/18, effectively making the max, not max.
Let's look deeper. Let's start at the 2016 free agent mix and break it into 4 Tiers: Note this is opinion, and I probably forgot someone.
True Max:
Durant
Horford
Conley
Market Max:
DeRozan
Batum
Whiteside
Drummond
Barnes
Wade
Beal
Mid Market:
Mahinmi
Ezeli
Fournier
Motiejunas
Jones
Meyers Leonard
Mozgov
Rondo
Deng
Hibbert
Joe Johnson
Jeff Green
Ryan Anderson
Jennings
8-14 Mil:
Jordan Hill
Chalmers
Pachulia
Courtney Lee
Nene
Noah
Jefferson
David Lee
Eric Gordon
Mayo
Ilyasova
Marvin Williams
Henderson
Crawford
__________________________________________________ __________
Now comes the thought experiment.
My Raptors standard for playoffs is Eastern Conference finals with one dominant round (first or second). Why? Because they need to show some serious progress because the last two years have been not so great...whole body of work here. What are you paying for?
Say DD put up about market max numbers, but we fizzle in the playoffs again. Clearly what we are doing isn't working.
3 options:
- Give him the max and hope we put it together in attempt number 4
- Give him the max to trade him mid season or in the following offseason
- Let him walk
Number 1 is a terrible decision.
Number 2 is an even worse decision. Why? Because the time-delay between the salary cap, and the player's salaries will be delayed by at least 2 more years. This doesn't mean that DD's contract won't be tradeable, actually that will be easy.
What will suck is the returning salary. We are going to have to take on at least two of those 3+ year contracts in the 8-14 mil range or the Mid Market range. Looking at that list of players doesn't inspire a lot of "yay let's turn a player into one of those great contracts!". We will come out of the deal with some bloated, long term contracts that will hinder resigning players and trades for the following two years after the deal. We could even end up with the whole process adding up to 3-4 years where we:
- dont change after 3 playoff disappointments (by keeping DD)
- can't change due to shitty contracts of mediocre players
That leaves number 3, my favorite: Do Not Spend Money.
You don't compete with this roster? You have the perfect opportunity to actually go in a new direction. Anything to try and recover assets out of DD will just delay the opportunities for the team developmentally, and hinder our ability to compete in the future free agent markets, or even take advantage of those over-spenders from the next two offseasons....
Now this is all moot if we turn into a serious contender in this years playoffs...but honestly I just don't see it with how we play. But I'm predicting another flub because I see many of the same problems as last year, just not masked behind Vasquez and Lou...
Also, what if we compete despite DD? Totally possible..
Anyways, this offseason is not a good time to spend money.
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