For all of you "Amir Lovers"

[karim_nasir]

yes I agree Amir is a great ROLE PLAYER ! hez not a starter.... my little sister could give 110% effort every night, that DOES NOT MAKE HER A LEGIT STARTER !!

Boozer is considered a great PF, but we all saw how bigger longer PF's had their way with him...

We already had Ed Daivis who could of used the minutes to develop AND Reggie who could have been the 5th wheel....

lets just look at some of the competing PF's in the league... who is amir better than ? if we went deep into the playoffs which one of these PF"s would you feel comfortable with having Amir match up against...

Boston - KG
Orlando - R. Lewis
Cavs - Jamison
Heat - Bosh
Hawks - Josh Smith
Bulls - Boozer
Bobcats - Tyrus Thomas
Trailblazer - Aldridge
Lakers - Gasol, Odom
Spurs - Duncan
Nuggets - K-Mart
Thunder - Ibaka
Knicks - Amare
Dallas - Dirk

yes Amir is a nice guy who works hard ? but thats not the important question a franchise should ask... the importnat question is :

DO WE REALLY NEED TO PAY HIM 7 MILL (which is more than what Jarrett Jack makes) to come off the bench and play 10-14 mins a game when we just drafted a PF and our new franchise player (Bargs) is a PF ???

[Apollo]

I look at Amir is as a high energy guy. A change of pace best suited as a 6th man. I feel the Raptors paid too much for him but I hope he turns out to be the kind of player Colangelo is hoping for. A lot more will be expected of him. He will land in hot water fast in the media if he can stay on the floor and maintain efficiency.

DO WE REALLY NEED TO PAY HIM 7 MILL (which is more than what Jarrett Jack makes) to come off the bench and play 10-14 mins a game when we just drafted a PF and our new franchise player (Bargs) is a PF ???

Oh he's going to be playing 25 minutes or more this season if he can stay out of foul trouble. Ed was an insurance policy. He may turn out to be better than Amir.

[blaze89]

of course amir is not a starter but on the raptors, he is because lets face it we dont have very much right now. Colangelo just signed him to FAT contract so obviously hes gonna give him the oppurtunity to start so he can help justify himself but all he is a good energy guy off the bench

[Nick]

Amir could be great along with our other newly drafted bigs, but we need a good post coach to mentor these guys which I don't think we have.

[LBF]

i'll take the magic,thunder,bobcats,hawks and since bosh is soft maybe miami.

[saints91]

THe Raps should pick up a centre like Okefor in a trade and move Bargs to PF, let Amir be a back up for those two.

Okefor
Bargs
Turk/or hopefully an upgrade in a trade
Demar
Jose/Jack


Amir
Linas
Ed
Jack/Jose
Weems

That's a decent rotation!

[Priest]

Its not like we are a playoff team that has to win all matchups in every spot...This is a great opportunity to see if Amir can live up to his potential and develop into a starter now instead of always coming off the bench. If it doesnt work out we got Davis to fill that role but I think with both their work ethics we will have a good PF situation down the line.

[JalenRose5]

THe Raps should pick up a centre like Okefor in a trade and move Bargs to PF, let Amir be a back up for those two.

Okefor
Bargs
Turk/or hopefully an upgrade in a trade
Demar
Jose/Jack


Amir
Linas
Ed
Jack/Jose
Weems

That's a decent rotation!

I Like this idea a lot! We can probably pry away Darren Collison as well if we take on Okafor's contract and give them Jose! But Colangelo doesn't like black people. Emeka Okafor isn't from Europe and he plays defense and rebounds. Colangelo is trying to build a team that likes to play 30 feet away from the net.

[santimo]

I think Amir is still going to get better. I see his ceiling as being a Joachim Noah type of player. Would you pay for Joachim Noah at $7 mil per season? I would. He's not quite where Noah is yet because of the foul trouble but he's got a very good shot at being at that level.

[Bendit]

I think Amir is still going to get better. I see his ceiling as being a Joachim Noah type of player. Would you pay for Joachim Noah at $7 mil per season? I would. He's not quite where Noah is yet because of the foul trouble but he's got a very good shot at being at that level.

Noah is a centre and has at least a couple of inches and 25 lbs on Amir who is a pf.

Yes Amir can get better and plays with much enthusiasm (similar to Noah). But Noah has the leader intangible. He is very vocal and assertive and I am not sure that Amir has this in him. Lastly, there would be very few circumstances the Bulls would trade Noah...the Raps would trade Amir under many more. The value gulf to their respective teams today is huge. My hope is he gets to be 75% of a Noah.

[Liston]

yes I agree Amir is a great ROLE PLAYER ! hez not a starter.... my little sister could give 110% effort every night, that DOES NOT MAKE HER A LEGIT STARTER !!

Boozer is considered a great PF, but we all saw how bigger longer PF's had their way with him...

We already had Ed Daivis who could of used the minutes to develop AND Reggie who could have been the 5th wheel....

lets just look at some of the competing PF's in the league... who is amir better than ? if we went deep into the playoffs which one of these PF"s would you feel comfortable with having Amir match up against...

Boston - KG
Orlando - R. Lewis
Cavs - Jamison
Heat - Bosh
Hawks - Josh Smith
Bulls - Boozer
Bobcats - Tyrus Thomas
Trailblazer - Aldridge
Lakers - Gasol, Odom
Spurs - Duncan
Nuggets - K-Mart
Thunder - Ibaka
Knicks - Amare
Dallas - Dirk

yes Amir is a nice guy who works hard ? but thats not the important question a franchise should ask... the importnat question is :

DO WE REALLY NEED TO PAY HIM 7 MILL (which is more than what Jarrett Jack makes) to come off the bench and play 10-14 mins a game when we just drafted a PF and our new franchise player (Bargs) is a PF ???

1) you realize you're quoting several Centers.
2) you realize many of that list are getting paid 15m++
3) you realize that Amir is 23 years old
4) you surely realize Amir will play more than 10 min a game.

Rephrase the argument.

[karim_nasir]

1) you realize you're quoting several Centers.
2) you realize many of that list are getting paid 15m++
3) you realize that Amir is 23 years old
4) you surely realize Amir will play more than 10 min a game.

Rephrase the argument.

who are the centres?

[Quixotic]

yes I agree Amir is a great ROLE PLAYER ! hez not a starter.... my little sister could give 110% effort every night, that DOES NOT MAKE HER A LEGIT STARTER !!

[...]

We already had Ed Daivis who could of used the minutes to develop AND Reggie who could have been the 5th wheel....

[...]

yes Amir is a nice guy who works hard ? but thats not the important question a franchise should ask... the importnat question is :

DO WE REALLY NEED TO PAY HIM 7 MILL (which is more than what Jarrett Jack makes) to come off the bench and play 10-14 mins a game when we just drafted a PF and our new franchise player (Bargs) is a PF ???

1) No offense to your sister, but she would make the Raptors the all-time worst defensive team in NBA history. So unless she could actually make the Raptors better defensively with her effort when she is on the floor, there's no comparison here. But yes, I don't expect Amir to start, or at least he won't play starter minutes (though I welcome being pleasantly surprised).

2) Um, subtract Bosh and Nesterovic (and ugh, POB), add Davis and maybe Dorsey, and we suddenly don't have the minutes to go around? Are you kidding me? And why is Reggie even part of this discussion? He's an overrated player whose only strength is rebounding, and whose weaknesses are everything that come after he rebounds the ball. He is also expiring, so why would we waste time on him if we want to develop our youngsters?

3) If every GM used Jack as the standard for how much to offer players, you're going to see a lot of GMs disappointed by having their players snatched away. Yes, I think the deal is a bit expensive for him and would have liked Amir to accept a cheaper contract (I would be happy with $29 mil over 5 years), but that's not how supply and demand works, and if the other contracts offered out this off-season are any evidence, there was definitely demand. I'll take Amir Johnson over Gooden and Frye any day, and his $34 mil stands reasonable next to Tyrus Thomas' $40 mil. I'd also overpay him a mil each year (over the $29 mil I preferred) if it meant not losing him to another team.

4) I really love when people try to make their point sound better by skewing the numbers in their favor. Why with so many minutes free from the departure of Bosh are you slating him to play even fewer minutes than before? Because of your precious Reggie Evans? And no, Bargnani is NOT our new franchise player (nor should we have one until someone steps up to take the mantle), and if you are really basing your entire argument on your opinion that Bargnani is better suited at the 4, then that's another issue altogether.

Defensive assignments change from game to game, based on the matchup, and that's what is important, not some arbitrary label. It should be clear by now from Bargnani's game (he plays like a wing) that labeling him a PF won't change his offensive game. And if anything, he will only be a bigger defensive liability guarding quicker 4s, where his quickness advantage will be largely negated. I actually LIKE Bargnani and think he can be a good defending big if his help defense improves, and all his excellent defensive performances (that I can remember) were against slower bigs (e.g. Duncan). What quicker bigs did he do a good defensive job against that you can remember?

[karim_nasir]

1) No offense to your sister, but she would make the Raptors the all-time worst defensive team in NBA history. So unless she could actually make the Raptors better defensively with her effort when she is on the floor, there's no comparison here. But yes, I don't expect Amir to start, or at least he won't play starter minutes (though I welcome being pleasantly surprised).

2) Um, subtract Bosh and Nesterovic (and ugh, POB), add Davis and maybe Dorsey, and we suddenly don't have the minutes to go around? Are you kidding me? And why is Reggie even part of this discussion? He's an overrated player whose only strength is rebounding, and whose weaknesses are everything that come after he rebounds the ball. He is also expiring, so why would we waste time on him if we want to develop our youngsters?

3) If every GM used Jack as the standard for how much to offer players, you're going to see a lot of GMs disappointed by having their players snatched away. Yes, I think the deal is a bit expensive for him and would have liked Amir to accept a cheaper contract (I would be happy with $29 mil over 5 years), but that's not how supply and demand works, and if the other contracts offered out this off-season are any evidence, there was definitely demand. I'll take Amir Johnson over Gooden and Frye any day, and his $34 mil stands reasonable next to Tyrus Thomas' $40 mil. I'd also overpay him a mil each year (over the $29 mil I preferred) if it meant not losing him to another team.

4) I really love when people try to make their point sound better by skewing the numbers in their favor. Why with so many minutes free from the departure of Bosh are you slating him to play even fewer minutes than before? Because of your precious Reggie Evans? And no, Bargnani is NOT our new franchise player (nor should we have one until someone steps up to take the mantle), and if you are really basing your entire argument on your opinion that Bargnani is better suited at the 4, then that's another issue altogether.

Defensive assignments change from game to game, based on the matchup, and that's what is important, not some arbitrary label. It should be clear by now from Bargnani's game (he plays like a wing) that labeling him a PF won't change his offensive game. And if anything, he will only be a bigger defensive liability guarding quicker 4s, where his quickness advantage will be largely negated. I actually LIKE Bargnani and think he can be a good defending big if his help defense improves, and all his excellent defensive performances (that I can remember) were against slower bigs (e.g. Duncan). What quicker bigs did he do a good defensive job against that you can remember?

1. point was even tho Amir plays hard and gives it his all... in a playoff series do you really want him playing significant minutes againt a pau gasol who plays 40 mins a game... you can insert any of the other pf's i listed...

if the plan is to be good in 2-5 years, well then Amir will be taking up a decent amount of our cap in 2-5 years and what will he be doing for us ?

2. i dont like reggie either...but there's a salary cap... if u had bargs at the 4, and davis backing him up... reggie could have played garbage time and earned some of his salary...

3. i made this point in brackets, it wasnt important... but you only need to "overpay" players when you're a losing team... how do you stop being a losing team ? i dunno maybe let your draft picks develop and play players at the right position ??

4. you seem like the type of person who will never admit and say ok yea you're right...but here goes...

do you agree that in basketball, specifically in the NBA. the centre's main job on D is to defend the basket and get rebounds...(Perkins, Bynum, D12, Shaq, Yao Ming, Bogut, Horford, Noah) AGAIN GET REBOUNDS !!! now why would you continue to play a guy who isnt the best at defending the basket and getting rebounds at the 5 ??

i like bargs as well... but i think it's INSANE to play him at the 5 if you dont have to.

This is why it wasnt necessary to sign Amir to such a big contract, not to mention the development time that is now not going to go to Ed Davis.

[James Ballswin (Realizar)]

The reason (the ONLY reason) Amir is worth $7M/per is because it was set by the market given his free agency player comparison with Tyrus Thomas, who had earlier received an offer from the Bobcats for exact same annal salary.

It's necessary to realize that like any and all industrial free market economies, the annual NBA free agent market establishes natural comparisons among certain types of players, which than determines the true, immediate market value of a player's monetary contractual worth - thus eliminating a player's presumed or perceived value.

Amir may not be perceived to be worth $7M per, however the NBA free agency market had already established that he is/was.

In actuality, this same free market economic principal occurred last summer with Bargs' receiving his 5yr/$50M extension, as this monetary worth was set according to his true market value given his natural NBA free agent market comparison with Andris Biedrinsas, who had signed a 5yr/$60M extension just a few weeks prior.

As such, don't blame BC for giving Amir 5yrs/$34M since this was Amir's actual monetary worth given his true market value in the present NBA free agent market. (i.e. Don't blame the player; blame the game).

[Quixotic]

1. point was even tho Amir plays hard and gives it his all... in a playoff series do you really want him playing significant minutes againt a pau gasol who plays 40 mins a game... you can insert any of the other pf's i listed...

if the plan is to be good in 2-5 years, well then Amir will be taking up a decent amount of our cap in 2-5 years and what will he be doing for us ?

2. i dont like reggie either...but there's a salary cap... if u had bargs at the 4, and davis backing him up... reggie could have played garbage time and earned some of his salary...

3. i made this point in brackets, it wasnt important... but you only need to "overpay" players when you're a losing team... how do you stop being a losing team ? i dunno maybe let your draft picks develop and play players at the right position ??

4. you seem like the type of person who will never admit and say ok yea you're right...but here goes...

do you agree that in basketball, specifically in the NBA. the centre's main job on D is to defend the basket and get rebounds...(Perkins, Bynum, D12, Shaq, Yao Ming, Bogut, Horford, Noah) AGAIN GET REBOUNDS !!! now why would you continue to play a guy who isnt the best at defending the basket and getting rebounds at the 5 ??

i like bargs as well... but i think it's INSANE to play him at the 5 if you dont have to.

This is why it wasnt necessary to sign Amir to such a big contract, not to mention the development time that is now not going to go to Ed Davis.

1. Not that we will be facing the Lakers or anyone else in the playoffs this immediate year, but don't you think by the time our other youngsters develop, that Amir will have improved as well? I stated in another thread that he will have to earn his contract, so yes, if he never gets better and can only play 16 minutes, it's a bad contract, but there's as much chance of that as him getting better and making the deal seem a bargain. Somehow, I think the actual result will be somewhere in between.

And yes, if we were to face Gasol or any other good big, I'd want Amir Johnson (if he is more suited for the job than the team's center) to do it, but obviously not for 40 minutes (until he can show he can manage 40 minutes of the same excellent defensive play). Let me ask you, how many players in the league can guard Pau Gasol or any other top big well for 40 minutes a game and are making under $6 mil next season? Nobody. A better comparison is to look at all the bigs who will be making under $6 mil next season, and I'm sure you'll agree that Amir Johnson stands up just fine against those.

----------

2) A salary cap doesn't mean you should play a garbage player just so he earns his money. With every team, there will be bad contracts; that's what the inactive list is for. You need a minimum of 13 players, can only dress 12 at a time, and usually only play 9-10 a game. Someone is bound to be paid not to play. It's a sunk cost. So you stash them on the IL or the bench until you can get rid of them or wait for them to expire. It's illogical to play someone bad just because someone else (or even you) made a poor decision in giving them so much money. A subsequent poor decision doesn't make a previous poor decision better.

----------

3) I agree with you here that bad teams lose either because they do not spend the money or have spent the money unwisely. However, that's usually a judgement to be made on, for instance, Brand being paid $15-18+ mil the next few seasons instead of probably $6-10 mil now. Or Turkoglu being paid $10-12 mil a season when he really should be paid $7-8 mil a season. Amir Johnson being paid $5.8-8.2 mil (or whatever) a season is overpaid, but his real value to the team is probably $4.8-7.2 mil (in my opinion) over the next 5 years, so if you have to overpay $1 mil each year, you do it in this case because he's young, because he was one of the top Raptors last season in terms of win contribution, and because he plays the right way and your other youngsters could benefit from his example.

As I said in the beginning of the previous paragraph, bad teams also lose because they do not spend the money. In this case, not spending $1 mil more per year on Amir might mean spending similar money on an inferior player or not spending it at all, and there's no reward for money saved in previous years. Even the best teams overpay their important players -- personnel is not pure math where you can just reach out and grab someone equivalent at a lesser price -- and Amir was definitely one of the most important players for us last year.

----------

4) I agree with you that ideally the center's main job on defense is to be a big body, defend the basket, and get rebounds. I fully agree on this point, so don't say I won't admit or agree with something when it's right. :-p

Where I think you're wrong is in thinking that because your 5 is inadequate, you should experiment with him at the 4 in hope of hiding his deficiencies, while giving up on a young 4 who does do those things well. If anything, the answer to your question of why you would continue to play him is, very simply, you don't. Coming from a Bargnani fan and not a hater, I would like to think it means something when I say it.

Not to count my eggs before they hatch, but I think Johnson + Davis at the 4 is a very nice, almost ideal young PF tandem for a rebuilding team. They both play the game the right way, they are both good defenders, and they're exactly what we wanted from Bosh (minus the offensive potential). And there WILL be sufficient time for the both of them, since we shouldn't expect Davis to average more than 20-25 minutes, and Johnson isn't exactly going to play 30+ minutes either. Add in the time they will spend on the court together (some matchups will dictate this), and we'd be lucky if we don't need someone else to mop up the remaining minutes at the 4 (lucky because either Davis is doing well, Johnson is avoiding foul trouble, or both).

I only HOPE that Bargnani will grow in Bosh's absence. So far, whenever Bosh has been absent, Bargnani hasn't exactly stepped up to the task, but hopefully he's just a late bloomer as he has been with everything. We aren't exactly contending, so there's no rush to dump someone who is still so young and has so much potential, but we need to be ready to move him if he cannot be that big body 5 who cleans the glass, defends (so far, he's done okay man-to-man; it's his help defense that blows), and just all the little things that anchor the team's defense. And again, when I say move him, I don't mean make him an even bigger defensive liability by having him guard quicker bigs, but to trade him. IMO, Davis, Johnson and DeRozan currently hold the keys to the team's future success, and they should be built around, not Bargnani.