Strategy for next off-season

It's not the MO of the front office. Always have and always will swing for the fences. With the local broadcast deal, we can't hang all our hopes and dreams on unproven talent. Also it's rare for drafted talent to equate into a contender, especially in the AAU, buddy-buddy, team up league we play in now (and yes I'm aware of GS and the anomaly that is SA).

 

We can go over the cap to re-sign our own Free Agents when the young guys are due for big contracts(next summer for Clarkson). The idea is to add stars with cap space now, because after we hand out contracts to all of our young guys, we won't have much if any capspace left.

 

I know the amount Clarkson can make is limited due to being a 2nd rounder in his 3rd season, but teams can still throw a huge 3rd year at him. The same Poison Pill type contracts Morey used to get Lin and Asik could be given to Clarkson, the difference being the huge jumps in the salary cap the next 2 seasons could make that 3rd year very expensive. With Kobe playing SF most likely, JC is the best guard on our team right now. I could definitely see him playing his way into a big contract.

 

I wouldn't be surprised if he got around $8M a year (not knowing the exact cap on his max)

 

No on Biff. I'd take Ibaka though, if we play Randle at the 3 and retain Hibbert

 

If that 3rd year ends up being the max, with the way the cap is already scheduled to go up over the next 2 seasons, he's going to be making atleast 25M in that 3rd year. With the 2 years at near MLE money it balances out to a fair deal, but that 3rd year is going to take away a lot of our flexibility if we haven't already spent on the team we want by then.

 

If a team has, for example, 20 million in cap space and they want to spend all that on JC (4 year deal for 80 million). The offer would like....

1st year - 5.6 (MLE)
2nd year 5.6 (MLE)
3rd year - 34.4
4th year - 34.4

That's a hypothetical, but that's what the deal would look like on our end. The team making that offer would be charged 20 million on the cap every season. Even if a team wanted to just pay him 15 million, we would still be giving him 24 million in year 3 and 4. If a team wanted to give him 10 million, we would be dishing out 14.4 million.

We have the potential to be screwed over by a team throwing out cash to throw it.

But, this is where someone with a brain in the FO, please let there be somebody by this time, goes up to JC and tells him not to sign a sheet anywhere and we will pay him, so we don't get screwed.

 

Granted that he gave Blake too many years, MWP too many years, Nash guaranteed 27 million at the age of 40 over 3 years, Pau 3 years 30 million with a no trade clause before he left and Kobe 25 million a year, I guess I shouldn't worry about Mitch in this situation. Lets see if he dishes out the money to keep good young players instead of names to keep viewers happy.

 

The Kobe thing is moot. Blake and MWP were terrible, Nash was terrible too. Worst part of Nash was the picks though IMO.

The Pau situation with the NTC is the only shot we had at keeping him in LA. It was out of respect for the rumors he went through since 2010. I'm not saying it was smart but it was our best shot at keeping Pau.

Mitch has made bad deals over the years but he's made great ones as well. You can cherry pick the bad ones and make it look all bad.

 

It doesn't matter the reasoning behind the Kobe deal, it still doesn't make it a good deal. It's one of the reasons we've struggled to sign free agents because the FO doesn't want to spend, but rather keep the remaining room they have open. That extra 5 million from his deal could have brought back Ed Davis this year. Blake sucked in his time here, but that's not the point, the point is the FO was left with a contract they didn't want and had to sell in a dump, which is a bad deal. Nash, it doesn't matter if fans were excited, the FO still had his dead weight 9 million deal on the cap and had to seriously think about stretching him, which is a bad deal. MWP, he brought us a ring, but that's not the point, we had to amnesty that contract, which is a bad deal. Walton we had to dump a 1st into to get rid, which is a bad deal. In response to the above, Pau would have been a bad deal because we would have been on year 2 of a deal we couldn't trade eating a cap space to sign players, which again is a bad deal. Another example is Jordan Hill, he signed to the Pacers for 4 million, we gave him 9 million last year, did he tank his value in half? I don't think so.

My points in all of this is.....

1.) Mitch is not the best at judging value when it comes to signing players. He throws out money and years no matter the cost, just as long as he gets said player.
2.) When has Mitch been put in a position to sign a young RFA that is our own?

I think it is a legit concern that he would say go see what the market will pay you and come back to me and then just end up paying the bloated price. I like JC, but having to pay him 20 million dollars in year 3 and 4, would be a bummer.

 

For the next off-season, I say we sign Andrew Bynum to a Max. Get Lamar here for the min.. Trade Russel and Randle for Pau Gasol, and trade a 1st round pick to the NY Knicks to get Fisher. We'd be set.

 

The last time I can remember him being put in that position was when we had restricted free agencies on Turiaf and Vujacic. We didn't match the Warriors offer on Turiaf which was about $4 mil/per I believe. We re-signed Sasha to around $5 mil/per. Both were relatively modest deals compared to what we're potentially facing with Jordan next summer. Someone mentioned this around here a few weeks back, but the situation is pretty similar to what the Warriors had to face with Draymond Green this summer.