Rui Hachimura Discussion: Huge Buckets

Because that's how FA and cap space works.

Any team that wants to pay him over MLE needs to do it via cap space. There's only a few and most are tanking teams, those aren't probably using a chunk of it on Rui nor Rui would be interested. Likely only Clippers and Atlanta will be the competitive teams with cap space. Atlanta has cap space if they let Kuminga walk. I don't see them doing that to get Rui. That leaves the Clippers and they only have the cap space if John Collins walks, which is also a swap that they arguably are not interested in.

Then you have teams with the MLE and there's a bunch of them. And here I see a few of them interested in Rui. And that's where negotiation comes to. Does Rui want to move cities and get MLE money to go to Charlotte, Philly or Portland, not knowing if he will fit and it will work out or does he accept 2-3 million less to stay with us where he knows what to expect, keeps his life as is and is part of this new Luka-led building block?

There's this misconception that players get paid what they're worth but the way the CBA is built, especially for role players, it's really more to do on what money and exceptions are available and how the market shapes up rather than what they are actually worth


People also forget quickly. In our famous March run, Rui was a non-factor. He averaged 9pts, 2 rebs and 0.5 assists. He played the fewest minutes all year. Hell, between December and March he never averaged more than 10.5 pts. I mean any stat you choose is bad.

https://www.espn.com/nba/player/splits/_/id/4066648/rui-hachimura

He is definitely a playoff riser and has been insane this post season. And that's very valuable for sure and he deserves it. But he wasn't good all year and there's a strong indication that he may not find this type of production when playing along Luka, AR and Bron altogether as it never happened throughout the year.