Alex Caruso Discussion: That's BULL

Honestly, why doesn't he deserve a Marcus Smart like deal? Same type of player: hell if I was Dallas I'd throw the kitchen sink at him he's the perfect fit for a guy like Luka after all these years with Lebron

 

yeah, really hoping that this undrafted status and the fact that he doesn't "look the part" will help depress his value a bit, for our sake. aside from lebron and AD, who regularly contributes more to winning than AC on this roster?

the only knock on him if i were another team is that he hasn't proven he can play 30mpg every night with this kind of impact. and that's important for teams that don't have the rest of the roster we do. how much can you pay for a guy who plays 20-25mpg, no matter how impactful, if you're a small market team without a superstar?

 

yeah, it's gone from a half-joke to an obvious truth that he's one of our most valuable players. again, i think part of that is that we understand how best to use him, but part of it is just that he's a good basketball player with basically no weaknesses.

 

GMs are aware of what a disrupter he is. affecting passes, playing hounding D. He would be the modern 3 and D guy even if he couldn't pass and run on offense in a pinch too, but he does that as well. Way undervalued on contract and highly valued by GMs. There is no chance he will be overlooked by them, the FO has already stated we get the most calls about AC.

His stat lines on games of 30+ minutes are ok, but coupled with his energetic D, just his 3 pt shooting and assists make him someone front offices are well informed of.

30+ minute games (35.57 avg) going back 3 years:
14pts/5.25reb/6.9asst/1.75stls/0.25blks
3pts - .500 3 Attempts per game
2pts - .390 9.6 Attempts per game

 

in spots, 30 minutes is fine, but remember that you have to play 30+mpg night, night out. and if you're making a bunch of money, it means you're featured rather than support.

again, i'm a huge eagle fan and we absolutely can't lose him, but it would be a pretty big gamble for say, sacramento to offer him 15 per or something.

 

So much I think is going to depend on Jeanie’s willingness to pay some level of penalty tax for some number of years. With no fans live for indeterminate as of yet length of time.

 

yeah, i just hope nobody forces our hand. players go from heroes to goats (if you will) when that salary bloats.

think danny green, for example. years as everyone's favorite support player, gets 15 per just for two years: devil. and i'm guilty, too. 15m role players sort of need to be perfect at all times in their role. right now, if AC has a bad game or sequence, he's generally safe from fan ire.

 

One each of AC and THT and no DS going forward .... better than only one of AC or THT plus DS going forward if it comes to that?

 

it will get there (we only keep 2), eventually, i think. but we can't lose any of them for nothing, so we'll probably just have to pay up in the short term.

 

Yeah, opposing GM’s aren’t dumb. I think the whole league recognizes Caruso’s value. Even opposing fanbases are realizing that he’s not just a meme.

And it terrifies me. I worry that within the next few weeks, we might wake up to a Woj bomb of us dealing Caruso and/or THT for assets, out of fear of them walking for a bigger contract in the off-season and us holding the bag with nothing to show for it.

I wouldn’t bet on it happening. I think he’s too important for our immediate success, which the organization will value for the sake of trying to repeat, even if we can’t retain him long term.

But it’s not out of the realm of possibility.

 

The calming way of looking at this is we actually have a chance here to 3 peat and LeBron, AD and Vogel all love AC, THT and seemingly Shroeder. So I think as abeer said, at least in the short term, Jeanie being a great owner, will roll the dice and pay up for a couple of years with the luxury tax to retain all three along with KCP .... to give us that chance. And ask Rob to work some great deals. She owes LeBron to do that actually. Then after a couple of years my guess is Shroeder would be gone.

That said, THT is going to be ready to start at the point next year if that's where they want him and Vogel loves the hell out of him, probably going to give him 30 minutes a game later in the season and playoffs .... and if Dennis wants too much money to stay and would be in the way of keeping both AC and THT .... my guess would be Shroeder will find himself the odd man out. I worry about him long term too how hard he plays physically banging into screens and such at his size.

 

Jeanie doesn't mind the Lux tax, even with covid because our tv contract still pays, fans or not. As long as we don't go more than 2 years with it and set up a repeater tax which no team wants to absorb. They will watch anything beyond next season in terms of contracts very closely but we are ok this season and next. They need to extend AC at some point before his value blows up too much.

 

i think there's zero possibility that a rotation player is moved for future assets during one of lebron's last years as an mvp-level player. now, if beal were actually available to us, then yes, i could see THT/schroder and maybe even AC going out (not that i'd be excited about losing that much depth). but i doubt we see guys go for picks or something.

i agree that the repeater tax may be an issue later. but i think this will be our first luxury tax year, right? there's time to move things around later. as for AC extension...

pretty sure extension is out of the question in this case. AC will be a UFA this summer, so we'll have to see where things lie then. of late, we have a pretty good track record keeping our sought-after guys.

 

This seems to say though we could extend Caruso "during" this season? Isn't this year 2 of his 2 year contract?

" Unless a veteran’s contract is going to be extended during the last season of his contract"

 

i think that extension is limited to a 20% increase on current salary, though, right? which...isn't happening.