Not sure if everyone has been following the recent NBA signings, but here are four of the ones since yesterday:
Amir Johnson - 5 years, 34 million (7 million per year)
Rudy Gay - 5 years, 81 million (16.2 million per year)
John Salmons 5 years, 39 million (8 million per year)
This is the problem with the NBA at this point. I guess one can make the argument that the owners shouldn't be stupid enough to give these kinds of deals to these types of players that invariably end up affecting the quality of play in the NBA (how much productivity did Kenny Thomas bring to the Kings for all those years....) and fan satisfaction with their team (i.e., the Clippers giving away Marcus Camby for a bag of chips in order to save a few mil).
Amir Johnson and John Salmons - these guys are decent enough role players, and Salmons has shown he can start in the NBA, but can anyone honestly say they couldn't find decent replacement talent for a fraction of the price (NBDL, overseas, undrafted FA, etc)? Will either of these two ever have a true impact on NBA basketball?
As far as the Rudy Gay contract, if you pay a #3 player like you would pay a superstar, you will have serious problems in the long-run and you'll never get past the first round in the playoffs and will most likely get lucky just getting there.
There has got to be a better solution. These types of guaranteed contracts absolutely kill the competitive nature of the NBA when you have so much dead weight sitting on NBA rosters. There has to be a way to eliminate guaranteed contracts, while still allowing players to make their scratch by working hard and continuing to produce. I would suggest that the best way to do that would be to eliminate guaranteed contracts, but have them guaranteed once a season starts so you don't see blatant salary dumping in the middle of a year. I would also suggest that the owners could guarantee a "minimum" salary to the players on a team so even if a team cut its two highest paid players before a season (i.e., dropping payroll from 40 to 20 million), the team would be forced to pay a minimum % of the annual payroll per year to its players. I realize there is a provision now that requires that, but juxtaposed against the current rules with guaranteed contracts, it rarely comes up.
Anyway, this doesn't make a lot of sense but it's frustrating to watch teams spend themselves to oblivion on mediocre players. I'm just glad the kings didn't sign any of these mediocre players to these atrocious deals.
Amir Johnson - 5 years, 34 million (7 million per year)
Rudy Gay - 5 years, 81 million (16.2 million per year)
John Salmons 5 years, 39 million (8 million per year)
This is the problem with the NBA at this point. I guess one can make the argument that the owners shouldn't be stupid enough to give these kinds of deals to these types of players that invariably end up affecting the quality of play in the NBA (how much productivity did Kenny Thomas bring to the Kings for all those years....) and fan satisfaction with their team (i.e., the Clippers giving away Marcus Camby for a bag of chips in order to save a few mil).
Amir Johnson and John Salmons - these guys are decent enough role players, and Salmons has shown he can start in the NBA, but can anyone honestly say they couldn't find decent replacement talent for a fraction of the price (NBDL, overseas, undrafted FA, etc)? Will either of these two ever have a true impact on NBA basketball?
As far as the Rudy Gay contract, if you pay a #3 player like you would pay a superstar, you will have serious problems in the long-run and you'll never get past the first round in the playoffs and will most likely get lucky just getting there.
There has got to be a better solution. These types of guaranteed contracts absolutely kill the competitive nature of the NBA when you have so much dead weight sitting on NBA rosters. There has to be a way to eliminate guaranteed contracts, while still allowing players to make their scratch by working hard and continuing to produce. I would suggest that the best way to do that would be to eliminate guaranteed contracts, but have them guaranteed once a season starts so you don't see blatant salary dumping in the middle of a year. I would also suggest that the owners could guarantee a "minimum" salary to the players on a team so even if a team cut its two highest paid players before a season (i.e., dropping payroll from 40 to 20 million), the team would be forced to pay a minimum % of the annual payroll per year to its players. I realize there is a provision now that requires that, but juxtaposed against the current rules with guaranteed contracts, it rarely comes up.
Anyway, this doesn't make a lot of sense but it's frustrating to watch teams spend themselves to oblivion on mediocre players. I'm just glad the kings didn't sign any of these mediocre players to these atrocious deals.
