It will be interesting to see how the deal works for the fans. Looks like they’ve carved up more pieces of pie which means exclusivity for each partner. Great for players and coaches who receive this revenue in their checks, most likely terrible for us.
Control is absolutely part of this, and there was some vague chatter that Brown wanted to keep the core intact last year while Vivek was eager to add a third star and Monte is trying to meet in the middle by acquiring such a player that would actually fit here so we don't have a Westbrook type situation (or what seems to now be a Beal situation in Phoenix).
No, it wasn't good enough but I still like the Kings chances against the top 3 seeds in the West in a 7 game series based on how we played each other this year. We stumbled too much vs. lesser competition and after Kev and Monk (after it was too late to do anything) went down we were DOA. And it isn't going to get any easier because of our division and the West as a whole.
There's a half decent chance he's going to collect 5 of those years from his couch.
Yeah, though part of the value in his contract is incentives that can probably be clawed back
Perhaps it's just pretty wild they let Weaver sign him to that deal if he was on such a tight leash. They probably should have sacked Weaver first, there was certainly nothing going into this season that indicated he had gotten anything right or that Detroit was on the come up.
The first time I really was old enough to pay attention to salaries I remember when Rickey Henderson signed the 4 year, 12 million dollar baseball contract and how it seemed to shake everything we know about sports, I think in the NBA Patrick Ewing was making similar numbers and Magic was around $2m per, and now that's just a smidge over the veteran's minimum. Other sports haven't been as kind in the minimum salaries but baseball still seems to dramatically overpay its players for a sport it seems few people enjoy watching any longer.
I don't think the NBA is squeezing fans. I think that if you give deals to 4 companies that all now own separate streaming services that require individual subs, that sucks for us but I don't blame the NBA. Conversely MLS signing an exclusive deal with Apple TV was also horrendous - if slightly more fan friendly to die hards, it's a death blow to casuals. We've reached the point where peak cable TV is now more desirable than what's on the table today. That's not an NBA problem or their fault, it's just the reality of the media landscape.
I don’t know/remember where I saw it but players and Brown wanted to build on last season, I think once most of the likely targets re-signed before the start of FA they quickly re-upped Barnes but that was the only wild card at play. Vivek probably pushed for Beal and has also indicated he still likes LaVine which is a big no thank you from me.
As far as I’m concerned he has one job: writing checks.
