New York going after Daly?

[Bricklayer]

I think someone already mentioned Nene. He's a better player and he does provide some of what Dally does and even more of what Dally doesn't have. There. You have it.

He doesn't do anything of what we NEED however. And he needs what we don't have -- shots to go around.

People who don't understand the value/beauty of defensive roleplayers essentially don't understand the NBA. There is a reason Tyrson Chandler is there next to Dirk. A reason Memphis suddenly got better when it ripped out its Mayo/Gay (not entirely willingly) swingmen and replaced them with Tony Allen, Sam Young, and Shane Battier. A reason Noah was so valuable to the Bulls. These are not accidents. They are in fact the reasons those teams are winning. Once your offensive shots are accounted for, then all of your efforts should instantly swing to making yourself as good defensively and on the boards as you can. That's the luxury of having major stars. They buy you defensive roleplayers, rather than you having to waste roster spots on 15ppg scorers to get you points who can't help you the other way. When you get Garnett, Allen and Pierce, you don't surround them with Nene and Tony Parker. You surround them with Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo. When you have Parker, Duncan and Ginobili, you don't surround them with Jeff Green and Charlie Villanueva. You surround them with Bruce Bowen and Rasho Moberto. When you have Durant and Westbrook and Green, you not only don't surround them with more random scorers, you start with Thabo Sefalosha and Serge Ibaka, and decide heck, that's still wasting a defensive spot, and turn Green into Kendrick Perkins. We've got Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins, and Marcus Thronton. Any or even all of whom could be 20ppg scorers as soon as this season. You don't surround those guys with more random offensive players. You surround them with Samuel Dalembert, Ak47, Shane Battier, Shannon Brown, Earl Watson, whoever.

 

[bajaden]

If you think I am saying "sit down, open my wallet, and say go ahead and take what you want," I thinks that's a bit insulting. Where'd you get that? I AM saying there are two sides to a negotiation. This has been beaten to death. I'm done.

Not trying to insult you, but the very first paragraph of the post I quoted seemed to imply that it was perfectly alright to overpay a player for past services rendered. And to some extent, on my emotional side I agree with that, but the business side of me says a large no! Maybe I simply have a different point of view than you do. So be it.

Long term contracts for less than star players scare me to death, and apparently it scares the league to death as well, since thats one of the sticky points of the present negotiations going on between the league and the players association. I still have these haunting dreams of Kenny Thomas and Nocioni jumping over fences. Dalembert is one knee injury away from being worthless as a player. He's a defensive player and very good defensive players depend on their athletic ability than most players. Especially if your a one note somba. Not saying thats going to happen. God forbid that it happens. But if he's on a three years guaranteed contract, its not as hard a pill to swallow as a five year guaranteed contract.

If he wants a five year guaranteed contract, then I'll give him one, but it will start for a lot less money than the three year contract would.

 

[Bricklayer]

Not trying to insult you, but the very first paragraph of the post I quoted seemed to imply that it was perfectly alright to overpay a player for past services rendered. And to some extent, on my emotional side I agree with that, but the business side of me says a large no! Maybe I simply have a different point of view than you do. So be it.

Long term contracts for less than star players scare me to death, and apparently it scares the league to death as well, since thats one of the sticky points of the present negotiations going on between the league and the players association. I still have these haunting dreams of Kenny Thomas and Nocioni jumping over fences. Dalembert is one knee injury away from being worthless as a player. He's a defensive player and very good defensive players depend on their athletic ability than most players. Especially if your a one note somba. Not saying thats going to happen. God forbid that it happens. But if he's on a three years guaranteed contract, its not as hard a pill to swallow as a five year guaranteed contract.

If he wants a five year guaranteed contract, then I'll give him one, but it will start for a lot less money than the three year contract would.

Knee injuries, unless you are talking somethign catastrophic that can happend to anybody anytime, are hardly some sort of death knell for defensive players. Probably worse for perimeter guys than interior guys due to quickness, but even there tehre are a lot of examples of guys doing well afterward. tony Allen is doingit right now. We had Doug Christie, who had actually had microfracture and was still in good shape. Right now in the playoffs Kendrick Perkins is still chugging despite a knee. Ditto for Bynum. Jermaine O'Neal of course. It happens, but if you have the instincts and length you can still be effective even post knee. And it should be mentioend again that Daly has been extemely durable and has no history of injury, let alone knee injury, at all.

 

[Glenn]

Not trying to insult you, but the very first paragraph of the post I quoted seemed to imply that it was perfectly alright to overpay a player for past services rendered. And to some extent, on my emotional side I agree with that, but the business side of me says a large no! Maybe I simply have a different point of view than you do. So be it.

Long term contracts for less than star players scare me to death, and apparently it scares the league to death as well, since thats one of the sticky points of the present negotiations going on between the league and the players association. I still have these haunting dreams of Kenny Thomas and Nocioni jumping over fences. Dalembert is one knee injury away from being worthless as a player. He's a defensive player and very good defensive players depend on their athletic ability than most players. Especially if your a one note somba. Not saying thats going to happen. God forbid that it happens. But if he's on a three years guaranteed contract, its not as hard a pill to swallow as a five year guaranteed contract.

If he wants a five year guaranteed contract, then I'll give him one, but it will start for a lot less money than the three year contract would.

Because of the way contracts are configured, they generally increase in value at a set rate. A contract that averages $10 mil per year actually starts at about $8 mil in year one and may end at $13 mil. Those are the specific numbers I mentioned about this specific player. If that is outrageous, then we really don't agree. Is this opening the wallet? This is what I wrote about Dally. The emotional side of me as a fan wants a team that will win.

Philly may have overpaid him and I was suggesting a $5 mil pay cut in the first year.

I was also trying to take into account what a 30 year old ball player might demand and a three year contract isn't it. He wants security to the possible end of his career and that's life.

 

[ParniValjak]

I think it's a mistake to think that the FA pool is the be-all-end-all. The FA pool is far too limiting. It's FA and trades, which may be interconnected with the draft pick. It's not going to be a surprise to me if Petrie's deal(s) involve as much in trade as in just buying a FA outright. It could involve a sign and trade for example. Who are Petrie's targets for acquisition? I have no idea. But I'd be pretty shocked if Petrie is thinking in this duality of Dalembert/No Substitute for Dalembert mode.

OK so who are those Dalembert replacements that would be available in a trade that have same sort of defensive attributes that Dalembert does? Please enlighten us all!

 

[ParniValjak]

I think someone already mentioned Nene. He's a better player and he does provide some of what Dally does and even more of what Dally doesn't have. There. You have it.

He is inferior rebounder and a shot blocker for his position. Two main things that we should get out of a player to play next to Cousins. Nene is NOT a good rebounder and is ridiculously back shot blocker for his position. Nene would be great to have with Dalembert and Cousins but if he is replacing either one of those then its troubled times for your rebounding and especially shot blocking.

If Nene provides same things that Dalembert does (and not for a moment do I believe that to be the case) why has Denver gone out and signed the Birdman to a ridiculous contract?!

 

[ParniValjak]

....If I'm the GM, I make Dalembert and offer of 7 mill a year for four years with the last year being a team option. Knowing that I'll end paying more than that. Then I send his agent on his merry way to find a better offer, or the best offer he can find and have him bring it back to me. And if I think beating that offer is reasonable, then I go ahead and beat it. And Wa La, we've resigned Dalembert. But I'm not going to sit down, open my wallet, and say go ahead and take what you want.

Except you could also insult the player by low balling his straight up to the point where he goes somewhere else for less money because he is more respected and loved there. $7million is just slightly over MLE and he is worth a fair bit more than that. Dalembert is a better player than Perkins and Perkings is earning more than you are willing to offer to Dalembert. Dalembert's market value will demand that he get anywhere from 8-10million so why would you low ball him with the initial offer?

Maybe I am an egoistical prick but if I was Dalembert and you came to me with that sort of initial offer I would tell you where to stick it. But then thats just me

 

[rhythmless]

For all you in here who don't think dalembert is worth 8 more than million a year, why don't you take a look at comparable players and see what their contracts are currently at.

Btw, Baja, 7 mil for 4 years is 28 million. A MLE offered at 6 million for 4 years would end up being 26.6 million. And Dalembert is going to have absolutely no trouble finding an MLE for 5 years for 35 mil. As far as I'm concerned your 4 year deal is pretty insulting given the landscape of the NBA. Find me a starting caliber defensive center in his age group that gets this kind of money.

 

[bajaden]

Because of the way contracts are configured, they generally increase in value at a set rate. A contract that averages $10 mil per year actually starts at about $8 mil in year one and may end at $13 mil. Those are the specific numbers I mentioned about this specific player. If that is outrageous, then we really don't agree. Is this opening the wallet? This is what I wrote about Dally. The emotional side of me as a fan wants a team that will win.

Philly may have overpaid him and I was suggesting a $5 mil pay cut in the first year.

I was also trying to take into account what a 30 year old ball player might demand and a three year contract isn't it. He wants security to the possible end of his career and that's life.

If you start him a 8 mil a year on a 4 years contract, then your essentially giving him what Perkins got. I started this whole thing out about a month ago in another thread, equating Perkins and Dalembert. And I think thats fair. Now to be fair to you, I haven't read every single post you've made. I just got the impression that you wanted us to sign him no matter what. In one of my posts I suggested that there should be a limit to how high you should go in trying to resign him. You later followed my post but not actually referencing it, with a post about how we couldn't afford to let him go etc. From that I got the idea that you didn't agree with my concept.

But as I said, I think what Perkins got was fair. Its just that my perference would be for the last year to be a team option. Might not be possible, but its still my perference. Realistic or not. At any rate, its sounds like were in agreement.

 

[bajaden]

Knee injuries, unless you are talking somethign catastrophic that can happend to anybody anytime, are hardly some sort of death knell for defensive players. Probably worse for perimeter guys than interior guys due to quickness, but even there tehre are a lot of examples of guys doing well afterward. tony Allen is doingit right now. We had Doug Christie, who had actually had microfracture and was still in good shape. Right now in the playoffs Kendrick Perkins is still chugging despite a knee. Ditto for Bynum. Jermaine O'Neal of course. It happens, but if you have the instincts and length you can still be effective even post knee. And it should be mentioend again that Daly has been extemely durable and has no history of injury, let alone knee injury, at all.

I don't disagree with you. Where knee injuries are concerned, it depends on what kind of injury, how old you are, and what kind of player you are. I'm not going to go through the case history of every player you listed, because I was just creating a straw dog anyway. All I was trying to do was keep things realisitic. I don't think you resign Dalembert at any cost, and that was my only point. If he were to want a 5 year contract starting at 11 or 12 million a year, I'm going to say no. Not because I don't want him, but because thats a ton of money with a lot of risk that by the 5th year he won't be the player he was in the first year, and not worth the money he's being paid.

The injury part was to only remind folks that bad things can happen, and if you didn't plan properly, it can set your franchise back. However, I do realize that there's always risk, no matter who you sign.

 

[Uncia03]

Signing Dalembert should be one of our top priorities.

Now it might not happen because Dalembert won't cooperate with us (Reasons: He might want to go to a contender for the MLE, or he might demand a 5 year deal starting at 12/13 million), but I find that rather unlikely.

I think most would agree that the deal Perkins got is in the range of what we'd like to see happen with Dalembert, were we to sign him to an extension this year.
I actually thought that the Thunder got a bargain for Perkins considering what he brings to their team. 35 million for 4 years, considering some of the contracts we saw over the off-season, that's just a really good deal for the Thunder.

I think the thing to note is this: That deal with Perkins was negotiated prior to the new CBA.

Petrie and the Maloofs have been very smart, and have bided their time, and now are the best positioned team in the league to take advantage of any favorable outcomes as it relates to a new CBA.

And the new CBA should drive down Dalembert's salary.

After the terms of the new CBA it's possible that people will look at the Perkins deal, and think that the Thunder greatly over-paid.

I want Dalembert back with this team. But since I have a feeling we could have signed him to an extension this year to the tune of 4 years at 35 million, I will be disappointed if we end up paying him more than that once the new CBA is in place.

I don't want to 'low-ball' him, and have him not sign because he thinks we are insulting him, but at the same time, there might not even be an MLE after the CBA, and of course that will change how the Kings negotiate with him. So I'm looking at Perkin's contract, and figure we should be able to get a better deal than if we'd signed Dalembert to an extension this year.

We'll have to wait and see, but I fully expect to see Dalembert with us next season. And, as has been suggested a few times, if we have to front-load his contract to make certain that we have flexibility for Tyreke and Cousins, then by all means do it. We have the cap-space to do whatever it is that we want, so we should be taking full advantage of it.

 

[rainmaker]

Well as I said yesterday, I'd offer a 3 yr $36M contract. If Dally wants 4 years, I'd knock it down some, maybe $40M over 4 years. Not 5 years. While I usually agree with you Baja, $7M is too low, and would come across as insulting IMO. Maybe not, but it's not a chance I'd take. Lowballing him right off the bat might make his decision for him, and he'll immediately look elsewhere.

Perk is getting roughly $8M per. Camby also gets about $8M per. I'd rather have Dally over either of them, and think he means more to this team success than those guys mean to the success of their teams. Por made the playoffs without Camby doing much this year, and OKC made the playoffs last year without Perk, and were on pace to do it again this year before the trade.

So Dally is worth at least $8M per. Now, one of the worst things that can happen when we negotiate with him is Por following through on the rumor, and offer Oden $40M over 4 years. This is a guy who basically has played as much as coachie has played the past 2 years, and has been injury prone dating back to highschool. If you're Dally, and you see Oden get that type of money, what do you think will go through his head and his agents? Por could very well set the going rate for a defensive center this off season.

The only guy in the league I'd take over Dally for what he does is Chandler, and he aint leaving Dallas. No way. I love Nene, but he doesn't bring what Dally does. Now if Dally walks, then I'd strongly consider Nene, who'd probably be asking for the same amount as Dally, and I'd rather spend that money on Dally.

Front load the contract. Make sure it expires either when Cous is up for an extension in 3 years, or we at least have a team option for the 4th year. But there's no replacing what Dally does on the court, or his mentorship towards Cousins off the court, which is important as well. You can replace shooting, You can replace ball handling. You can find rebounding. But there's no other possible replacement for what Dally does. Chandler isn't a possibility in my mind, and Dwight isn't coming. No Noah either. So we either fork over the money, or this team takes a huge step back and our defense crumbles.

 

[=LarryLegend=]

I want Dalembert back with this team. But since I have a feeling we could have signed him to an extension this year to the tune of 4 years at 35 million, I will be disappointed if we end up paying him more than that once the new CBA is in place.

This would be nice, and if we could sign Thornton to a Wesley Matthews 34/5 years size contract..... start of a great offseason.

 

[Kingster]

He doesn't do anything of what we NEED however. And he needs what we don't have -- shots to go around.

People who don't understand the value/beauty of defensive roleplayers essentially don't understand the NBA. There is a reason Tyrson Chandler is there next to Dirk. A reason Memphis suddenly got better when it ripped out its Mayo/Gay (not entirely willingly) swingmen and replaced them with Tony Allen, Sam Young, and Shane Battier. A reason Noah was so valuable to the Bulls. These are not accidents. They are in fact the reasons those teams are winning. Once your offensive shots are accounted for, then all of your efforts should instantly swing to making yourself as good defensively and on the boards as you can. That's the luxury of having major stars. They buy you defensive roleplayers, rather than you having to waste roster spots on 15ppg scorers to get you points who can't help you the other way. When you get Garnett, Allen and Pierce, you don't surround them with Nene and Tony Parker. You surround them with Kendrick Perkins and Rajon Rondo. When you have Parker, Duncan and Ginobili, you don't surround them with Jeff Green and Charlie Villanueva. You surround them with Bruce Bowen and Rasho Moberto. When you have Durant and Westbrook and Green, you not only don't surround them with more random scorers, you start with Thabo Sefalosha and Serge Ibaka, and decide heck, that's still wasting a defensive spot, and turn Green into Kendrick Perkins. We've got Tyreke Evans, DeMarcus Cousins, and Marcus Thronton. Any or even all of whom could be 20ppg scorers as soon as this season. You don't surround those guys with more random offensive players. You surround them with Samuel Dalembert, Ak47, Shane Battier, Shannon Brown, Earl Watson, whoever.

I think Nene is a good defender, just not the shotblocker Dalembert is. So I do think he does some of what the Kings need on the defensive end. He definitely has more defensive quickness than Dalembert. And his offensive game, which is both inside and outside, is perfectly complementary with Cousins, so in that respect he fulfills a need. I don't think Nene is a random offensive player.

 

[Kingster]

I'm not giving Dalembert a five year contract for 10 mil a year. I'll give him a three year contract for 10 mil a year, and then I'll give him one more year with it being a team option. We have Tyreke and Cousins both tied up for, in Tyreke's case three more years and in Cousins case four more years. I want the end of Dalemberts contract to coinside with the end of either Tryeke's or Cousins contract, so we have some financial flexability. I agree with both Funky and Kingster. They both made good points. Its not just about spending the money, its about who you spend it on, and for how long. Atlanta blew it all on Johnson and now they have no flexability to improve their team. Yes, they're a good team, but they'll never be a championship team.

When you get done putting all your eggs in the basket, you damm well better have a team thats able to contend for a championship, because thats as good as your going to get for a while, at least in adding personell. So yes, lets resign Dalembert! But not at any cost! The minute you get into the mode as a GM that you can't survive without a certain player, and that player isn't a franchise player, your in trouble. I think you always have to plan for the worse case scenario as well as the best.

If I'm the GM, I make Dalembert and offer of 7 mill a year for four years with the last year being a team option. Knowing that I'll end paying more than that. Then I send his agent on his merry way to find a better offer, or the best offer he can find and have him bring it back to me. And if I think beating that offer is reasonable, then I go ahead and beat it. And Wa La, we've resigned Dalembert. But I'm not going to sit down, open my wallet, and say go ahead and take what you want.

If Dalembert wants to forgo the money and play for a possible championship team, then there's nothing I can do then except start looking for that bionic PF that Funky described.

I agree on the $7 mill/4 years. I might even nudge it to $7.5 mill/4yrs. I hope the Kings org takes a look at the Spurs and see how they managed their salary structure over the years. They were very disciplined in their approach, and I can't recall them ever overpaying for someone.