Team Chemistry

[dbestpro]

1) Hill is a fine backup PG. He is too short to be a full time SG.

2) Manu is going older and will log less and less minutes, even more that he will play this summer. He can also play some SF.

3) I'm not convinced that Neal can be more than a bench role player.

4) Anderson is a question mark after his surgery and he was a good SF before it.

There is no problem, there is no logjam.
[/thread]

So Hill can only play some backup PG and is too short to start at SG, while Manu is too old to play major minutes, while Neal is a bench player and Anderson is a question mark, yet there is no problem. You assessment sounds like a logjam of scrubs.

[ElNono]

That's a whole other ball of wax.

The RJ deal was, IMO, purely financial. Unless you believe that the two parties didn't have an arrangement prior to RJ opting out, the Spurs never had the option of letting him walk like the other three. The Spurs chose to refinance their obligations to RJ. It's not my money, so it's hard for me to be overly critical of their decision. Clearly, keeping RJ for three additional years was going to evolve into a bad basketball decision before the end of his contract.

It was shortsighted. I agree that RJ's opted out once the Spurs hinted they were willing to 'refinance' on a longer deal. There's no way he walks out of that kind of money otherwise, especially after the season he had. With that in mind, the Spurs shouldn't have offered that refinancing and paid some lux tax, but had an expiring $15m very valuable trade chip. The price to pay in lux tax + extras would have been about $7m (IIRC). How much is costing the Spurs now keeping him around?

At the very least, if they just wanted to avoid the lux tax hit this season and refinance him, they could've done better than give him the contract they did (specifically the player option in the last season, which nowadays is a rarity).

Obvious disclaimers are "It's not my money" and "I wasn't part of the negotiations".

[ElNono]

I forgot to add... there's other team/financial implications going forward with RJ's contract, like the lack of flexibility the Spurs might have resigning Hill, as was explained in the relevant thread back then.

[Mel_13]

It was shortsighted. I agree that RJ's opted out once the Spurs hinted they were willing to 'refinance' on a longer deal. There's no way he walks out of that kind of money otherwise, especially after the season he had. With that in mind, the Spurs shouldn't have offered that refinancing and paid some lux tax, but had an expiring $15m very valuable trade chip. The price to pay in lux tax + extras would have been about $7m (IIRC). How much is costing the Spurs now keeping him around?

At the very least, if they just wanted to avoid the lux tax hit this season and refinance him, they could've done better than give him the contract they did (specifically the player option in the last season, which nowadays is a rarity).

Obvious disclaimers are "It's not my money" and "I wasn't part of the negotiations".

From a basketball perspective, the mistake of 2009 was compounded with the mistake of 2010 and we'll have to live with consequences of those mistakes for the next three years.

From a financial perspective, it ain't my money.

(fwiw, the total savings of the refinancing improved the bottom line by something on the order of 18-20 million dollars in reduced salary, reduced luxury tax and added luxury tax distribution. As to whether a better deal was possible, we'll never know. We do know, or think we know, that the Spurs found the refinancing terms acceptable before RJ opted out on June 30th. The deal he signed may very well have been his bottom line price for opting out. Remember that RJ gave an interview in April, 2010 where he said that he would consider opting out of the remaining 1 yr/15M for something on the order of 4 yrs/40M. The Spurs did the math and found that the numbers worked for them as well.)

[ElNono]

From a basketball perspective, the mistake of 2009 was compounded with the mistake of 2010 and we'll have to live with consequences of those mistakes for the next three years.

From a financial perspective, it ain't my money.

(fwiw, the total savings of the refinancing improved the bottom line by something on the order of 18-20 million dollars in reduced salary, reduced luxury tax and added luxury tax distribution. As to whether a better deal was possible, we'll never know. We do know, or think we know, that the Spurs found the refinancing terms acceptable before RJ opted out on June 30th. The deal he signed may very well have been his bottom line price for opting out. Remember that RJ gave an interview in April, 2010 where he said that he would consider opting out of the remaining 1 yr/15M for something on the order of 4 yrs/40M. The Spurs did the math and found that the numbers worked for them as well.)

We'll see what the final tab will be for the Spurs over those 4 years... in lost revenue and the lack of flexibility they find themselves in. Or the potential to lose some promising assets in order to rid themselves of that contract.

[Mel_13]

I forgot to add... there's other team/financial implications going forward with RJ's contract, like the lack of flexibility the Spurs might have resigning Hill, as was explained in the relevant thread back then.

No doubt.

RJ's contract will certainly affect the team's financial flexibility over the next few years with the greatest impact coming this summer. Too many variables (TD and Manu retirements and the new CBA primary among them) to say very much about 2012 and 2013, but RJ's contract will occupy a percentage of the payroll disproportionate to his basketball contributions for as long as he remains a Spur.

[Mel_13]

We'll see what the final tab will be for the Spurs over those 4 years... in lost revenue and the lack of flexibility they find themselves in. Or the potential to lose some promising assets in order to rid themselves of that contract.

Yep. They took the certain savings in year one against the potential costs in years 2, 3, and 4.

[TD 21]

Unrealistic trade.

You don't get a 30m contract back giving a young prospect in his rookie contract for a minor improvement. I am not sure if he is an improvement at all.

We could trade RJ, but not is this scenario. I'm sure we would get a bad contract back or we would have to give one of our young assets with Jefferson to get rid of him.

Realistic trade.

I forgot to mention that the potential (likely?) deal breaker is Garcia's contract.

Casspi fell out of the rotation down the stretch of the season, so when discussing their situation at SF, compare Jefferson to Garcia/Greene.

It might very well take the Spurs taking back a bad contract or adding one of their top young assets to get rid of Jefferson, but the notion that a team like the Kings wouldn't make a trade like this ignores recent history.