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like OKC won't have soon their own problem with salary gap
This new CBA really punishes teams that draft well. Teams should be able to pay/reward guys that were acquired prior to their rookie season with some type of allotment that would not count towards the second apron threshold.
When you have star level players who want to be Spurs you sign them.
No Uncle/Nephew bull
Only an emotionally unintelligent person would think not maxing Fox was rational, because their is a human element to the nba beyond just what happens on the basketball court. Fox and his agent did the Spurs a MASSIVE favor by forcing their way out of Sac and making the Spurs the only destination. Had the Spurs tried to play any type of hardball with Fox he would have been both the first player to try and force their way to the Spurs and the last, because any other player is going to look at the situation and say "yeah no, not going to try to force myself to a place that will then turn around and play hardball with me because they drafted a guard who might legit never even be as good as I am right now."
Real life isn't Nba2k.
The actual irrational thing to do would be to draft a guy number 2 and then tell the star player you traded for who is way better than the player you drafted right now you are not going to max him. That would open you up to Fox wanting to leave as soon as he got here ( having Victor like wtf) and put an insane amount of pressure on Harper to be good right now. Like be an all star his rookie year good if you pulled some foolishness like that.
And Fox is clearly a max player. If he hit free agency he would have multiple teams offering him a max contract no questions asked.
There was indeed palpable risk all along - If you don’t extend him he becomes a one year rental with the Spurs having paid all of your aforementioned draft capital.
The odds that both Harper and Castle become “max-type” players is astronomically low. I think most of the trepidation surrounding Fox’s deal stems from everyone assuming those guys will become “the guy”.
I honestly believe he will be treated like a 2nd overall pick. Castle was given the keys very early for the 2nd string and took the 1st group when available and was also given the keys to lead.
I expect Harper to have the same opportunities.
This Spurs talent is below average overall. There is a reason they've had three lottery picks, even if one was pretty lucky.
The players on the team aren't franchise changing players outside of Wemby, Castle, Fox , Harper and now Bryant coming into the mix. The other players are still developing and growing etc, but have shown they're good enough to be one of the worst teams in the NBA. I don't think prioritizing their minutes is going to be a big factor. Moving Johnson, vassell, Sochan etc frees up money and creates opportunities to mix and match better around Wemby accordingly.
Those four core players mentioned are guaranteed part of the next 4-5 years. That's your franchise. Harper is up there with Wemby and Castle as far as priority. There isn't a ton of talent standing in his way either.
Of course, maybe Pop calls down to sit him so he can get over himself as well. I think the Spurs are moving towards the future now though.
Fox cannot become supermax eligible so there would be nothing to build an escalator to unlike the OKC signings.
He got his contract - that was Klutch's priority. If Fox has to adapt to our young backcourt and doesn't like it, Klutch is very adept at moving players somewhere else, obviously. So the problem in the theoretical future is if the guards don't mesh, then can we trade Fox?
Being that SA is also boring for most pro athletes, if someone really wants to leave, it's hard to find a less desirable city for lifestyle reasons - he's already done Sacramento so any other place would be more exciting.
That is a worst case cynical interpretation of the future.
The positive is that Fox is insurance if either of Castle or Harper don't take a leap.
I don't love the fit given the dearth of shooters, but still these are good problems to have compared to the Dark Ages between Kawhi and Victor
This. You definitely have to reward someone making an effort to join your small market team. Spurs can not afford to piss him off and give the young players reason to look elsewhere when their time comes
i only slightly agree with this, and its with respect to the rose rule and DPE (supermax) where teams actually get punished for their players receiving accolades. i think that extra 5% they get from the accolades should not count against the cap.
aside from that, no i dont think you get punished for drafting well. by drafting well, you are getting good players on rookie scale deals for 4 years. and if you have drafted "too well" and it becomes hard to give all these guys big deals, then you have the luxury of trading one of them for more ammo to continue replenishing with good players on rookie deals (provided you keep drafting well) to augment your retained home grown stars
I know it can seem like a large number and we aren't used to signing players to that kind of salary but it really doesn't seem like some big risky decision either. The spurs didn't include a player option on the last year for a reason. He is locked up so that if his salary becomes an issue you can trade him with a couple years still under contract for a decent haul, so long as he plays well and stays healthy. In the mean time you have a great player that should be a good match next to Wemby. The only way this blows up in our face is if he gets injured badly. Sometimes you have to take a risk and this one seems calculated.
Why do you say so? Thats insane! This is wemby’s team not harper lmao. We’re still not sure if harper will be better than fox in the future.
Exactly my point lol
The operative word was 'relatively' and it's a matter of a combination of fit and expectation/pressure to make the playoffs.
Harper is obviously a higher tier of prospect than Sheppard, for example, but he was the 3rd pick a season ago, yet a fringe - non rotation player for those same reasons (and he actually brought a skill the Rockets desperately needed).
Harper won't be in danger of that, but until he can stretch the floor, I'm not sure how much he'll play alongside Fox.
Maybe they banish Johnson to fringe - non rotation status if the situation becomes dire, but initially? I'll believe it when I see it. Meanwhile, Champagnie as a rotation staple is a must.
I mostly answered above, but I think most foresee a 3 guard rotation, with something like a 36 (Fox), 32 (Castle), 28 (Harper) split.
In addition to what I've said, I think Vassell as exclusively a 3 and Barnes as a lone true forward, is too small/lacking physicality.
All related to the new CBA, a de facto hard cap. Previously, it was just a matter of how much ownership was willing to spend, in which case I mostly shared your sentiment.
Now, it's all about flexibility and optionality.
The differences are, there wasn't an expectation/pressure to make the playoffs last season and the only primary ball handler ahead of Castle was ancient Paul.
Not only will the former ramp up, but Harper will have prime Fox as well as Castle ahead of him in this regard, on a team starved for shooting.
This is a really interesting point, got me to look at the pace stats. Would like to get some feedback from you'll- can the Spurs play fast?
Last yr everyone on the roster was basically above average pace, even being dragged down by CP3 tempo, with Barnes, Bismack, and CP3 being the 3 slowest, followed by Vassell and Wemby.
Obviously the Spurs will go as Wemby goes, would he be comfortable playing fast or would that wear him out?
Roster wise, I think we are very well suited. Fox, Castle, Harper, Keldon, and Champ would all thrive playing fast, prolly the best way to use all of them. Byrant too if he actually plays, think Sochan wouldn't mind running too. Olynek actually ranked ahead of Fox in pace.
I think Wemby could definitely thrive, Vassell too if he cuts the dribble/dribble/dribble and learns his role. Really just seems that Barnes and Kornet have to play slow, but no surprise there. Lots of potential to D to turn into quick O with our roster.
BRIAN WRIGHT IS THE GOAT GM HE IS BETTER THAN THAT FRAID JERRY WEST
Yeah, think Scott laid it out pretty well before the draft, but Castle's career peak trade value was very likely this summer. He'd prolly have to become a top 30 player for his value to ever reach what it is right now as a 20y/o, ROY, with tons of 2-way upside, and enough production/answers to get teams to overlook the very real questions/concerns with 3 more yrs of cheap control, then RFA. So much value right now, extremely difficult to improve on that value as he becomes more of a known quan y.
That said, I'd rather have kept him, I love the idea of a D juggernaught and I love guys that get free points, Castle was absolutely elite at FTr last yr like 12th amongst non-centers, top 30 overall. He's good enough at getting to the line that he can be near elite scoring efficiency w/o his 3 ever developing, but I think it will, at least to average.
There's not many (non-AllNBA) guys I'd actually trade Castle for though, although I would call NOP and see if they'd bite for Trey Murphy III.
Blame it on the absurdity of the Max contract. The Jokers, Giannis, Luka, SGA, prime Curry/LeBron/periennial All-NBA1/MVP top 10 guys should be getting like 60%-80% of the cap, everyone else should be fighting for the rest. Instead those guys get 25-35%, so guys like Beal/Lavine/Lauri/Fox/Barnes/etc point to their 1 AS/NBA3 or 25ppg or "face of the franchise" and you can't really argue because it is market value for those guys. 30 teams, each with enough to pay at least 2 max slots, you're always gonna have lots of "max" guys that don't produce the way the true superstars/max guys do.
It's an absolute joke that Scottie Barnes gets the same contract (structure) as SGA or Luka. But you also can't blame Barnes, that's his market value as it stands (22y/o AS, face of franchise).
Keep the cap, get rid of the Max, the league would be a lot more interesting, lots more parity, lots more team basketball vs Star+scrub teams. It'd be so much fun, better basketball. Pay the greats what their worth, pay the role players what their worth. Pay LeBron the 85% that he's definitely worth as a revenue producer and fill out the roster with min guys. Make it like the NFL, IMO the on-court product would improve drastically but it'd likely have to be 40-50 games (so never happen), can't pay a guy 75% of the cap and expect a healthy 82 games/too risky.
Bonus, heap tons of praise on the Duncan's/Dirk's/Brunson's (likely Jokers/Giannis) who would sacrifice ten's of millions for their teammates and judge the LeBrons who would never ever consider leaving one (deserved) penny on the table for the sake of winning, rewarding teammates, etc accordingly.
All of that sounds good until you realize at least half the league is ran by re s that would ruin everything if contract rules weren't strictly regulated.
Hyperbole much? A few means 3. 3 years ago Fox finished 11th in MVP and was AllNBA3, but he wasn't top 30?
You can name 30 better players in 23'-24' when Fox produced 26.6/5.6/4.6 and led the league in Stl/g on .465/.369/.738 splits? You absolutely can't because there were not 30 better basketball player better than him.
I think Fox is overrated by many here and maybe he's only a borderline top-30 guy now (but maybe he looks way better healthy next to Wemby), but he was absolutely one of the best 30 basketball players on earth in 2 of the past 3 seasons. His down season last yr while injured/traded/shut-down was still borderline top 30
Agree, the owners implemented the Max contracts to save them from themselves and they have, it spreads the risk. It's also a luxury toy for nearly every owner/group now, the core value is in being 1 of 30 with TV revenue share, with valuations in the billions, you don't actually have to win or run the franchise well, that profit/loss is a rounding error compared to franchise appreciation and the loss will prolly be less than your mega-yacht and your prolly use it more.
You don't need to run a luxury toy like a profit maxing business in fact that's probably likely to suppress your franchise value. But you also don't want 1 mistake to tarnish your prestige toy and cripple the next 3-4 yrs.
And its not just the 1/2 re ed/public facing idiots and its misaligned incentives plus subject matter novice owners relying on those idiots as subject matter experts in a crazy specialized and subjective field.
If I'm a struggling GM with little prospect of another GM job, why wouldn't I throw crazy money at a Scottie Barnes type lottery ticket? If he turns into an All-NBA1 I'm a genius, if he doesn't I was out the door anyways. And if I'm a hedge-fund/tech/heir billionaire do I really know enough about what's going on to overrule the person I'm paying to be my subject matter expert and decision maker? The Luka's and LeBron are easy, but if your an Owner and the GM is telling you Barnes is the next Joker/Giannis level guy who just needs to develop more it'd be pretty hard to overrule.
Bingo. This is exactly what I've been saying. The max is too low if you truly want salaries to reflect the true market value of players. This is just the predictable outcome of price controls in a structured system like this. The NFL's system is better in this regard, although they completely screw it up with the way contracts and non-guaranteed and you can play games by restructuring and stretching contracts into infinity, making the salary cap effectively fictional.
Which they all probably realize, which is why they like this structure to begin with
The worst of both world's is when you get the Jerry Jones/Matt Ishbia's of the world who have the power to do what they want, but don't realize they are completely clueless
This is already the biggest issue for franchises with no organizational structure above GM.
Like Magic said when asked about the Lakers future as he was leaving, "I won't be here".
That's how we got so much for Dejounte and how Nico was allowed to trade Luka.
If it doesn't work out, the GM is gone, either way, as you said.
Isn't this the case with any employee-employer relationship though? The only thing keeping any employee from making bad decisions (within legal bounds) is the fear or losing their job. If you make the stakes high enough, people not making the cut-line will always engage in riskier behavior to try and hit the targets. The solution is to take the fear out of the ability to take calculated risks. You have to find the right balance between empowering employees to take those swings without fear, while still setting some expectations.
I've been critical of this FO because they've been allowed to fail with little accountability... but that's also what allows them to take the very patient approach that landed us Wemby, Castle and Harper.
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