That was a long article but it brought up interesting points. In regards to Hill not having incentives, I can see how this hurts the Spurs in the sense that Hill is guaranteed to make as little as legally possible without any incentive to play better to get more money. I know everyone thinks NBA players should always play as hard as possible, but it's a business so let's be real.
It was obviously written from a Memphis perspective but I don't think the author avoids calling the Memphis owners idiots. Overall, I agree with his point about how the Spurs get a pass.
But the point to me isn't that the Spurs get a pass, but how they deal with their draft picks. Trying to save 116K with Anderson does seem petty in the whole scheme of things. It makes me wonder how poorly they handled the Scola situation.
If they were always cheap, at least it would be consistent. But giving any money to Bonner makes no sense. So in the end, I have no idea what their strategy is. They did a miracle with their contract with Splitter from a business standpoint but then lost their minds with Bonner and RJ. What's their argument to agents? We can only pay your client big bucks if he underperforms?
It's not just the league that wanted this rookie scale. The player union reportedly pushed for it too due to some older/veteran players being butthurt that rookies could end up with better deals than them. So there's obviously a little bit of everything there.
Bonner and RJ can be examples of how the Spurs reward its players.
Spurs don't get bad press for how they handle rookies since they handle it professionally (just check out the Memphis owner's shoddy comments on why they're haggling Henry...dude didn't even read the CBA!) and rookies still pick the Spurs as the no. 1 franchise to go to, even over the current champs. They've also been pretty good about helping their players facilitate trades or get out of the NBA if they find more lucrative or desirable deals like Finley, Malik, and even Mason Jr. although Miami's 2nd rounder expired beforehand.
I'm curious. ShamSports.com shows that the Oklahoma City Thunder signed 1st round pick Cole Aldrich for $1,772,100 in year 1 and $1,827,400 in year, which is 100% of rookie salary scale for that pick. I wonder if that is "actual" or not. Does anyone have any other data on what Aldrich signed for?
Sorry, that wasn't really aimed at you, just the point about the author spurred me to make a point I hadn't seen mentioned.
Don't confuse not wanting a player like Bonner, and overpaying him. His yearly salary is pretty much in line with his market value.
In regards to RJ, yeah, they paid him more than market value. But I think it's pretty clear they put an offer on the table prior to RJ opting out that they felt fit their business model and ability to compete for the upcoming year and moving forward better. Essentially, they got what they wanted out of the deal.
Agree with it or not, the Spurs saved a lot of money for next year with the refinancing of RJ and only ended up s ing out about $13M more than they would have, while locking up RJ for 3 more years -- a notion they obviously believe to be a good one.
Go with Sham. There's not a safer bet in the biz.
It isn't his salary, it's the cap hold. Cap holds are almost always 100% of the rookie scale. Shamsports hasn't Aldrich contract details but other reliable have him at 120% at least for the first year.
The way it was listed, it looked like he posted the 100% scale for the 11th pick and not "actuals", so thanks for responding to my question.
I suppose the contracts to RJ and Bonner could be considered rewarding their players...but what exactly are they rewarding? Bonner worked and persevered, and still isn't that good. RJ, in contrast, goes on the Howard Stern show, talks to the press about wanting to restructure his deal while we're about to head into the playoffs, and overall underperformed and whined all season. I don't see a connection other than rewarding players for playing poorly.
As for Bonner's market value - I didn't get a sense that he actually tested the market. We could have let him hang out there for a while but we didn't. RJ did hang on the market for a while, and because no one bit, I'll assume his market value was much lower. Obviously a deal was already in place and in retrospect they could have played hard ball to get a better deal.
Let's just hope everyone shows up next year ready to play.
No, as evidenced by the grammatically overanalysed sentence from earlier that was quoted as far back as the initial post;Regardless, his point seems to be not so much that people that people should go easier on the Grizz, but instead that the Spurs are doing something wrong and deserve to be called out as well.
The same is true of the Spurs' and Grizzlies' handling of this year's first round draft picks. If it's wrong when Memphis do it, it's wrong when San Antonio do it. And since it's not wrong when San Antonio do it, it's not wrong when Memphis do it either. It's not going to be wrong when any team does it. Perhaps more of them should.
By the way. Cole Aldrich signed for the full 120%.
Sometimes you allow the thread and it's posts to skew what was really said, even after reading it. The further you get away, I guess.
My bad. Point taken.
Then his 1st year salary would not be $1,772,100, as listed, but $2,126,520. Thanks, Sham.
Shamsports do have an awesome website.
Same number I got (do).
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