Dieng, Chriss, PATFO and Cold, Hard Cash

[Degoat]

I’m sort of confused by the conversation, like it doesn’t surprise me that the spurs ownership looked to make up some extra cash, who wouldn’t when your team may not may not make the playoffs especially during a pandemic... but if the spurs ownership was being picky with money, wouldnt they have not allowed the spurs to extend DWhite before the season started?

[Sugus]

I’m sort of confused by the conversation, like it doesn’t surprise me that the spurs ownership looked to make up some extra cash, who wouldn’t when your team may not may not make the playoffs especially during a pandemic... but if the spurs ownership was being picky with money, wouldnt they have not allowed the spurs to extend DWhite before the season started?

I'm just as confused now that I've read the thread, tbh. Nevermind the White extension - if Spurs ownership were as cash-strapped as Chino suggests, and wanted so badly to cut operational costs that they'd do the Chriss trade in the lens that Chino paints it - why get Dieng at all? The cost of his contract will surely be more than whatever the Spurs got for Chriss, and with bringing him before his contract is up, there's also the expectation that they'll try to resign him next season, further adding up the cost of this move.

The Spurs had no reason whatsoever, beyond well, basketball reasons, to go out of their way to sign Dieng - it would've been perfectly easy to let the hole at backup C carry on for another half season and pocket that money as well. So maybe I'm not understanding this right? But I don't see why Dieng's contract is a direct contraposition to the idea that ownership wants to spend as little as possible, despite understanding that it's an after-move to the Chriss trade (like, I guess Dieng would be "face-saving" over the backlash for the Chriss trade or something? In which case, Occam's Razor...).

[Dejounte]

There is no saving face when there was no backlash to begin with (outside of this website).

[Chinook]

All right, so let's get to some of the responses.

So one of the themes tends to be the belief that the Holts have to be doing poorly in order to change their philosophy. This isn't true. Hedge funds work this way often as a matter of principle. They buy businesses in order to liquidate as possible and to cut as much as as possible to make for a profitable sale. Long-term growth comes from them cycling through purchases, not letting their money sit in one and grow over time. From the little contacts I have, it seems like the Holts don't have money problems. That means nothing. Money problems were a possible explanation for the Chriss trade -- it wasn't the reason why the Chriss trade as bad.

As timvp pointed out, comparing this trade to previous moves is pretty wrong-headed. This is not simply making a move that didn't have a good on-court effect. "The quality of the product" is not referring to the team's performance. It's referring to the integrity of the basketball side of the operations. The Spurs may or may not make the appropriate basketball decisions to excel. The business side is suppose to do what they can to market and connect the product the basketball side makes in order to make the organization money. This is no different than a newspaper having a business team and a journalistic team. Obviously, there's always some crossover, which is why players who do things like break the law or say something rude to fans might be traded or cut even if they are good players who otherwise help their teams win. However, when the business side starts dictating how the basketball side uses its resources or converts basketball assets into business capital, then it crosses the line. Bottom line: What the Spurs did is something they haven't done in decades. It's legit not something we could have expected them to do, especially not in a season where they are playing pretty well.

It also seems like a number of posters didn't understand why folks like me were sounding the alarm in the first place. They believe that any of recent events actually have anything to do with why I and others thought it was an issue. That means when they see a thread like this they might think, "Give it up already." Just to be clear: The trade was wrong in and of itself. Context doesn't play any role in whether or not the trade was bad. What context does is help us see how much damage it caused or what liquidation rate the owners need to see in order to do something like this. The impact started off basically right where it is now, with us assuming Chris was going to be released and the Spurs were going to clear about $1 Million (if you look at my first post, that is actually the number I guessed in terms of their profit). When it looked like LMA was going to give back a lot of money (which we still don't know that he didn't?), the context made the owners seem crazy-cheap for selling roster space for a few hundred thousand bucks when they were already saving millions. Then, when the buyout shrank and the speculation rose that the Spurs were going to have to keep Chriss on the roster with no additional cash payment, it went to the Spurs being willing to sell a roster spot for basically nothing. Then it went to them waiving Chriss but us still believing they didn't get a lot of extra cash, thus making the deal basically for nothing. Now, we believe they got about $1 Million, and they waived Chriss. So we're back to believing that the owners sold salary space for cash when they had a team that didn't really have the la ude to make moves even before this trade. We're right where we were when the criticism started -- nothing was "proven to not be a big deal" because what was wrong on Wednesday is still wrong now.

My point in talking about this isn't to change people's mind or to call folks who don't agree with me stupid. There are a lot of posters who are only interested in looking at the Spurs as a basketball club or only worry about the business dealings if/when it obviously affects the team. For them, Forbes being awful is worse than this trade. I'm not here to take that point of view away from you guys. What I am trying to do is put the theory out there. You may or may not believe the trade signaled a big issue. You can disagree that it's a problem. But hopefully this is helping folks see why posters who are usually considered to be pretty firm "sniffers" have such a strong criticism for the trade. It's obviously not because we just hate on anything PATFO does. Hopefully, as lot of the people who read this thread will feel inclination to switch their lenses as we see other moves or non-moves PATFO makes to see if and how much the ideas in this thread apply rather than just looking at it from a basketball perspective.

[Allan Rowe vs Wade]

ownership made a cash play and then made the team play when it was available

shocking

for a measly mil

[offset formation]

Is there truly a concern with the owners struggling with money when they're the first NBA organization to deploy robot tech for disinfecting the stadium?

They're probably getting a hefty discount considering the company that makes them is based in SA.

[cjw]

Maybe the Chriss move helped push the balance in favor of the Dieng signing with the money saved? If the money they saved with Chriss = paid for Dieng, then how do you fault them?

They don’t have roster space to do one of those 1+2 deals you talk about. It would have been great to pawn off Lyles’ contract and create that space, but it would have meant taking on money beyond this season which they didn’t want to do.

[Chinook]

I’m sort of confused by the conversation, like it doesn’t surprise me that the spurs ownership looked to make up some extra cash, who wouldn’t when your team may not may not make the playoffs especially during a pandemic... but if the spurs ownership was being picky with money, wouldnt they have not allowed the spurs to extend DWhite before the season started?

NBA contracts don't work like the NFL. White didn't receive any money last year from signing the extension. IF he got a signing bonus as part of the extension (which I haven't heard but is well could have), that doesn't kick in until next year. The max he could get as a bonus is $11 Million. So he'd get about $27 Million next year and then the remaining $46 Million over the last three years. It'd look the same on a cap sheet as a straight bonusless deal, but it would be a bigger cash commitment for sure. Provided that didn't happen, signing a player to an extension has little to do with cash-readiness. Even Hinkie extended players.

I'm just as confused now that I've read the thread, tbh. Nevermind the White extension - if Spurs ownership were as cash-strapped as Chino suggests, and wanted so badly to cut operational costs that they'd do the Chriss trade in the lens that Chino paints it - why get Dieng at all? The cost of his contract will surely be more than whatever the Spurs got for Chriss, and with bringing him before his contract is up, there's also the expectation that they'll try to resign him next season, further adding up the cost of this move.

The Spurs had no reason whatsoever, beyond well, basketball reasons, to go out of their way to sign Dieng - it would've been perfectly easy to let the hole at backup C carry on for another half season and pocket that money as well. So maybe I'm not understanding this right? But I don't see why Dieng's contract is a direct contraposition to the idea that ownership wants to spend as little as possible, despite understanding that it's an after-move to the Chriss trade (like, I guess Dieng would be "face-saving" over the backlash for the Chriss trade or something? In which case, Occam's Razor...).

So what we know is that the Spurs made a move to liquidate a basketball asset for cash. Right, like we're at the point where no one is still trying to dress Chriss up as a piece the Spurs wanted. At this point, we know PATFO will do moves like this; therefore, Dieng being signed doesn't negate anything. The idea any poster argued that the ONLY thing PATFO wants is to save money is wrong-headed both because it's a clear strawman, but also because PATFO will never have saving money as its primary goal. The Spurs signed Dieng because PATFO wanted Dieng, and they traded for Chriss because ownership wanted to use a basketball asset. Not only can those two things be true at once, but them being true together is precisely the point of the alarm being sounded in the first place. Just because ownership has a certain inclination doesn't mean that that inclination will always win, especially immediately. I'm sure the Holts trust PATFO and probably aren't interested in being the Sixers in an NBA that would be way less friendly to that type of tank. I feel they could easily be convinced that signing a center to try to make the playoffs was the right move. Even being an eighth seed would make them a lot of money. A legit thing that did happen in between the Thursday trade and Sunday signing is that the Spurs got obliterated again by LAC and had to bench Eubanks against Chicago. The Spurs are no longer anything like a lock to make the playoffs. Depending on what the Dieng got, this move could end up making them millions, and that's probably a strong enough argument to convince the Holts to spend the money, even if they didn't want to or even if they were cash-strapped.

Remember, both of these things are true: The Spurs would make a decent amount of extra money if they made the playoffs and that the Spurs made a move that was purely to put cash in their owner's pockets. Therefore, the Spurs have to care about winning while not making it the sole priority of the basketball side. So the strawman that the Spurs could not have signed Dieng while also wanting to maximize profit falls out, and the main criticism -- the new-found encroachment of cash consciousness onto the basketball side of the Spurs operations -- remains. Dieng, like White, is not a good counter argument, because the Chriss trade is inherently bad. Folks should move on from trying to defend it.

Also, if I have to do my work to show that signing Dieng is a move to try to make the playoffs, just think that the Spurs have lost or at least been hampered to the point of almost losing games because Poeltl and/or Eubanks can't hold down the fort. Upgrading that position with one of the best overall buyout players may give the Spurs and extra win or two, and that's enough to potentially give them a playoff birth. Yes, signing him matters. It may not work out, but they certainly expect to need him.

[Chinook]

Maybe the Chriss move helped push the balance in favor of the Dieng signing with the money saved? If the money they saved with Chriss = paid for Dieng, then how do you fault them?

They don’t have roster space to do one of those 1+2 deals you talk about. It would have been great to pawn off Lyles’ contract and create that space, but it would have meant taking on money beyond this season which they didn’t want to do.

So according to timvp, the Spurs did want to do that Lyles trade enough to enter the trade call with Dallas and NOP.

It's hard to say if the Spurs' budget was randomly below the tax line. What should be true is that Aldridge's buyout minus Dieng on a min deal should be like plus $1.7 Million space and cash, while what they ended up having was Aldridge's buyout minus Chriss' salary hit/cash hit plus the cash paid, minus Dieng on a min deal, which is like minus $200k in space and plus $2.7 Million in cash. If that's true, the Chriss deal did basically cancel out the cash paid to Dieng, but the Spurs should've been far enough under budget to where the trade wasn't necessary. There was no way the Spurs should've been anticipating having to buy Aldridge out to make ends meet. Right, ideally, he'd've been a good contributor to the team, and no one would be waived, and that 15th spot would be filled. That had to be the Spurs' roster goal at the start of the season.

[Chinook]

If the Spurs really are getting the insurance payments, does this line of reasoning still stand?

I have yet to hear a definitive answer as to whether the Spurs had to keep Chriss on the roster to get the insurance payments.

So the reasoning would still stand, yes. Like in the best, best-case scenario, someone would randomly claim Chriss off waivers, giving the Spurs cash for nothing. But if the problem, is with the Spurs deciding to sell basketball assets for cash, that problem exists no matter how much cash they got for the asset. Think that Churchill pros ute anecdote.

[mo7888]

So the reasoning would still stand, yes. Like in the best, best-case scenario, someone would randomly claim Chriss off waivers, giving the Spurs cash for nothing. But if the problem, is with the Spurs deciding to sell basketball assets for cash, that problem exists no matter how much cash they got for the asset. Think that Churchill pros ute anecdote.

The issue are the unknowns... we really still don't know the amount Aldridge gave back in the buyout (but it's reasonable to assume the team and his agent had that worked out beforehand)...we also don't know when the interest between the Spurs and Dieng became a real thing... was it today? Was it before the Chriss trade? All of those things have to be taken into consideration to come to a solid conclusion.... with the limited information we have we have to consider that there are really two possibilities...1) we knew the buyout was large enough to accomplish what we just pulled off or 2) we went cheap and something fell into our laps that made us reverse course.... until we get all of the info (and it will come out) we have to be open minded to either possibility.

[LakerHater]

Brian Wright is trash!

[Mr. Body]

This is one of the most pathetic posts I've ever seen on this board, which is impressive given how given to lunacy this place is.

[Teamduncan21]

They sold the roster space that is given. But its not really detrimental basketball wise, and if they see someone they like, they still have the flexibility to do so (ie Dieng).

If the move will be detrimental to the team's winning, then Pop would have said no. (or at least in theory). The point is they can make some cash without really losing much (at worst a 14th/15th man off the bench). And they still have the flexibility to get someone anyway if so happened that someone better than 14th/15th man comes.

we need to care about the business side, not sure how much spurs is making. but if spurs operate at a loss for too long, they will have to sell. Not saying that 1M gain can really change that, but we cant go away with the business side. Its a small market family owned team

[RC_Drunkford]

Bobby Marks: As part of the trade to acquire Marquese Chriss from Golden State, the Spurs received $1.85M. They will net $1.2M with Chriss now being waived. $1.85M- $650K (amount left on his contract)

Spurs owners made a quick 1.2 million and signed Dieng. I don't have a problem with that tbh

[JPB]

Bobby Marks: As part of the trade to acquire Marquese Chriss from Golden State, the Spurs received $1.85M. They will net $1.2M with Chriss now being waived. $1.85M- $650K (amount left on his contract)

Spurs owners made a quick 1.2 million and signed Dieng. I don't have a problem with that tbh

tbh.

No idea why it seems to be so intriguing or such an issue for some.

[Dejounte]

This is making my head spin. Is Chinook broken? Someone call maintenance.

[Chinook]

This is making my head spin. Is Chinook broken? Someone call maintenance.

Not trying to be offensive, but your head isn't spinning because the arguments I've made have been changing. It's spinning because you've gone up and down over the past few days trying to find a way to defend the trade. The reasons I laid out in the OP and timvp laid out in his article remain in the same state they were in right after the trade was announced. The argument against the trade was intrinsic to the deal itself -- it didn't change just because the context around the trade has changed. However, all of the arguments for the trade are context depended, so every time something new came out, folks ran over to try to spin it as an explanation for why the trade was good or why we should've expected it or whatever.

The "What about this? No? Well what about this other thing?" scattershot approach to rebutting the criticism of the trade is why you have whiplash. These same criticisms have been there since the first few posts after the trade broke.

[Seventyniner]

So the reasoning would still stand, yes. Like in the best, best-case scenario, someone would randomly claim Chriss off waivers, giving the Spurs cash for nothing. But if the problem, is with the Spurs deciding to sell basketball assets for cash, that problem exists no matter how much cash they got for the asset. Think that Churchill pros ute anecdote.

According to this post below, the Spurs came out $1.2M ahead even after waiving Chriss.

Bobby Marks: As part of the trade to acquire Marquese Chriss from Golden State, the Spurs received $1.85M. They will net $1.2M with Chriss now being waived. $1.85M- $650K (amount left on his contract)

Spurs owners made a quick 1.2 million and signed Dieng. I don't have a problem with that tbh

Maybe I'm not understanding this right, but to me it looks like the Spurs never really lost a basketball asset because waiving Chriss opened up the roster spot he took up. From my point of view, the Spurs just got gifted $1.2M with no effect on the basketball side of things.

If the Spurs had planned to keep Chriss and save extra money, only abandoning that plan when Dieng agreed to sign here, I can see why that would be worrying. But if the Spurs get a free $1.2M by trading for Chriss and then waiving him, I don't see any cause for alarm if waiving him was the plan all along.

[Dejounte]

Not trying to be offensive, but your head isn't spinning because the arguments I've made have been changing. It's spinning because you've gone up and down over the past few days trying to find a way to defend the trade. The reasons I laid out in the OP and timvp laid out in his article remain in the same state they were in right after the trade was announced. The argument against the trade was intrinsic to the deal itself -- it didn't change just because the context around the trade has changed. However, all of the arguments for the trade are context depended, so every time something new came out, folks ran over to try to spin it as an explanation for why the trade was good or why we should've expected it or whatever.

The "What about this? No? Well what about this other thing?" scattershot approach to rebutting the criticism of the trade is why you have whiplash. These same criticisms have been there since the first few posts after the trade broke.

I have not "tried" to defend the trade. I tried to move on just like I thought you would have already since you said that was the best way forward. I did that by looking at the players we received after the trade, like any basketball fan would. I looked at all possibilities, such as the low chance of keeping Chriss and looking at Austin Spurs players (which you will find in many threads before the trade was my preference in the first place). So if being satisfied with us signing a g league player AND getting a buyout player I wanted since the beginning is "defending the trade" to you...then I don't know what to tell you.

Did GSW do the trade for basketball reasons? I don't believe they've made a salary cutting trade in a long time. Aren't they within playoff reach and wasn't Chriss one of their best players last year? How concerning...

I don't believe in getting caught up in a trade as small as this one and raising our "red alert" security levels when:

1) there's nothing we can do about it.
2) holding your breath for the next move is a painful exercise (even though the next move they did already make should have relieved all worries. They are still focused on the basketball side of things)

[Chinook]

The issue are the unknowns... we really still don't know the amount Aldridge gave back in the buyout (but it's reasonable to assume the team and his agent had that worked out beforehand)...we also don't know when the interest between the Spurs and Dieng became a real thing... was it today? Was it before the Chriss trade? All of those things have to be taken into consideration to come to a solid conclusion.... with the limited information we have we have to consider that there are really two possibilities...1) we knew the buyout was large enough to accomplish what we just pulled off or 2) we went cheap and something fell into our laps that made us reverse course.... until we get all of the info (and it will come out) we have to be open minded to either possibility.

I think there is a chance that the Spurs knew Dieng wanted to pick them before the deadline ended. It wasn't like the dude was sitting out for a while weighing bids. If that were the case, Pop was awkwardly smoke-screening when he was talking about how the team was going to consider Chriss as a player/person in the organization. Or it could be that Pop feels uncomfortable with the idea of making an impersonal transaction and at least wanted to try to humanize it a bit. It's also possible that Aldridge's buyout (which as far as I know hasn't been fully clarified) is big enough to where the Spurs have the budget for Dieng, Chriss and Reynolds. Both of those things can be true, I agree.

But that doesn't mean that the Spurs still didn't sell roster flexibility cash. They have $1.8 Million less space under the tax now. That probably won't stop them from making whatever moves they make to end their season. But the fact is that with the MLE and a few or couple of million in salary space, the Spurs had one of the strongest compe ive positions in the league. For all we know, they were able to land Dieng without it (because it's not not completely established to be false that SA got the huge buyout from LMA and then signed Dieng to a multi-year deal using the MLE), but even if they knew they weren't going to need it for him, someone could become available. As I've said, Baynes, Brewer and Freddette are examples of young guys who were unexpectedly available to be signed. Worst case, the Spurs could just sit on that salary space, and the owners would still get a fair bit of extra money at the end of the season.

[Dejounte]

So the premise is there could have been someone special available and that the Spurs could have had an advantage to sign that hypothetical player if they didn't do the trade. I don't know man, sounds absurd to me. Like putting all your eggs in a basket. We know that even if the Spurs had the compe ive advantage, they still lose out on these player sweepstakes most of the time. It's like being upset you didn't have the poker chips to buy in a poker game. I get it. It would have been fun to play. But the prize money, and in this case a hypothetical player, never became available anyway. And if they did, would they have moved the needle?

[cd98]

Seriously, this debate is nonsensical. If the Holts are out of cash, then there's nothing anyone can do about it. If they have to sell the team or make the team available, so be it. Life goes on. And if they relocate the Spurs, it just means that I can subscribe to NBA League Pass and watch their games without being blacked out and I don't have to get cable anymore. The Spurs as a team will not cease to exist. Would it suck if they leave S.A.? Yes, but that's out of our control and no one here is the accountant doing the books for the Spurs or the Holts. I think this is all over analyzing the Chriss trade and the Dieng acquisition.

The only issue I see is that the Spurs are better off as a basketball team if they go back to the lottery, but the owners, for financial reasons, always want to make the playoffs. To be honest, I think organizations want to make the playoffs and I think the Spurs see it as a source of pride. So I can't say that they will go for the playoffs because they need the money or because this is a winning organization. All I can say is that I think the Spurs would have a better basketball team in the long run if they went to the lottery.

[Chinook]

I have not "tried" to defend the trade. I tried to move on just like I thought you would have already since you said that was the best way forward.

No. What I said was that people need to just accept that the trade was bad and move on from trying to defend it.

So the Spurs could keep Chriss in the building and rehab him and all that after waiving him. There's still not a basketball reason to do this trade. The "sniffer" point of view should be to just hope this was a one-off rather than trying to dress this trade up. It happened. Now we just have to try to move forward with the team.

So basically what I just said multiple times in this thread: the trade sucks no matter what happens. As far as continuing to talk about it, a lot of posters seemed to want to get my reaction to the subsequent events, even though the context should not have mattered to the original argument. So I decided to explain the reasoning in its own thread so that the other threads could go wherever they could go now. This thread is specially to discuss why the trade was bad and why what's happened since doesn't change that. Every other thread is to "move on" so to speak. I didn't go into the Dieng threads and complain about the Chriss trade. Dieng as a player in his own right is a completely different matter, and I actually have a high opinion of that signing.

Did GSW do the trade for basketball reasons? I don't believe they've made a salary cutting trade in a long time. Aren't they within playoff reach and wasn't Chriss one of their best players last year? How concerning...

Yes, this was a trade for basketball reasons. Paying huge tax penalties is bad for their long-term compe ive position. Also, Chriss is injured and can't help them make the playoffs.

Again, not be sound mean, but you thinking this is a good argument might explain why your head was spinning. This was a really bad counter to the point I made; it's just a random scattershot attempt to bolster your case. That I say this isn't me clinging to a take or doing gymnastics or whatever.

I don't believe in getting caught up in a trade as small as this one and raising our "red alert" security levels when:

1) there's nothing we can do about it.
2) being worried depends on the next move they make. (even though the next move they did already make should have relieved all worries and that they are focused on the basketball side of things)

1) There's never anything we can do about the moves they make. That's never stopped us from criticizing them.

2) This was never a good standard, since people aren't just black and white. It was never either they want to win or they will instantly sell everything off to save money. They clearly could've made other moves to liquidate basketball assets, like trading their first-round pick to Boston for them to absorb Gay and send back cash. As I said before, this is a vein of criticism that many fans aren't interested in considering, and there's nothing wrong with that. You're free to look at every move strictly in the context of basketball and rate moves that don't actively hurt the basketball side as meh without making it about the overarching financial pressures. That's completely cool. If you change your mind about that, threads like this will be here.

[Chinook]

Seriously, this debate is nonsensical. If the Holts are out of cash

The debate is not about whether the Holts are out of cash. You don't have to be low on funds to make purely financial moves. That's what capital ins utions (like probably CVC) do all the time.

The only issue I see is that the Spurs are better off as a basketball team if they go back to the lottery, but the owners, for financial reasons, always want to make the playoffs.

But yes, thanks for pointing out why a team might do something like sign Dieng even if their owners are prioritizing money.