Author Topic: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?  (Read 91552 times)

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Offline celticsclay

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I was not really think this that much when it was first signed, but now that the dust has settled and all the contracts have been signed, could it end up being the worst of this offseason? I'll preface this by saying I really like Big Al and think that he will be sorely missed, especially on defense. However, I don't think anyone thought he was particularly close to being an all-star last year. Given his age, it seems really unlikely he is going to make another all-star team. His minutes also have declined to a career low 29mpg last year (will probably be even lower this year). Can you pay a guy 30 million dollars to not be an all-star. When was the last time a guy signed to this amount without expecting him to be an all-star (unless people believe Philly think Horfords will make the all-star game again in his career). What does everyone think? 

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #1 on: July 17, 2019, 12:45:52 PM »

Offline W8ting2McHale

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I think you’re right.

Al, while I think he’ll age well, won’t ever put up all-star counting stars again, but he’s getting paid all-star money. Are the intangibles that he brings worth it? I don’t think for Boston, but maybe the 76ers really need that, and they didn’t get it from Jimmy Butler.

PS-You’ll probably get a lot of “what about Hayward!?!” from this post.

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #2 on: July 17, 2019, 12:49:00 PM »

Offline Donoghus

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The Rozier, Jordan, Middleton, & Harris contracts all come to mind. 


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Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #3 on: July 17, 2019, 12:49:42 PM »

Offline celticsclay

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I think you’re right.

Al, while I think he’ll age well, won’t ever put up all-star counting stars again, but he’s getting paid all-star money. Are the intangibles that he brings worth it? I don’t think for Boston, but maybe the 76ers really need that, and they didn’t get it from Jimmy Butler.

PS-You’ll probably get a lot of “what about Hayward!?!” from this post.

Hayward was not signed this offseason so that would be a super weird response...

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #4 on: July 17, 2019, 12:51:40 PM »

Offline celticsclay

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The Rozier, Jordan, Middleton, & Harris contracts all come to mind.

I had forgotten about Rozier. I think that is probably the worst. Jordan is not even in the conversation cause it is very small money by today's NBA standards. Even if he was only a good backup bench big 10 million would not be awful for him. Middleton and Harris I think have a decent chance of being all-stars over the course of there contracts (which Al probably does not). There is also a lot bigger risk of Horford really regressing cause of his age.

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #5 on: July 17, 2019, 01:00:52 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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As long as he holds up pretty well for two years no.

The 76ers are all in on the next two years, after that they'll be selling off someone.

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #6 on: July 17, 2019, 01:02:34 PM »

Offline celticsclay

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As long as he holds up pretty well for two years no.

The 76ers are all in on the next two years, after that they'll be selling off someone.

Isn't 56 million for two years of non-all-star level play fairly unprecedented?

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #7 on: July 17, 2019, 01:05:11 PM »

Offline PhoSita

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Sure, it's always possible he suffers a career ending injury on day 1 and suddenly it's the worst contract out there.


If we're talking about things that are likely to happen, though, I would say no.


Horford makes a team better on both ends and fits with almost any group of players you could imagine putting around him.  As long as he's able to take the floor he's going to give them a lot of value, even if he's a bit overpaid on the back end.



Harrison Barnes is going to be making >$20 million for the next 4 years and there's not a ton of evidence that he actually makes teams appreciably better.
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Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #8 on: July 17, 2019, 01:08:35 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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As long as he holds up pretty well for two years no.

The 76ers are all in on the next two years, after that they'll be selling off someone.

Isn't 56 million for two years of non-all-star level play fairly unprecedented?
The dollar total is, but as a percentage of the cap I don't think it is. The real question is will the continue to use the Taxpayer MLE and picks to round out the roster or will Horford's marginal salary eliminate ownership's willingness to do that.

Upon further reflection I think Jimmy's might be the worst taking context into account. Full max and they might never add another high level talent next to him.

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #9 on: July 17, 2019, 01:09:28 PM »

Offline Fafnir

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Harrison Barnes is going to be making >$20 million for the next 4 years and there's not a ton of evidence that he actually makes teams appreciably better.
Oh man I forgot Barnes, that's a yikes deal for someone who wasn't any better than Marcus Morris as a small PF.

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #10 on: July 17, 2019, 01:09:34 PM »

Offline celticsclay

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Sure, it's always possible he suffers a career ending injury on day 1 and suddenly it's the worst contract out there.


If we're talking about things that are likely to happen, though, I would say no.


Horford makes a team better on both ends and fits with almost any group of players you could imagine putting around him.  As long as he's able to take the floor he's going to give them a lot of value, even if he's a bit overpaid on the back end.



Harrison Barnes is going to be making >$20 million for the next 4 years and there's not a ton of evidence that he actually makes teams appreciably better.

Barnes and Rozier are definitely contenders for worst contracts alongside Horford. Although most of us really don't like Rozier, there has to be at least a chance that he plays like the guy that from our playoff run or even improves on it given our age. I am just not sure of the upside for Horford given his age (and he definitely was slowing down while still very effective). Barnes is a really bad contract, but you can at least see him as a league average starter who seem to usually make 15 million these days. If Horford was making 20 million like him I would think it was a perfectly fine deal (i think most of us had him resigning for 3 for 45-60 going into the offseason. The 28 million a year is just crazy.

Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #11 on: July 17, 2019, 01:32:26 PM »

Offline bdm860

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I think All-Star is the wrong measure to use here, because several guys can be All-Stars as the #1 option (Carmelo Anthony for example) but completely ineffective as a #3 option.  Al's never going to be a #1 option again (if he ever was)...

But can Al Horford be the 3rd best (or most important) player on a championship contender?  I think the answer is yes, and this isn't just talking about a unique scenario where you have 2 dominate players (Jordan/Pippen, Shaq/Kobe, etc.) and any bum can be #3.  I think if you look around the league, Al could be #3 best/important (and occasionally slide effectively up to #2 or even down to #4) on a lot of teams hoping to contend: MIL, PHI, BOS, BRK (healthy), GS (ex Klay), LAL, LAC, HOU, UTA, POR, DEN (swap with Milsap), etc.

So as a championship contender, are you comfortable paying your #3 guy $30m?  I think I am (if I'm willing to pay that "championship tax" to get there with a big payroll, which you usually have to pay to contend).

I can see him continually being more important to Philly than Harris, and even more important than Simmons (at times) or being able to hold the fort down if Embiid goes down.  He just fits in so well, doesn't need the ball, plays great D, can run the offense, attack the rim, stretch the floor, all without needing to get stats.

I think he can play the #3 role very well for the next 2 years.  Maybe even the next 3-4.  Even in Year 3-4, if things go to hell in Philly and they aren't contending, I think he'll have a tradeable contract (like Marc Gasol this year) with several contenders willing to take on his contract, because he can fit so well with anybody (and this is the opposite of what we have with Westbrook/Chris Paul where there's big questions of fit and maybe only 1 team is crazy enough to make that gamble if you're lucky).

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Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #12 on: July 17, 2019, 02:14:51 PM »

Offline Sophomore

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Thestepien had a pretty deep dive on this. Bottom line - they have questions about the first two seasons of the contract and they're bearish on the last two.

As the OP points out, Al's minutes per game fell below 30 for the first time in his career; he also didn't reach 70 games. That *might* just be load management, but the team reported he was having trouble with his knees and we saw he was well off his game the first part of the year. Another injury could become a serious problem. Maybe more significant is that his dunks and scoring inside the 3-point arc just died in the playoffs, meaning he wasn't a very efficient offensive player even while he kept shooting threes pretty well. In the past he was able to post-up or drive - something he didn't do this past year. Again, maybe that was just strategy, or maybe he doesn't need to be a threat to score at the rim if he's playing with Philly - camping on the arc is fine. But it could also reflect diminishing athleticism. Sometimes you see a player in his 30s who declines gradually; other times, a minor injury or loss of athleticism takes him below a threshold and he's really inefficient. Hard to say how that plays out for Philly.

One last note about this Stepien piece - they pointed out that Philly had a lot of trouble with small, shifty guards who can pull up into their shot - Kemba roasted them last year - and they think the Cs may match up pretty well, especially if they can make a move at the deadline for a good center.

https://www.thestepien.com/2019/07/11/horford-76er-relation-injury-age-player-decline-non-elite-players/


Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #13 on: July 17, 2019, 02:24:43 PM »

Offline bdm860

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As long as he holds up pretty well for two years no.

The 76ers are all in on the next two years, after that they'll be selling off someone.

Isn't 56 million for two years of non-all-star level play fairly unprecedented?

As a % of the cap, I don't think it's that unprecedented.  Using $28m per against cap figures from here, Horford's contract will be between 24%-25% of the cap the next 2 years, and 21%-22% in Years 3-4.

Similar to Gasol (22%) and Ibaka (20%) this last year.

Tristan Thompson was 20% of the cap in '16.

David Lee (24%) and Andrew Bogut (21%) were the 2 highest paid players for GS in '15 (helps to have Steph on a bargain, and Klay and Green on rookie deals).

And then you have cases of guys like Stephen Jackson (SAS '13) or Caron Butler (DAL '11) who are the 3rd highest players on their team taking up 17%-18% of the cap, but aren't even playing in the playoffs for their teams Finals/Championship run.  Even if they did play you're not getting top 3-4 player production from them (Butler is questionable, but Jackson was like 9th man in Spurs rotation).  Add that salary to a random bench guy, and you suddenly have 25% of your cap and only getting 8th-9th man production from 1 player out of it.

Horford's making a lot for his role/production for sure, but not unprecedented, can't-win-with-this-contract levels.
« Last Edit: July 17, 2019, 02:33:30 PM by bdm860 »

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Re: Could Horford end up being the worst contract of offseason?
« Reply #14 on: July 17, 2019, 02:33:38 PM »

Offline gpap

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I posed this question in the "what grade would you give the offseason thread?" but Ainge couldn't afford Horford because he needed the cap space to offer Kemba a max contract, right?