The success of the NBA middle class in the playoffs - Zach Lowe

[Mr October]

TP to pokeKingCurtis. The point of my posting the article is to encourage the idea that there are multiple ways to build a contender, and it can be dangerous to lock into one trendy formula.

Moranis, yes most teams have these middle class players. I am calling them albatrosses because they are hard to move. Examples: Bass is still a Celtic when he could have helped a playoff team, Afflalo is still a Magic, when he could have helped many teams, even as a starter. I thought he was worth a first round pick.

Courtney Lee is paid a fair contract with only 1 more year beyond this one. Yet the Celtics had to throw in a second round pick in order to acquire a lesser player and move that last year of Lee's contract.

Miami had to give up second round picks to move Joel Anthony's 3.8 million contract.

The Marcus Thornton trade was met with criticism because only the Nets were willing to "get richer" by acquiring 8 million 1 year remaining contract.

And As PKC said, first round picks have become very valuable, because you get to pay a player well below the mid level. Just a few years ago, a team could just buy a late round 1st for maybe 3 million. Not lately though.

If you haven't seen a trend against middle class contracts that started just this year, and a little last year, then i don't know what to say. agree to disagree.

[Moranis]

The Heat have 2 players between 4-5 million and 2 more between 3-4 million which are not on rookie contracts and Haslem, Battier, and Allen all took clear discounts or gave up bigger money because they wanted to be in Miami (Chalmers might have as well, though with him I'm not as sure).  That also doesn't count Mike Miller who they are still paying and who they amnestied.

How about Sacramento, why no analysis of them.  I mean they have Gay on a max deal and Cousins max deal kicks in next year, so they basically have 2 max contract players.  They have Landry, Thompson, Williams, and Terry all making between 5-10 million (though Williams is still on his rookie contract).  They also have Travis Outlaw and Aaron Gray on decent size non-rookie contracts.  I suspect they will re-sign Thomas somewhere in the 5-10 million range as well.  Why not use them to show a team with these solid 5-10 million dollar veterans?  Oh wait, because it goes against the point of the value of those players.

It is a silly position taken by Lowe.

I kind of see the point he's trying to make. Rookie deals and vet min deals are all the rage now. Either that, or you get a max superstar.

But the way I see it, a rookie deal that gets you insane value for zero cost is fairly rare. As is a vet min deal that actually pays off. You do have low risk, but you also get fairly low expected return. You also only get so many tries (15 roster spots, you've also got to give your player the time to show if he's worth it).

Needless to say, finding a superstar is incredibly difficult.

Of course, if you can, you take advantage of these deals. But the reality is I don't think they're all that available.

The new CBA is still very new. We're talking about a scope of decades when it comes to building teams, a sample size of 30 each time and the data is very unscientific (an insane amount of variables that are constantly being tinkered).

----

As for the Heat, I think Lowe's talking about guys in the 5-10 range.

Yes. Everyone's on a discount. This is the goodwill gained by having LeBron on your team. Though it's not like many of their role players aren't damaged goods in some way. So they're, in a way, min guys.

----

Lastly, I agree, he's very guilty of cherry picking. Though there's risk involved in both large and tiny deals, there's also risk in mid-level deals. The Bucks and the Hawks in the past have been screwed by mid-level deals, I believe.

At the end of the day, we've learned nothing.

but Lowe used Ray Allen as an example and said he took a discount.  He counted Ray Allen as a 5-10 million player for the purpose of this article. 

The reason draft picks are so valuable right now has nothing to do with MLE, it has to do with the depth of this draft and the next one.  They are incredibly deep drafts and thus a late first round pick this year is worth a lot more than a late first round pick last year.  So an overpaid player like Brandon Bass isn't getting moved for a 1st round pick (though Boston could have moved him I'm sure if they didn't want the farm).  People will absolutely take on players in that range without giving up a pick though and are more than happy to use the salary for a player worth his contract (like Courtney Lee). 

This is no different than any other time, teams are just doing a better job of actually recognizing value of their own assets and players and aren't overpaying. 

[pokeKingCurtis]

The Heat have 2 players between 4-5 million and 2 more between 3-4 million which are not on rookie contracts and Haslem, Battier, and Allen all took clear discounts or gave up bigger money because they wanted to be in Miami (Chalmers might have as well, though with him I'm not as sure).  That also doesn't count Mike Miller who they are still paying and who they amnestied.

How about Sacramento, why no analysis of them.  I mean they have Gay on a max deal and Cousins max deal kicks in next year, so they basically have 2 max contract players.  They have Landry, Thompson, Williams, and Terry all making between 5-10 million (though Williams is still on his rookie contract).  They also have Travis Outlaw and Aaron Gray on decent size non-rookie contracts.  I suspect they will re-sign Thomas somewhere in the 5-10 million range as well.  Why not use them to show a team with these solid 5-10 million dollar veterans?  Oh wait, because it goes against the point of the value of those players.

It is a silly position taken by Lowe.

I kind of see the point he's trying to make. Rookie deals and vet min deals are all the rage now. Either that, or you get a max superstar.

But the way I see it, a rookie deal that gets you insane value for zero cost is fairly rare. As is a vet min deal that actually pays off. You do have low risk, but you also get fairly low expected return. You also only get so many tries (15 roster spots, you've also got to give your player the time to show if he's worth it).

Needless to say, finding a superstar is incredibly difficult.

Of course, if you can, you take advantage of these deals. But the reality is I don't think they're all that available.

The new CBA is still very new. We're talking about a scope of decades when it comes to building teams, a sample size of 30 each time and the data is very unscientific (an insane amount of variables that are constantly being tinkered).

----

As for the Heat, I think Lowe's talking about guys in the 5-10 range.

Yes. Everyone's on a discount. This is the goodwill gained by having LeBron on your team. Though it's not like many of their role players aren't damaged goods in some way. So they're, in a way, min guys.

----

Lastly, I agree, he's very guilty of cherry picking. Though there's risk involved in both large and tiny deals, there's also risk in mid-level deals. The Bucks and the Hawks in the past have been screwed by mid-level deals, I believe.

At the end of the day, we've learned nothing.

but Lowe used Ray Allen as an example and said he took a discount.  He counted Ray Allen as a 5-10 million player for the purpose of this article. 

The reason draft picks are so valuable right now has nothing to do with MLE, it has to do with the depth of this draft and the next one.  They are incredibly deep drafts and thus a late first round pick this year is worth a lot more than a late first round pick last year.  So an overpaid player like Brandon Bass isn't getting moved for a 1st round pick (though Boston could have moved him I'm sure if they didn't want the farm).  People will absolutely take on players in that range without giving up a pick though and are more than happy to use the salary for a player worth his contract (like Courtney Lee). 

This is no different than any other time, teams are just doing a better job of actually recognizing value of their own assets and players and aren't overpaying.

People have been saying first round picks are more valuable than ever in reference to all draft picks since the new CBA came out. That I'm pretty sure about.

Aside from that, I agree. Call a spade a spade. Talent evaluation is one of the core aspects of NBA GM'ing.

[Moranis]

The Heat have 2 players between 4-5 million and 2 more between 3-4 million which are not on rookie contracts and Haslem, Battier, and Allen all took clear discounts or gave up bigger money because they wanted to be in Miami (Chalmers might have as well, though with him I'm not as sure).  That also doesn't count Mike Miller who they are still paying and who they amnestied.

How about Sacramento, why no analysis of them.  I mean they have Gay on a max deal and Cousins max deal kicks in next year, so they basically have 2 max contract players.  They have Landry, Thompson, Williams, and Terry all making between 5-10 million (though Williams is still on his rookie contract).  They also have Travis Outlaw and Aaron Gray on decent size non-rookie contracts.  I suspect they will re-sign Thomas somewhere in the 5-10 million range as well.  Why not use them to show a team with these solid 5-10 million dollar veterans?  Oh wait, because it goes against the point of the value of those players.

It is a silly position taken by Lowe.

I kind of see the point he's trying to make. Rookie deals and vet min deals are all the rage now. Either that, or you get a max superstar.

But the way I see it, a rookie deal that gets you insane value for zero cost is fairly rare. As is a vet min deal that actually pays off. You do have low risk, but you also get fairly low expected return. You also only get so many tries (15 roster spots, you've also got to give your player the time to show if he's worth it).

Needless to say, finding a superstar is incredibly difficult.

Of course, if you can, you take advantage of these deals. But the reality is I don't think they're all that available.

The new CBA is still very new. We're talking about a scope of decades when it comes to building teams, a sample size of 30 each time and the data is very unscientific (an insane amount of variables that are constantly being tinkered).

----

As for the Heat, I think Lowe's talking about guys in the 5-10 range.

Yes. Everyone's on a discount. This is the goodwill gained by having LeBron on your team. Though it's not like many of their role players aren't damaged goods in some way. So they're, in a way, min guys.

----

Lastly, I agree, he's very guilty of cherry picking. Though there's risk involved in both large and tiny deals, there's also risk in mid-level deals. The Bucks and the Hawks in the past have been screwed by mid-level deals, I believe.

At the end of the day, we've learned nothing.

but Lowe used Ray Allen as an example and said he took a discount.  He counted Ray Allen as a 5-10 million player for the purpose of this article. 

The reason draft picks are so valuable right now has nothing to do with MLE, it has to do with the depth of this draft and the next one.  They are incredibly deep drafts and thus a late first round pick this year is worth a lot more than a late first round pick last year.  So an overpaid player like Brandon Bass isn't getting moved for a 1st round pick (though Boston could have moved him I'm sure if they didn't want the farm).  People will absolutely take on players in that range without giving up a pick though and are more than happy to use the salary for a player worth his contract (like Courtney Lee). 

This is no different than any other time, teams are just doing a better job of actually recognizing value of their own assets and players and aren't overpaying.

People have been saying first round picks are more valuable than ever in reference to all draft picks since the new CBA came out. That I'm pretty sure about.

Aside from that, I agree. Call a spade a spade. Talent evaluation is one of the core aspects of NBA GM'ing.

but look at the picks that were moved last year.  That was under the new CBA, correct?  This is a very deep draft and next years projects that way as well.  That is why teams are more hesitant to give up picks, no other reason.

[BballTim]

but look at the picks that were moved last year.  That was under the new CBA, correct?  This is a very deep draft and next years projects that way as well.  That is why teams are more hesitant to give up picks, no other reason.

  I don't think that's really true. Teams were fairly hesitant to include picks in trades for the last few years. It's not really draft related.

[D.o.s.]

but look at the picks that were moved last year.  That was under the new CBA, correct?  This is a very deep draft and next years projects that way as well.  That is why teams are more hesitant to give up picks, no other reason.

  I don't think that's really true. Teams were fairly hesitant to include picks in trades for the last few years. It's not really draft related.

It's a bit both -- the 2011 CBA made the rookie deal the best deal on the market for teams by virtue of the cheapness of the contract, as well as the edge in contract length provided for the hometown team.

But that only matters if you've got a great prospect that you need to jealously guard from free agency.

[Moranis]

but look at the picks that were moved last year.  That was under the new CBA, correct?  This is a very deep draft and next years projects that way as well.  That is why teams are more hesitant to give up picks, no other reason.

  I don't think that's really true. Teams were fairly hesitant to include picks in trades for the last few years. It's not really draft related.

there have been just as many trades of first rounders (not on draft day) as pretty much any year until this years trade deadline (I mean even Miami trade the one pick they could).  And some of that is the fact that teams like the Knicks, Pacers, Nets, Lakers, Blazers, Bobcats, Warriors, etc. couldn't trade picks this year or had already moved them.   Given the depth of the draft and the inability of certain teams to trade, no one was moving first rounders for Brandon Bass at the deadline (though Miami traded a first in the Jordan Crawford trade, Indiana traded their first this past summer for Scola, etc.).