Why do people keep bringing the Detroit Pistons blunders up? It's a cautionary tale sure, but the situation that the Pistons had back then doesn't resemble in any shape or form the situation of the Celtics or the league currently and in the near future.
Other than the possibility of overpaying a player, there's really no parallels to draw between the two circumstances.
The only way you could compare the situation is if you consider a situation in which the Pistons made all those blunders, yet in the following year in 2010 had enough cap space to go after one or two or so players between LeBron, Wade, Bosh, Joe Johnson, Rudy Gay, Dirk, Scalabrine, etc.
Also, for all the Gordon cautionary tales, there are also numerous cautionary tales of spending the big bucks on big time free-agents and it also biting you in the ass, as Stoudemire in the aforementioned 2010 free-agency.
All choices have their own set of risks, there's nothing guaranteed here. But that said, the level of flexibility the Celtics have going forward and how the free-agency market is about to be completely altered next year, the consequences of taking risks this particular year doesn't compare to those that teams had in the past.
All fair points, I brought up Gordon because I already used his contract as an example on page 5, not because I believe Middleton and him will share the same fate.
Besides, it's a cautionary tale which still has relevancy to our current situation, and it's certainly not the only one. Ben Gordon, by any objective measure, was a more proven commodity than Middleton is now, and his 11 million dollar contract did cripple the Pistons quite a bit for many years. The same is true for Charlie V., who also signed for 5 years at 7 million annually. The Pistons also believed they had to spend the money, because they had a good core which only needed a few skilled players to be right back in the thick of things, and because the money was available then.
To say a signing in this ballpark isn't a big risk because of the increasing cap next year is a rather superficial line of argumentation, in my opinion.
I have no problem with arguing about the merits of going after Middleton or not, but financial strain really should be the least of our worries and arguing about sacrificing flexibility going forward is honestly a very short-sighted way of looking at this situation.
Personally I'm ambivalent on Middleton, don't care much for him, not my main target, but I do think it's pivotal to add skilled players this year before 2016 free-agency comes around one way or another. And if taking a risk on Middleton is the way we manage it, then so be it. We have other tools (like trades) to try and go for those skill players, but as I already mentioned, having a hard time seeing teams trading talented players in this current market. Very little motivation, and get this, we'll probably will have to OVERPAY to get them.
Care to go a bit more into detail why you believe it's short-sighted, and why "it's pivotal to add skilled players before 2016 free agency, one way or another"? I'm afraid that point is not very clear in your post. What do you want us to accomplish with these middle-of-the-road signings? What's the big picture?
I would argue that the flexibility we've accumulated over the past few seasons is our biggest asset, so I think this point is rather important. If we give it up for players who can't lead us to a sustained period of success, what's the point? We already have those and the flexibility right now.
Without expanding too much into it as I'm at work, it's in our best interest to first show that we're a team moving forward, to be a good team.
1. Pretty much every single team out there will have money to throw around. If you want to try and land some of those star players you have to make this team look more attractive, else they should make the easy decision and join teams that are already set with talent/star players in their rosters and now somehow find themselves with money to spend because the salary cap increased substantially.
2a. Players of comparable talent/potential should be more costly in the following years. Heck, even lesser players might be more expensive.
2b. As those players will be most costly, having a player on a better cost controlled contract (and young) will add another asset in potential trades to acquire a talented player if that's the road we're interested in going.
2c. Considering that the incentive to trade players will be by my estimation at an all-time low, having players under contract that you can actually trade, should be of benefit to us.
3. I mention that flexibility is not an issue because even if we make this decision we'll still have flexibility.
There's the salary floor to take into consideration as well. It'll jump to $81 million or so in 2016, next year should be about $60 million. Could be filled with 1 year contracts of course, but I rather take a chance on young potential than do nothing and miss out on just about every opportunity out there.
All that said, in 2016 the only player I'm actually really interested in offering max dollars to, that could be attainable, is Kevin Durant and you're not attracting Kevin Durant by being a team that is taking steps back or stagnant. Absent of that, we have to be very aggressive in the trade market and to be aggressive in the trade market you need to have players in your roster to make it worth while. And just in case, yes we can afford Kevin Durant if we overspend on someone like Middleton.
Others I may have some slight interest in, like Drummond are restricted, so long shot and on $21 million max contracts.
In all, I see a bigger risk on remaining stagnant, staying pat, than taking a risk on a 23 year old player who can shoot, actually performed decently in the playoffs and is not a liability defensively.
Topic: League executive predicts Khris Middleton will receive $15mill/season (Read 19675 times)