Mannix: Knicks to pursue Evan Turner this offseason.... Good bye ET?

[PhoSita]

Analysts are talking of Kent Bazemore getting $10 million, so I think things are going to get really strange till our expectations adjust to the new cap.

Baze will get more than that.  $10 million is only a couple million more than what Bradley is making now, and Bradley could probably make twice that on the open market when his deal is up.  Baze has had a comparable season to Bradley; he doesn't score quite as much, but he grabs more boards and can play two positions.

[Fafnir]

He's a okay band-aid to a lot of lineup issues the C's have due to his ability to handle and guard SFs. But he's still not a very good player at any aspect.

I won't be sorry to lose him, though obviously if our replacement plan fails to deliver it could be rough adjusting next season.

Somebody who can play that backup ballhandler, creative scorer role while also getting to the line and hitting open three pointers could really make a difference.

If they can do all that they'd be better than Turner already.

His career year is at an offensive rating of 101. 

Even then taking a step back shouldn't be necessary if we fill our ball handling and backup SF roles effectively in the offseason.

[PhoSita]

He's a okay band-aid to a lot of lineup issues the C's have due to his ability to handle and guard SFs. But he's still not a very good player at any aspect.

I won't be sorry to lose him, though obviously if our replacement plan fails to deliver it could be rough adjusting next season.

Somebody who can play that backup ballhandler, creative scorer role while also getting to the line and hitting open three pointers could really make a difference.

If they can do all that they'd be better than Turner already.

His career year is at an offensive rating of 101. 

Even then taking a step back shouldn't be necessary if we fill our ball handling and backup SF roles effectively in the offseason.

Adding a reliable backup small forward (e.g. Dudley) and then letting Smart / Rozier / anybody the Celts draft compete for the backup ballhandler role could be all the Celts need to do to replace Turner if he leaves.

[PhoSita]

His career year is at an offensive rating of 101. 

This is the thing I think people overlook when they get excited by Turner's best games.

Evan Turner makes a lot of the hard stuff --- the in between game, pull-up jumpers, spin layups, fadeaway -- look easy.  You see that and think, man, this guy is something else!  The problem is, he doesn't do enough of the easy stuff.

He's kind of like Jeff Green in that sense, except he actually rebounds and creates for others, and he's a lot more consistent than Uncle Jeff.

[Evantime34]

I'm all for keeping Evan Turner, at the right price.

If the Knicks want to offer him a lot more money than us, then we shouldn't pursue him. We can't overpay for good players, we need to be saving our cap space for great players.

If we end up making a big trade that reduces our depth or sign a big free agent, Turner would make a lot of sense. Since we will have his bird rights, he could agree to something at the start of free agency and then wait to sign it until we go over the cap. This would essentially give us more cap space to work with in the offseason, similar to what happened with Jae Crowder last year.

[saltlover]

I'm all for keeping Evan Turner, at the right price.

If the Knicks want to offer him a lot more money than us, then we shouldn't pursue him. We can't overpay for good players, we need to be saving our cap space for great players.

If we end up making a big trade that reduces our depth or sign a big free agent, Turner would make a lot of sense. Since we will have his bird rights, he could agree to something at the start of free agency and then wait to sign it until we go over the cap. This would essentially give us more cap space to work with in the offseason, similar to what happened with Jae Crowder last year.

We only have his early Bird rights.  That limits the amount we can pay him -- it's unknown what that number will be, but this year it is $5.739 million.  It's based on the average salary from this season.  The cap went up by about 10% -- if we assume the average salary increases commensurately, that gets to around $6.3 million in year one.  Even if my estimates are off, it's tough to imagine that number getting over $6.5 million in year one.  So while we could wait to sign him by holding onto his Early Bird rights, it's different than Crowder, for whom we had full Bird rights and could pay him any amount up to the maximum salary.  Furthermore, Turner's cap hold is $4.4 million, so using Early Bird rights creates only an extra $2 million in salary (compared with Crowder, who's hold was $1.1 million).

It's not impossible to keep him with the Early Bird offer, but it will be tough, and very easy for another team to exceed if they want Turner enough.

[LooseCannon]

Analysts are talking of Kent Bazemore getting $10 million, so I think things are going to get really strange till our expectations adjust to the new cap.

Baze will get more than that.  $10 million is only a couple million more than what Bradley is making now, and Bradley could probably make twice that on the open market when his deal is up.  Baze has had a comparable season to Bradley; he doesn't score quite as much, but he grabs more boards and can play two positions.

I'd work off the assumption that guys we normally think of as MLE-level talents have a good shot of getting $10 million and use that in projecting which free agents should be chased.

[Fafnir]

I'm all for keeping Evan Turner, at the right price.

If the Knicks want to offer him a lot more money than us, then we shouldn't pursue him. We can't overpay for good players, we need to be saving our cap space for great players.

If we end up making a big trade that reduces our depth or sign a big free agent, Turner would make a lot of sense. Since we will have his bird rights, he could agree to something at the start of free agency and then wait to sign it until we go over the cap. This would essentially give us more cap space to work with in the offseason, similar to what happened with Jae Crowder last year.

We only have his early Bird rights.  That limits the amount we can pay him -- it's unknown what that number will be, but this year it is $5.739 million.  It's based on the average salary from this season.  The cap went up by about 10% -- if we assume the average salary increases commensurately, that gets to around $6.3 million in year one. 

Your figures are wrong, the cap is currently $70 million and is expected to be $90 million next year roughly. That's a 28% jump, it was a 10% last year but its this coming year's salary cap that is relevant.

But your positing of an average increase of 28% across the board is not how it works, old locked in contracts are static. So FAs actually will capture a much greater percentage of this increase. Thus FA contracts could easily increase by up to 50% of past off seasons (for those players not near the max which is still a fixed percent of the cap) depending how crazy things get.

[Tr1boy]

This draft outcome is huge. Either via pick or trade

Say we get Ingram. You can't limit his development. And he can come off the bench and play all the SF mins while crowder starts

There's is not need for Turner then.

Or same could be said if we get Hield, murray, valentine

[Snakehead]

He's kind of like Jeff Green in that sense, except he actually rebounds and creates for others, and he's a lot more consistent than Uncle Jeff.

I think that's selling him a bit short.  Aside from those occasional games, the thing Turner does is create his own shot and score off the dribble and this team has needed that for years, because it's built with an absence of the type of stars that can do that.  IT brings that, and so does Turner.  Yeah, Turner is not so efficient at it but he can do it where most of our players could not.  It's the same thing reason Jordan Crawford could play and be productive for us for a while.

So the criticism overall is fair but I credit Turner for doing what the team needs him to do as well as he can.  That opens up the floor for the rest of our guys which are more catch and shoot types, cutters, or big guys who work well in the pick and roll.

Hopefully we get a star who can do that for us better than Turner can, but for now he has been useful and productive.  And his defense has improved.  Which is why the Knicks interest makes sense for how Phil Jackson seems determined to go against modern NBA trends.

[saltlover]

I'm all for keeping Evan Turner, at the right price.

If the Knicks want to offer him a lot more money than us, then we shouldn't pursue him. We can't overpay for good players, we need to be saving our cap space for great players.

If we end up making a big trade that reduces our depth or sign a big free agent, Turner would make a lot of sense. Since we will have his bird rights, he could agree to something at the start of free agency and then wait to sign it until we go over the cap. This would essentially give us more cap space to work with in the offseason, similar to what happened with Jae Crowder last year.

We only have his early Bird rights.  That limits the amount we can pay him -- it's unknown what that number will be, but this year it is $5.739 million.  It's based on the average salary from this season.  The cap went up by about 10% -- if we assume the average salary increases commensurately, that gets to around $6.3 million in year one. 

Your figures are wrong, the cap is currently $70 million and is expected to be $90 million next year roughly. That's a 28% jump, it was a 10% last year but its this coming year's salary cap that is relevant.

But your positing of an average increase of 28% across the board is not how it works, old locked in contracts are static. So FAs actually will capture a much greater percentage of this increase. Thus FA contracts could easily increase by up to 50% of past off seasons (for those players not near the max which is still a fixed percent of the cap) depending how crazy things get.

No, the early bird exception is calculated by increasing the average salary of the prior season by 4.5%.  The average salary is calculated simply by dividing total salaries/bonuses paid by 396 (13.2 players per team).  Again, I'm not saying it's going to go exactly up with the cap, but it's as good of a proxy as any.  The cap went from $63.2 million to $70 million, so a little over 10%.

That free agents will capture a greater percentage of contracts has nothing to with how much we are allowed to pay Turner under the Early Bird exception.  It does make it likely Turner will get an offer exceeding those Early Bird rights, but this isn't something I've denied.

[Fafnir]

Oh okay I misread your post I thought you were trying to estimate his salary. We'll have to sign him with cap space in all odds and at that price I'll wish him well on the way out.

[PhoSita]

He's kind of like Jeff Green in that sense, except he actually rebounds and creates for others, and he's a lot more consistent than Uncle Jeff.

I think that's selling him a bit short.  Aside from those occasional games, the thing Turner does is create his own shot and score off the dribble and this team has needed that for years, because it's built with an absence of the type of stars that can do that.  IT brings that, and so does Turner.  Yeah, Turner is not so efficient at it but he can do it where most of our players could not.  It's the same thing reason Jordan Crawford could play and be productive for us for a while.

Don't get me wrong, I think Turner is a lot better than Jeff Green.  He's done a lot of good things for us, whereas I think Green was mostly a Diet Coke kinda player here.  Empty.


My point is just that I think people see Turner make a lot of tough shots and make it look almost easy while doing it, especially in certain games where he really has it going.  Jeff Green did the same thing, though not nearly as often as Turner does.  Doing that has a tendency to imbue a guy with the aura of a "star," or "could-be-star."

The problem in Turner's case is that he's not very good at doing the stuff that should be "easiest" i.e. most efficient, which is getting points at the line and hitting open three pointers.  So he's still pretty inefficient even when he's playing well.

In Green's case, the problem was that he really didn't bring anything else to the table aside from scoring in transition and making those athletic drives to the basket that were so graceful and smooth they appeared effortless.

[greece66]

ET has three weaknesses which make me doubt he has a long future with the C's

-TOs
-3p shooting
-D

He is an OK scorer and gives plenty of assists but this comes at a cost: his OBPM for playoffs games is worrying (-4.1). (Incidentally advanced stats suggest that the worst part of his game is his offence and not his D.)

Moreover, with all these young guards waiting to take mins with the C's letting ET go makes sense.  Looks like the best move for both sides.

Ofc he might always agree to a reduced role and a cheap contract and stay; which would not be such a terrible thing given he is one of the few players who can create his own shot in this team. But I do think the chances of him leaving are significantly higher.

[Eja117]

All you detractors do realize how huge Turner has been for us?

Right, but is this to say nobody else could or could have done it? I really think this has every bit as much to do with Coach Stevens as it does with Turner.

I like Turner, but probably not enough to fight for him. Not when I have about a million draft picks and a ton of cap space. And if you gave Jerebko a lot more minutes....we'd like him more. And James Young isn't getting worse....at least I don't think he is.