Serious Marcus Smart Question

[slightly biased bias fan]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

[mr. dee]

Consider the cap inflation in the CBA. 5-9 million in the previous CBA could be considered 10-14 million today.

[slightly biased bias fan]

Consider the cap inflation in the CBA. 5-9 million in the previous CBA could be considered 10-14 million today.

I never really considered Memphis a championship level team and when Allen was with Celtics his last contract was for 2.5 million and essentially left because Ainge didn't want to match what Memphis was offering.

[Ilikesports17]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

[slightly biased bias fan]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

That is true, but I am not sure how integral Shump was to that team and that team held the record for highest team salary in history so I guess it just comes down to how much luxury tax Celtics ownership wants to pay.

Please note, I actually like what Smart brings for this team, I was just curious.

[Eja117]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

Maybe that means 8 should be our upper limit then.

[Ilikesports17]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

Maybe that means 8 should be our upper limit then.

Nope.

It means that building your team by trying to mirror the salary structure of past champions is stupid.

[slightly biased bias fan]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

Maybe that means 8 should be our upper limit then.

I remember now that Cavs didn't give him that contract, it was the Knicks and it was seen at the time as an overpay and he was a salary dump with JR Smith trade package.

[Roy H.]

when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

It’s not a perfect comparison, but Andre Iguodala comes to mind.  He’s a lot more efficient than Smart, but he’s not a scorer at this stage.

[Eja117]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

Maybe that means 8 should be our upper limit then.

Nope.

It means that building your team by trying to mirror the salary structure of past champions is stupid.

Trying to mirror past champions is stupid?

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

Maybe that means 8 should be our upper limit then.

Nope.

It means that building your team by trying to mirror the salary structure of past champions is stupid.

Trying to mirror past champions is stupid?

Blindly replicating their salary structure without understanding the context behind how each and every one of those contracts came to be is stupid.

[LatterDayCelticsfan]

As we all know Smart is going into restricted free agency this offseason and I am under the assumption he wants and expects to be paid over the MLE amount to around the 10-12 million range. My question is this, when was the last time a championship level team has had a reserve that earned relative to that amount who was a non-shooting defensive guard?

* I know people on here compare Smart to Tony Allen but I am sure some would be surprised that Allen never earned over 5 million in his entire career.

Cavs won a ring 2 years ago with Iman Shumpert making 9 million a year.

So there is your answer.

Maybe that means 8 should be our upper limit then.

Nope.

It means that building your team by trying to mirror the salary structure of past champions is stupid.

Trying to mirror past champions is stupid?

It means blindly replicating a salary structure without understanding the context behind how these contracts came to be, in order to be just like a champion is stupid.

[Big333223]

Consider the cap inflation in the CBA. 5-9 million in the previous CBA could be considered 10-14 million today.

This.

Players are going to make more money now than they have in the past because the cap is higher than its ever been. Comparing Smart's next contract to contracts of past players signed under a different salary cap isn't going to tell us anything.

[adam8]

I was as big of a Tony Allen fan as you will find, have signed pictures of him and the rest, but there is something different about Smart. Tony was a great defender but Smart just has this weird way of knocking a ball loose in a close game with under a minute left, or drawing the offensive foul, just something that wins games I don't know how he does it but it just seems like he is like the Michael Jordan of defense when the game is on the line you expect him to do something defensively to win the game and I don't ever really remember watching a player that did that more than Smart.

i would love to have him stop chucking threes but I still want him in at the end of a close game just has the ability to rise to the occasion and mentally beat other players.

[crimson_stallion]

Consider the cap inflation in the CBA. 5-9 million in the previous CBA could be considered 10-14 million today.

I never really considered Memphis a championship level team and when Allen was with Celtics his last contract was for 2.5 million and essentially left because Ainge didn't want to match what Memphis was offering.

I'm  not really sure what the relevance of this response is?

Mr. Dee just (correctly) pointed out that you really can't compare today's salary numbers to historical ones, because the salary cap today is so much higher then it ever has been in the past. 

Prior to this new TV deal, the salary cap typically hovered between $50m-$55m.  Now it's up around the $100m mark.  That's why you need to look at salaries as a percentage of the cap, not as raw numbers.

Smart making $10M a year might seem like a huge amount for a one dimensional backup guard, but if next year's salary cap is $100M then that contact would only be about 10% of the cap.  That would be about the equivalent of $5M for Tony Allen back when the cap was around $55M - -it's not all that different.

For example, consider that Miami is paying Kelly Olynyk $10.6M and he's only playing 24 MPG.  Portland is paying Evan Turner $17M for 7 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists. 

$10M in today's NBA is simply worth about half what it was three seasons ago.  Even though it's actually not in the real world, but fact is every team has double the cap space of what they normally would, more cap space means there are more teams out there looking to buy, so the players benefit because.  They know if one team doesn't pay them another will, and the teams know this too, so teams have no choice but to overpay as a result of the cap situation. 

It's because of this that a guy like Smart can ask for $10M, and will probably get it. Though hard for me to imagine him getting much more than that.