Official NBA 2011-12 Season Thread

Vein said:
Even then, I'm still taking 600M over 24M (Lin) + 15-30M (luxury tax)..
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Financially, it makes sense to keep Lin. He's a goldmine. But as far as basketball goes, they are still required to operate under salary cap rules; even if the owner is willing to spend on the luxury tax because he has a cash cow wearing #17, as of the new CBA, teams above the luxury tax line have less and less, steadily decreasing abilities and flexibility. They have a smaller MLE to sign players, more restrictions when it comes to trades, and so on. The Knicks will always have fans -- ownership is not short on cash or ticket sales by any means -- but the goal is always to win a championship, and matching Lin with the roster they have and the contracts they are bound to was not the right way to go; for once, the Knicks made a good basketball-related move.

I can't help but think blowing their load on Amare Stoudemire after missing out on LeBron has caused this. Carmelo was all but a lock for them. I think they'll regret that Chandler contract eventually. I'm still not sold on Carmelo as a #1 guy on a championship team, but his contract and Chandler's contract are most justifiable. I think they will regret acquiring Chandler the way they did though; if you remember, they used their amnesty clause on Chauncey Billups to make room to sign him; if they saved that right, they could have waited to use it on Stoudemire (who is not worth the contract BASKETBALL-WISE he has anymore). Just look at this. Already $64M without some of those guys being entered yet. Steve Novak got a crazy deal from them too ($15M over 4 years). Camby is $3M each year for 3 years.

Where are you getting those luxury tax numbers, by the way? They look too low to be based off the current CBA.
 
darkie said:
Financially, it makes sense to keep Lin. He's a goldmine. But as far as basketball goes, they are still required to operate under salary cap rules; even if the owner is willing to spend on the luxury tax because he has a cash cow wearing #17, as of the new CBA, teams above the luxury tax line have less and less, steadily decreasing abilities and flexibility. They have a smaller MLE to sign players, more restrictions when it comes to trades, and so on. The Knicks will always have fans -- ownership is not short on cash or ticket sales by any means -- but the goal is always to win a championship, and matching Lin with the roster they have and the contracts they are bound to was not the right way to go; for once, the Knicks made a good basketball-related move.

I can't help but think blowing their load on Amare Stoudemire after missing out on LeBron has caused this. Carmelo was all but a lock for them. I think they'll regret that Chandler contract eventually. I'm still not sold on Carmelo as a #1 guy on a championship team, but his contract and Chandler's contract are most justifiable. I think they will regret acquiring Chandler the way they did though; if you remember, they used their amnesty clause on Chauncey Billups to make room to sign him; if they saved that right, they could have waited to use it on Stoudemire (who is not worth the contract BASKETBALL-WISE he has anymore). Just look at this. Already $64M without some of those guys being entered yet. Steve Novak got a crazy deal from them too ($15M over 4 years). Camby is $3M each year for 3 years.

Where are you getting those luxury tax numbers, by the way? They look too low to be based off the current CBA.
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Haha that was my rough estimate after calculating Thunder's situation with Harden/Ibaka. If Knicks sign Lin at that contract, they'll be at 47.5M luxury tax in 2015.

First, I agree on what they did with amnestying Billups, they screwed that up knowing that they have bigger contracts which might become toxic at some point and needs to amnestied (which eventually happened to STAT).

But all those flexibilities are gone anyway, with or without Lin. My issue here is taking on Felton and Kidd, I'd rather take risk with Lin than these two. I'm taking Felton on par with Lin in terms of basketball contribution, but who would pay tickets to watch Felton? This is just poor judgement on Knicks FO.

It also doesn't help that the Rockets (who is willing to overpay Lin) has an experience with a Chinese star. Chinese basketball star = million dollars.

I know that this Knicks thing is so complex... They took a lot of risks with Chandler, STAT, Melo. But it's startling that they didn't take this very good risk with Lin.

For Knicks fans, Brooklyn is just nearby.
 
jwoozie said:
The Lakers have definitely improved with Steve Nash, but it's not going to matter. They still have no bench and can't guard point guards. As far as Howard goes, still not going to matter too much. So they'll go from having the 2nd best center in the league to having the best. I'm not sure that Howard is even an improvement offensively over Bynum. Dwight averaged 20.6 per game as the main option while Bynum averaged 18.7 as a secondary/tertiary option on their respective teams. Howard is easily the better rebounder, as Kevin Love is his only real competition in that category currently, but Bynum's 11 per game means he's no slouch either. They also both grabbed more than 3 offensive rebounds per game, so the disparity comes on the defensive glass. I don't feel like looking up these stats but I'm fairly confident in calling Pau Gasol a better defensive rebounder than Ryan Anderson, so it's not a stretch to say that the overall rebounding for LA would be about the same. Bynum is even a much better free throw shooter (69% vs 49%) although Dwight did attempt 234 more free throws this year and because of that actually ended up making more free throws than Bynum despite the difference in shooting touch from the stripe. But, when taking into account the free throw attempts we have to remember that teams don't have a hack-a-Bynum strategy because he can actually make them, but teams have no problem hacking Dwight all day. With Nash on the squad I'd expect Bynum/Howard to increase their field goal percentage, which isn't very different as is (Bynum shot 55.8%, Dwight 57.3%). So go ahead and send Dwight to LA, it's not gonna make much of a difference since the center position is not the area that LA needs to address. Making a strength marginally better is much less effective than improving a weakness (bench play/can't guard guards/the human vacuumKB24)

TL;DR Howard to LA makes them a little better but they'll still be ousted in round 2.
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Are you just completely ignoring how good Dwight is defensively? He is worlds above Bynum on the defensive end and can literally turn a cast of sub-average defenders into a solid defensive team. On a Lakers team that's already pretty good defensively, they would become a nightmare to score against. Again, I don't think this Lakers deal will happen anyway.

@Gabe, The Nets deal is not the same deal it was before, the signing of Humphries for a larger deal allows them to take back more of the Magic's bloated contracts with Howard. I don't see how anyone besides an oblivious Lakers fan could think that taking on one bad contract and giving them Bynum who will bolt anyway is somehow better than 3-4 first round picks, two prospects, and taking back 3 bad contracts. The Nets deal is still by far the most palatable, with the biggest road block being that the Magic will have to wait until January to move Howard. I don't think Orlando has any problem benching Howard in the mean time if he's too big of a babby to play. If they wanted to get rid of him just to get rid of him and be done with it, regardless of how shitty the offer is, they'd have done that by now.
 
I'm going to assume the following:

- They do not trade, sign, or re-sign anyone except Jeremy Lin.
- They trade all their first round picks away.

These two assumptions bring them to 7 players in 2014/2015, so I'm also going to assume they add the following minimum salary players to fill out the roster:

- one undrafted/2nd round rookie @ $500,000
- three 5 year vets @ $1M each
- two 10+ year vets @ $1.3M each

This brings them to the following roster and salaries:

$23.5M - Anthony
$23.4M - Stoudemire
$14.8M - Lin
$14.6M - Chandler
$4.0M - Novak
$3.0M - Camby
$3.0M - Kidd
$2.7M - Shumpert
$.5M - undrafted/second round rookie
$1M - 5 year vet (x3)
$1.3M - 10+ year vet (x2)

Total: $95.1M

If the luxury tax level remains the same, it will be set at $70.3M.

In the old CBA, they would have to a dollar-for-dollar tax bill of $24.8M on top of the $95.1M for the salaries.

In the new CBA, they pay a steadily increasing rate:

For the first $5M, they pay a tax of $7.5M ($1.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (5-10), they pay a tax of $8.75M ($1.75 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (10-15), they pay a tax of $12.5M ($2.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (15-20), they pay a tax of $16.25M ($3.25 per $1 over)
Finally, for the last $4.8M, they pay $18M ($3.75 per $1 over)

This comes to a total tax bill of $75.5M


Of course, this also assumes they don't have to pay the repeater tax. Judging from how their salaries are looking for this year and next year (over the luxury tax), they almost a lock to pay the repeater tax. In this case, their tax bill is broken down as follows:


For the first $5M, they pay a tax of $12.5M ($2.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (5-10), they pay a tax of $13.75M ($2.75 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (10-15), they pay a tax of $17.5M ($3.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (15-20), they pay a tax of $21.25M ($4.25 per $1 over)
Finally, for the last $4.8M, they pay $22.8M ($4.75 per $1 over)

This comes to a total tax bill of $109.05M.


This obviously pales in comparison to the $600M figure you bring up. That was the valuation of the company, correct? I'm no business major, but as far as I can tell, that is not equivalent to the cash in James Dolan's pocket. Feel free to correct me on this part.

Now, the reason I did this, is just to show that's it's not as clearcut on the financial side as it may seem.

And yes I had that much free time.
 
Phizzlax said:
@Gabe, The Nets deal is not the same deal it was before, the signing of Humphries for a larger deal allows them to take back more of the Magic's bloated contracts with Howard. I don't see how anyone besides an oblivious Lakers fan could think that taking on one bad contract and giving them Bynum who will bolt anyway is somehow better than 3-4 first round picks, two prospects, and taking back 3 bad contracts. The Nets deal is still by far the most palatable, with the biggest road block being that the Magic will have to wait until January to move Howard. I don't think Orlando has any problem benching Howard in the mean time if he's too big of a babby to play. If they wanted to get rid of him just to get rid of him and be done with it, regardless of how shitty the offer is, they'd have done that by now.
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I'm betting he becomes a Laker before a Net. Orlando won't want to start with him, they've gone through too much shit. Dwight's over it, they're over it, the entire fucking NBA is over it. He's going to get traded, and won't be traded in January to the Nets. He can't sign with the Nets either because they picked up Joe Johnson's shit contract.
 
Gabe said:
I'm betting he becomes a Laker before a Net. Orlando won't want to start with him, they've gone through too much shit. Dwight's over it, they're over it, the entire fucking NBA is over it. He's going to get traded, and won't be traded in January to the Nets. He can't sign with the Nets either because they picked up Joe Johnson's shit contract.
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LA seems more likely. Brooklyn is now chockful of the same type of extravagant contracts that Orlando wants to get rid of. $12M for Kris Humphries? Brook Lopez as a max player? If Orlando trades Dwight to Brooklyn, they will be in the same position they are now; bad contracts with no way to improve.
 
darkie said:
LA seems more likely. Brooklyn is now chockful of the same type of extravagant contracts that Orlando wants to get rid of. $12M for Kris Humphries? Brook Lopez as a max player? If Orlando trades Dwight to Brooklyn, they will be in the same position they are now; bad contracts with no way to improve.
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Humphries wouldn't even be going to the Magic, he'd be going to a third team. But by trading his 12 mil they can take back a lot more (it's also only a 2 year contract). The only contract that the Magic would be "saddled with" would be Lopez...

Brook Lopez is a star when healthy and in a world where Deandre Jordan, Asik, and pretty much any other moderately skilled 7 footer has a salary in the neighborhood of 10 million +, Lopez' contract is not that bad.

And before "he'll never be healthy" jokes, all of his missed time has been a result of unrelated freak accidents or illnesses.
 
Phizzlax said:
Humphries wouldn't even be going to the Magic, he'd be going to a third team. But by trading his 12 mil they can take back a lot more (it's also only a 2 year contract). The only contract that the Magic would be "saddled with" would be Lopez...

Brook Lopez is a star when healthy and in a world where Deandre Jordan, Asik, and pretty much any other moderately skilled 7 footer has a salary in the neighborhood of 10 million +, Lopez' contract is not that bad.

And before "he'll never be healthy" jokes, all of his missed time has been a result of unrelated freak accidents or illnesses.
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if 17.4/7.5 career numbers for a center who doesn't play defense == star, then

DBLT



The three superstar model of building a team involves putting three legitimate stars together on the same team, not putting three maxed out players on the same team and calling them superstars.

If I'm Orlando, I roll with Houston's offer.
 
darkie said:
if 17.4/7.5 career numbers for a center who doesn't play defense == star
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Career averages for a player that has had two healthy seasons (one of which was his rookie season) don't seem like an accurate way to measure his potential...

2010/2011 he had mono and lost thirty pounds because of it, but played through the season anyway. He's basically a 20/8 guy at 50% shooting that also shoots free throws well, and has played two seasons worth of healthy games. There's no reason not to think he'll improve on those numbers and be considerably better than any of the other centers with similar contracts. If 3 teams are willing to give Roy Hibbert a contract almost identical to Lopez', I don't see how it could be argued this his contract is horrible.
 
darkie said:
Roy Hibbert can play defense and anchored #3 seeded playoff team.
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Roy Hibbert is a slightly better rebounder, a considerably worse offensive player, and a much better defender. He is not worth considerably more than Brook Lopez. Deandre Jordan and Omer Asik's contracts both make Lopez' look even better. He is at least as good as anyone in that group and if the Magic don't want his contract I'm sure they would have no problem at all moving it to one of the other 3 or 4 GMs that do.
 
Brook Lopez has star potential without a doubt guys. He could be a top 5 center in the NBA next year easily. I mean, frankly, it's basically:
1. Howard
2. Bynum
3. Chandler
4. Hibbert
5. Noah
6. Horford
7. Perkins
8. Lopez
imo. And Lopez can improve. After that everyone is either disguised shit (Bogut, Bargnani) or just plain shit (Chris Kaman etc). Or a rookie who may or may not be totally epic (Anthony Davis). Or someone that's supposed to be a power forward (Duncan, Garnett)
 
A funny thought occurred to me while watching the Bobcats play in the summer league at Applebees last night...why isn't MJ making the whole team play in the summer league? As craptacular as they have been over the last few years, they could use some more even competition XD

On a more serious note, looks like Grant Hill is going to the Clippers...seriously, what's with all the former Suns hitting up LA and Cali for? Lakers, Clippers, who's next? Jared Dudley or Marcin Gortat to the GS Warriors? Yeesh...
 
darkie, it's a good thing you got time. I think I'll be sick tomorrow lol. We'll have time...

Brook paid at max is not a testament to any of his skill or rank. It's just because he's an above average center, and from this point on, we'll see more of these guys. (I believe his brother is also FA, I won't be surprised a team giving 7M per to him despite being shit)
 
darkie said:
I'm going to assume the following:

- They do not trade, sign, or re-sign anyone except Jeremy Lin.
- They trade all their first round picks away.

These two assumptions bring them to 7 players in 2014/2015, so I'm also going to assume they add the following minimum salary players to fill out the roster:

- one undrafted/2nd round rookie @ $500,000
- three 5 year vets @ $1M each
- two 10+ year vets @ $1.3M each

This brings them to the following roster and salaries:

$23.5M - Anthony
$23.4M - Stoudemire
$14.8M - Lin
$14.6M - Chandler
$4.0M - Novak
$3.0M - Camby
$3.0M - Kidd
$2.7M - Shumpert
$.5M - undrafted/second round rookie
$1M - 5 year vet (x3)
$1.3M - 10+ year vet (x2)

Total: $95.1M

If the luxury tax level remains the same, it will be set at $70.3M.

In the old CBA, they would have to a dollar-for-dollar tax bill of $24.8M on top of the $95.1M for the salaries.

In the new CBA, they pay a steadily increasing rate:

For the first $5M, they pay a tax of $7.5M ($1.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (5-10), they pay a tax of $8.75M ($1.75 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (10-15), they pay a tax of $12.5M ($2.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (15-20), they pay a tax of $16.25M ($3.25 per $1 over)
Finally, for the last $4.8M, they pay $18M ($3.75 per $1 over)

This comes to a total tax bill of $75.5M


Of course, this also assumes they don't have to pay the repeater tax. Judging from how their salaries are looking for this year and next year (over the luxury tax), they almost a lock to pay the repeater tax. In this case, their tax bill is broken down as follows:


For the first $5M, they pay a tax of $12.5M ($2.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (5-10), they pay a tax of $13.75M ($2.75 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (10-15), they pay a tax of $17.5M ($3.50 per $1 over)
For the next $5M (15-20), they pay a tax of $21.25M ($4.25 per $1 over)
Finally, for the last $4.8M, they pay $22.8M ($4.75 per $1 over)

This comes to a total tax bill of $109.05M.


This obviously pales in comparison to the $600M figure you bring up. That was the valuation of the company, correct? I'm no business major, but as far as I can tell, that is not equivalent to the cash in James Dolan's pocket. Feel free to correct me on this part.

Now, the reason I did this, is just to show that's it's not as clearcut on the financial side as it may seem.

And yes I had that much free time.
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I agree with all the computations, however, the assumption on the same amount of cap level needs to be changed.

Cap level in the new CBA is now directly related to NBA's BRI. BRI tends to increase over time, and in the past 10 years, it was increasing by 3% per annum. However, since NBA is gaining its sales in the last 2 years, let's peg the growth at 4% per year. Using that number, if the year's cap is at 70.3M, 2014-2015's cap should be at 76M.

That said, using your salary numbers, that means 2014-15 Knicks will be 19.1M over the cap, with equivalent of 42M of luxury tax using the new CBA computation. (Things have changed since then however, with the addition of Felton. Expect this to be higher if Lin still stayed).

That said, it really pales in comparison to 600M of MSG Corp gains since Linsanity. As expected, the company's number will dip without Lin: the 24M down reported last time is just a start. On your question, it's MSG Corp who owns the Knicks, thus, they handle all the expenses (including player salaries) and not just came from Dolan's pocket. Dolan, I believe, is their major stockholder.

Have read reports that Knicks owner (Dolan) let go of Lin because of emotions and pride (after Lin's move of testing his market) and not financial. However, NBA is business and guys like Dolan tend to lose (and guys like Cuban tend to win).
 
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