in defense of the ASG

[Buzzard]

All hail the almighty Hawks Fans Who Don't Care About Revenues And Expenses Because It's Other People's Money.

Its really about generating excitement in a product. Staying pat with a team that has been blown out in the 2nd round two consecutive years will generate zero excitement and thus zero added revenue. That is exactly what they are doing; and they will reap the rewards of past performance vs zero excitement generated in their product.

You want to think that casual fans do not read or hear about the Hawks locally and on national coverage; but they do. And until they generate another buzz like the 7 game series against Boston, revenues are probably not going to increase and quite possibly, due to the last two playoff bust, they could slide a little especially in a bad economy.

If the ASG is happy with revenue, then they should not improve apon the product. That is how I see it.

[NineOhTheRino]

Cheap isn't a good word.

Foolish would be a better one.

cheap: no

frugal: yes

there's a difference

[spotatl]

Its not frugal to sell a second round pick that doesn't have a guaranteed contract. If thats not cheap then incompetent is probably the next most likely.

But mostly I agree with you. Its not being cheap to not want to pay the luxury tax when the team would still be just the third best team in the division. Thats certainly a team that cares about spending money wisely but that doesn't make a team cheap.

Edited July 21, 2010 by spotatl

[Sothron]

Paul Allen had paid the luxury tax and will pay it to have a contending team. I have no idea who said he wouldn't pay the tax but he's had some of the league's highest payrolls for years at a time.Their payroll isn't as high now because they had rookie deals for players that are only recently starting to turn into extensions.

Read this:

It cannot be argued that Paul Allen is one of the most committed owners in all of sports. Since Allen purchased the Portland Trail Blazers in 1988 for $70M, he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars with the goal of winning the NBA championship.

For most of the 1990's and early 2000's, the Trail Blazers had amongst the highest player payrolls in the NBA and routinely paid the luxury tax.

In 2005 Allen opened his checkbook to attract Nate McMillan as the Trail Blazers head coach and made McMillan one of the highest paid coaches in the NBA. Before this past season started, Allen doled out $145M in guaranteed money to his cornerstone players, Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, to secure their services for the next several years.

The Trail Blazers have one of the best practice facilities in the NBA and the team travels on what is likely the most luxurious charter plane in sports.

The man who Forbes magazine rates as the 37th wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $13.5B, has provided his executives, coaches and players with the best amenities money can buy in their quest to bring Portland its first NBA championship since 1977 (he's done the same in Seattle with the Seahawks organization by hiring Pete Carroll to bring him an NFL Championship).

But the 57 year-old owner of the Trail Blazers is fighting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Allen who was originally diagnosed with the form of cancer in 1983, learned of the cancer's return late last year and has been undergoing treatment. Prior to last season, we learned that Allen had heart surgery.

So there is uncertainty about Paul Allen's health as he embarks on an NBA off-season in which there are several key decisions he will need to make.

Central to the decisions Allen will make is the future of Trail Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard, who is viewed by many Trail Blazers fans as the primary architect of the richly talented, well-behaved Trail Blazers roster. A roster that has allowed the franchise to sell out all of their home games over the past two-plus seasons and regain popularity with the Portland community.

In March, the Trail Blazers fired Tom Penn, the team's Vice President of Basketball Operations and that decision set off a firestorm of speculation about the future of Pritchard with the Trail Blazers.

In late March, Paul Allen released this statement:

"I support everyone who works for me, including Kevin Pritchard, and that's why he's our general manager," Allen's statement said. "We all have the same goal -- to bring another NBA championship to the great fans of Portland. We are not going to make any more long-term decisions today. When the season ends we will evaluate how best to move the Trail Blazers forward. That's no different than the way we have operated for the past 21 seasons."

So now that the Trail Blazers season is over, fans will anxiously await answers to several key basketball questions:

- When will Paul Allen reach a decision on the fate of Kevin Pritchard so the Trail Blazers can move forward without a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the franchise?

- If Pritchard is fired, who will Allen bring in to replace him and how will that person fit into the current culture that has been developed over the past few seasons?

- If Pritchard remains, can Allen and Pritchard work together in harmony?

- Is Paul Allen satisfied with the current roster of players or will he look to make changes to the roster this offseason?

But the biggest question mark of all is the health of the Trail Blazers owner.

Allen has certainly made some questionable decisions during his tenure as the owner of the Trail Blazers, but his passion to bring a championship to Portland cannot be questioned.

It appears as if he is healthy enough to make the key decisions that will need to made this offseason. Those decisions will shape the future of the franchise for next season and beyond.

Whether you agree with Allen's decisions or not, we should all be pulling for Allen as he attempts to beat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma again.

I get the sense that Paul Allen is upping the ante. He's staring his mortality in the face and he desperately wants to win a championship - in the NBA and the NFL. He's going to continue to be bold in an effort to capture the holy grail he's been chasing for many years.

Personally, I hope that he lives to see the day when his beloved Portland Trail Blazers win an NBA Championship. And it would be fitting if he's holding the championship trophy during the victory parade in downtown Portland.

Edited July 21, 2010 by Sothron

[Buzzard]

Its not frugal to sell a second round pick that doesn't have a guaranteed contract. If thats not cheap then incompetent is probably the next most likely.

But mostly I agree with you. Its not being cheap to not want to pay the luxury tax when the team would still be just the third best team in the division. Thats certainly a team that cares about spending money wisely but that doesn't make a team cheap.

Going by this what are we to do then? Wait till Bosh, Wade, Bron, and Howard all retire? If that is the case, then yes I would say the ASG is to cheap to field a winner. I honestly think all we need is a decent big and we can compete with anyone in the league. But without that physical big, look out for the Bucks and Bulls with their improving frontlines and added depth to make gains on us.

Edited July 21, 2010 by Buzzard

[spotatl]

Buzzard- I think the Hawks have assembled a core that is a long way from being a championship contender. (its pretty foolish to think the hawks are a MLE player away from catching the magic or Heat in my opinion). Once you have assembled a non-championship contending core then I think you have 2 choices. You can break it apart and shed excess salary, go back and try and add more pieces with significant caproom and higher draftpicks. Or you can lurk as a good team and have a string of playoff appearances and hope that one season everything falls into place and you can acquire the right piece at the right time to take that next step. To me over and over teams make the mistake of blowing their money on a MLE player who doesn't do a thing to really change the pecking order and all they do is kill what salary flexiblity they have. There are so many examples of teams overpaying for someone on the MLE just becuase they felt like they had to do SOMETHING.

Personally- I wouldn't have maxed out Joe because I think it was franchise suicide so I would have been willing to trade him, take a step back and build with a different core but I know many people here would have killed the team for it.

Edited July 21, 2010 by spotatl

[niremetal]

Paul Allen had paid the luxury tax and will pay it to have a contending team. I have no idea who said he wouldn't pay the tax but he's had some of the league's highest payrolls for years at a time.Their payroll isn't as high now because they had rookie deals for players that are only recently starting to turn into extensions.

Read this:

It cannot be argued that Paul Allen is one of the most committed owners in all of sports. Since Allen purchased the Portland Trail Blazers in 1988 for $70M, he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars with the goal of winning the NBA championship.

For most of the 1990's and early 2000's, the Trail Blazers had amongst the highest player payrolls in the NBA and routinely paid the luxury tax.

In 2005 Allen opened his checkbook to attract Nate McMillan as the Trail Blazers head coach and made McMillan one of the highest paid coaches in the NBA. Before this past season started, Allen doled out $145M in guaranteed money to his cornerstone players, Brandon Roy and LaMarcus Aldridge, to secure their services for the next several years.

The Trail Blazers have one of the best practice facilities in the NBA and the team travels on what is likely the most luxurious charter plane in sports.

The man who Forbes magazine rates as the 37th wealthiest person in the world with a net worth of $13.5B, has provided his executives, coaches and players with the best amenities money can buy in their quest to bring Portland its first NBA championship since 1977 (he's done the same in Seattle with the Seahawks organization by hiring Pete Carroll to bring him an NFL Championship).

But the 57 year-old owner of the Trail Blazers is fighting non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Allen who was originally diagnosed with the form of cancer in 1983, learned of the cancer's return late last year and has been undergoing treatment. Prior to last season, we learned that Allen had heart surgery.

So there is uncertainty about Paul Allen's health as he embarks on an NBA off-season in which there are several key decisions he will need to make.

Central to the decisions Allen will make is the future of Trail Blazers General Manager Kevin Pritchard, who is viewed by many Trail Blazers fans as the primary architect of the richly talented, well-behaved Trail Blazers roster. A roster that has allowed the franchise to sell out all of their home games over the past two-plus seasons and regain popularity with the Portland community.

In March, the Trail Blazers fired Tom Penn, the team's Vice President of Basketball Operations and that decision set off a firestorm of speculation about the future of Pritchard with the Trail Blazers.

In late March, Paul Allen released this statement:

"I support everyone who works for me, including Kevin Pritchard, and that's why he's our general manager," Allen's statement said. "We all have the same goal -- to bring another NBA championship to the great fans of Portland. We are not going to make any more long-term decisions today. When the season ends we will evaluate how best to move the Trail Blazers forward. That's no different than the way we have operated for the past 21 seasons."

So now that the Trail Blazers season is over, fans will anxiously await answers to several key basketball questions:

- When will Paul Allen reach a decision on the fate of Kevin Pritchard so the Trail Blazers can move forward without a cloud of uncertainty hanging over the franchise?

- If Pritchard is fired, who will Allen bring in to replace him and how will that person fit into the current culture that has been developed over the past few seasons?

- If Pritchard remains, can Allen and Pritchard work together in harmony?

- Is Paul Allen satisfied with the current roster of players or will he look to make changes to the roster this offseason?

But the biggest question mark of all is the health of the Trail Blazers owner.

Allen has certainly made some questionable decisions during his tenure as the owner of the Trail Blazers, but his passion to bring a championship to Portland cannot be questioned.

It appears as if he is healthy enough to make the key decisions that will need to made this offseason. Those decisions will shape the future of the franchise for next season and beyond.

Whether you agree with Allen's decisions or not, we should all be pulling for Allen as he attempts to beat non-Hodgkin's lymphoma again.

I get the sense that Paul Allen is upping the ante. He's staring his mortality in the face and he desperately wants to win a championship - in the NBA and the NFL. He's going to continue to be bold in an effort to capture the holy grail he's been chasing for many years.

Personally, I hope that he lives to see the day when his beloved Portland Trail Blazers win an NBA Championship. And it would be fitting if he's holding the championship trophy during the victory parade in downtown Portland.

The years where the Blazers payroll was through the roof were all before the luxury tax system was overhauled in 2005. Until that time, the penalties for paying over the tax threshold were so small that it provided virtually no deterrent. Once the new CBA was put in place in 2005, the ballgame changed. That's why Coon's FAQ only shows the tax-paying teams since 2005. The Blazers only appear on that list once, and that was the year of the Darius Miles fiasco that I mentioned above - the Blazers only paid the tax because a player who'd been designated as having a career-ending injury (and thus had been removed from the payroll) was signed by another team, and the Blazers literally threatened to sue any team that reactivated his contract.

[Admin]

Read this:

It cannot be argued that Paul Allen is one of the most committed owners in all of sports. Since Allen purchased the Portland Trail Blazers in 1988 for $70M, he has spent hundreds of millions of dollars with the goal of winning the NBA championship.

1. I sure as hell hope the goal is to win the NBA championship, but if he were the owner of the Hawks he'd be accused of being cheap and monumentally cheap based on his Blazers payroll, in comparison to the Hawks payroll.

2. The ASG have ALSO spent hundreds of millions of dollars just in the years that they've owned the team and that's been since what, 2003?

3. Why do the Hawks not get the benefit of using the excuse that they have a team mostly consisting of players coming off of rookie contracts to justify having a low payroll, but the Blazers do? Seems like a double-standard to me, especially considering the 2 franchises are considered to be east and west mirrors of each other in terms of how the current team has been built.

I've said it before but it bears repeating that if the Hawks hadn't made so many mistakes in the draft we'd absolutely have a higher salaried team and would be well into the luxury tax. In fact our payroll would be about 20 million higher had we drafted Paul or Deron instead of Marvin and Roy instead of Shelden.

[Admin]

cheap: no

frugal: yes

there's a difference

I don't know if frugal is the right word but it's a hell of a lot closer to being accurate than cheap is.

The words that describe the ASG to me are inconsistent, savvy, and efficient. Especially this year they've been inconsistent with some of their moves, but maybe it only seems that way since we aren't able to see the big picture for this off-season that Sund and the owners can. They've also been savvy (or shrewd if you prefer) in the business decisions that they've made and they've been highly efficient in terms of getting wins for the amount of dollars that they've spent.

[Admin]

To me, cheap for the ASG stems from them investing more money in the same product and refusing to add to it. You've already bought the team, you are spending $67 million for this year and now the ASG decides to say "ok, thats enough let's not add on". That along with selling the 31st pick and at least a handful of other instances makes me decide the ASG are cheap. But above being cheap, the ASG are just buffoons.

Each team situation is different, so looking at payroll and then making an absolute judgement of what cheap is doesn't make sense. If the Marlins and Yankees both spend $100 million on payroll, are they equally cheap?

To be honest that seems like a cop out to me but I'll respect your right to avoid defining which teams are cheap and which are not.

[Sothron]

1. I sure as hell hope the goal is to win the NBA championship, but if he were the owner of the Hawks he'd be accused of being cheap and monumentally cheap based on his Blazers payroll, in comparison to the Hawks payroll.

2. The ASG have ALSO spent hundreds of millions of dollars just in the years that they've owned the team and that's been since what, 2003?

3. Why do the Hawks not get the benefit of using the excuse that they have a team mostly consisting of players coming off of rookie contracts to justify having a low payroll, but the Blazers do? Seems like a double-standard to me, especially considering the 2 franchises are considered to be east and west mirrors of each other in terms of how the current team has been built.

I've said it before but it bears repeating that if the Hawks hadn't made so many mistakes in the draft we'd absolutely have a higher salaried team and would be well into the luxury tax. In fact our payroll would be about 20 million higher had we drafted Paul or Deron instead of Marvin and Roy instead of Shelden.

How many Hawks players are on rookie deals? Two? Portland has paid the luxury tax in the past and Allen has already said he would pay to keep their current core together AND ALSO go out and add pieces if needed to win a title. Paul Allen has spent far more money on payroll over his years of ownership than the ASG has. He also pays top dollars for coaches, assistants and for practice facilities. Allen has actually backed up his talk with action and money whereas the ASG have not.

[Sothron]

I don't know if frugal is the right word but it's a hell of a lot closer to being accurate than cheap is.

The words that describe the ASG to me are inconsistent, savvy, and efficient. Especially this year they've been inconsistent with some of their moves, but maybe it only seems that way since we aren't able to see the big picture for this off-season that Sund and the owners can. They've also been savvy (or shrewd if you prefer) in the business decisions that they've made and they've been highly efficient in terms of getting wins for the amount of dollars that they've spent.

I fail to see how that is "savvy". That is pure luck. I remember someone calling Orlando "lucky" because of their superstar draft pick. I guess the Hawks weren't "lucky" to draft Horford and Smith? :whistling:

[Final_quest]

Buzzard- I think the Hawks have assembled a core that is a long way from being a championship contender. (its pretty foolish to think the hawks are a MLE player away from catching the magic or Heat in my opinion). Once you have assembled a non-championship contending core then I think you have 2 choices. You can break it apart and shed excess salary, go back and try and add more pieces with significant caproom and higher draftpicks. Or you can lurk as a good team and have a string of playoff appearances and hope that one season everything falls into place and you can acquire the right piece at the right time to take that next step. To me over and over teams make the mistake of blowing their money on a MLE player who doesn't do a thing to really change the pecking order and all they do is kill what salary flexiblity they have. There are so many examples of teams overpaying for someone on the MLE just becuase they felt like they had to do SOMETHING.

Personally- I wouldn't have maxed out Joe because I think it was franchise suicide so I would have been willing to trade him, take a step back and build with a different core but I know many people here would have killed the team for it.

This was very well said. I agree that our main hope is that we acquire the right piece at the right time, we are more than a MLE player away from title contention, and that signing Joe committed us to a good but not great core. It will take a Gasol like acquisition to put us over the top.

My main hope is trading a couple of our good pieces for one great piece, like the CP3 suggestions we've had recently. Not to say there was any truth to those rumors. Our only other hope is to draft diamonds in the rough like the Spurs seem to do, and put together a core of late 1st round and 2nd round picks.

[Admin]

How many Hawks players are on rookie deals? Two? Portland has paid the luxury tax in the past and Allen has already said he would pay to keep their current core together AND ALSO go out and add pieces if needed to win a title. Paul Allen has spent far more money on payroll over his years of ownership than the ASG has. He also pays top dollars for coaches, assistants and for practice facilities. Allen has actually backed up his talk with action and money whereas the ASG have not.

As Nire pointed out the Blazers have only paid the tax once under the current system and that wasn't by choice. Allen can talk all day long about how he will pay this or that but actions speak louder than words around here and the ASG aren't given the benefit of the doubt when they say that so why should the Blazers? And yeah he pays top dollar for guys and then screws them over or runs them out of town. I absolutely guarantee that we'd be a lot more likely to land a top flight GM right now than the Blazers would be with the way he treated Pritchard.

You said "Their payroll isn't as high now because they had rookie deals for players that are only recently starting to turn into extensions." The ASG HAS PAID to keep Marvin and Smith coming off of rookie deals, they made a market level offer to Childress and I am completely confident that they'll do the same for Horford and Teague. So how are they ANY different than the Hawks in that regard??

Allen has actually backed up his talk with action and money whereas the ASG have not.

Since it's not fair to judge his actions prior to the ASG owning a team and the CBA being so different what actions have Allen made (under the current CBA) to back up his talk that the ASG haven't? I'll answer that for you, none. He's slowly trying to build his team through the draft, just as we are, with the major difference being that he had a GM who took a lot more risks and he also had the benefit of being an owner in a one horse town and hasn't had to deal with the legal crap that the ASG have had to deal with.

[Admin]

I fail to see how that is "savvy". That is pure luck.

Okay one example of them being savvy is letting Josh Smith go out and find a contract that ended up being well below what everyone expected he'd get. Is that "pure luck" that they were savvy and used the system to their advantage rather than overspending on an extension the year before or even giving him a new contract without letting the market establish his value? In case you forgot they took a HUGE gamble by letting Smith hit RFA with the way that Philly went after him practically giving him the key to the city and the ASG sat back and let the situation play itself out and it couldn't have worked out any better for them.

I remember someone calling Orlando "lucky" because of their superstar draft pick. I guess the Hawks weren't "lucky" to draft Horford and Smith? :whistling:

I guess that depends on how you define lucky.

To me lucky would have been winning the lottery when we weren't the worst team and getting Howard instead of getting Smith later. Sure Smith has been a lot better than a 16th pick should be expected to be but he's nowhere near in the same class as Howard and the Magic were a better team than us the year before so yeah they were lucky.

To me lucky would have been getting a top 2 pick in a draft many considered to be a 2 man draft (Oden and Durant) and us getting one of them. Granted we've been lucky that Horford has stayed healthy and been a better pick than Oden but again he's nowhere near the player that Durant is.

[spotatl]

Its pretty obvious the Hawks were lucky to get Horford. That year the pick was top 3 protected going to the Suns so if the Hawks didn't win the lottery then they would have lost the pick completely. The Hawks even gave up a pile of caproom in order to acquire Anthony Johnson that year when it looked like they had a shot to make the playoffs. Of course the Hawks were lucky to get Horford. It was also lucky for the Hawks that Chris Paul and Brandon Roy fell in their laps on draft night.

On the other hand, Howard was far from a consensus #1 pick for the Magic and as I recall they were widely criticized for taking him instead of Okafor.

Edited July 21, 2010 by spotatl

[Admin]

Its pretty obvious the Hawks were lucky to get Horford. That year the pick was top 3 protected going to the Suns so if the Hawks didn't win the lottery then they would have lost the pick completely. The Hawks even gave up a pile of caproom in order to acquire Anthony Johnson that year when it looked like they had a shot to make the playoffs. Of course the Hawks were lucky to get Horford. It was also lucky for the Hawks that Chris Paul and Brandon Roy fell in their laps on draft night.

On the other hand, Howard was far from a consensus #1 pick for the Magic and as I recall they were widely criticized for taking him instead of Okafor.

True we were lucky that we got to keep that pick but it's not like we hadn't earned it by being a bad team.

And yeah there were some that felt Okafor was the top player but Howard is absolutely the class of that draft and I know for certain that we offered the Magic Jason Terry plus our 6th and 17th picks that year and they turned it down so it's pretty obvious how strong they felt about him.

I think you could easily argue that we were unlucky to get the 2nd pick in 05 and might have been the most unlucky team in the whole draft that year as Marvin was widely considered to be the player most GMs would have taken with the 1st or 2nd pick. Had we won the lottery we would have taken Bogut and if we had fallen down to the 3rd pick we would have taken Deron and either of them would have been much better picks.

[Sothron]

As Nire pointed out the Blazers have only paid the tax once under the current system and that wasn't by choice. Allen can talk all day long about how he will pay this or that but actions speak louder than words around here and the ASG aren't given the benefit of the doubt when they say that so why should the Blazers? And yeah he pays top dollar for guys and then screws them over or runs them out of town. I absolutely guarantee that we'd be a lot more likely to land a top flight GM right now than the Blazers would be with the way he treated Pritchard.

You said "Their payroll isn't as high now because they had rookie deals for players that are only recently starting to turn into extensions." The ASG HAS PAID to keep Marvin and Smith coming off of rookie deals, they made a market level offer to Childress and I am completely confident that they'll do the same for Horford and Teague. So how are they ANY different than the Hawks in that regard??

Since it's not fair to judge his actions prior to the ASG owning a team and the CBA being so different what actions have Allen made (under the current CBA) to back up his talk that the ASG haven't? I'll answer that for you, none. He's slowly trying to build his team through the draft, just as we are, with the major difference being that he had a GM who took a lot more risks and he also had the benefit of being an owner in a one horse town and hasn't had to deal with the legal crap that the ASG have had to deal with.

Allen has had for almost every year he owned the Blazers one of the highest payrolls in the NBA. Just because they decided a few years ago to rebuild through the draft and thus have several low paying contracts does not mean he won't pay the luxury tax. He already HAS paid the tax and before the CBA started is when Portland decided to build through the draft.

Now I'm not defending Pritchard getting fired but Pritchard isn't exactly innocent. He conspired with his assistant GM Tom Penn to make up bogus reports of Penn almost getting hired by Minnesota so both of them would get big pay raises because they knew Allen would pay it. Once that got exposed Penn got fired and it eventually got Pritchard fired.

As for your other post, I'm not sure what you are talking about. The ASG were too cheap to give the Joshes deals and told them to go find offers. They did. They were too cheap to match what Chill got and the ONLY reason Josh Smith is still a Hawks is because they MATCHED the offer he got from Memphis. They did NOT offer him a deal they simply MATCHED a deal. Huge difference.

This team has been lucky in that Smith panned out and we managed to keep the #3 pick instead of Phoenix getting it. That's luck. That is nothing the ASG did. You can't say in other posts Orlando shouldn't be considered good ownership because they got "lucky" and then turn around and try to say the Hawks weren't "lucky" with some of our guys.

[spotatl]

I think you could easily argue that we were unlucky to get the 2nd pick in 05 and might have been the most unlucky team in the whole draft that year

See? This is where you are just backwards. IF the magic had taken Okafor instead of Howard then you would be saying that the magic were the "most unlucky team in the whole draft that year"? Of course not. The Hawks have been "lucky" enough to have the opportunity to draft several allstar players that were just dropped in their lap.

By the odds the Hawks should have lost the pick altogether yet you want to say they were unlucky in the draft that year. I just don't get your rationale. The Hawks made a trade near the deadline to try and make a push for the playoffs... the plan was to make the playoffs that season. THe Hawks were lucky to end up with an allstar center and you still want to look at it as if they got screwed.

[AHF]

This pretty much says it all. And to think we could have had a decent young player at 31. I still do not get that. If their goal is to continue staying under the luxury tax, trading away (cheap players) picks is counter productive. I don't remember the Spurs and Pistons doing that.

Very true.