Joe is not overpaid BY ATLANTA...

[Diesel]

To summarize the argument here, Diesel, you're saying that because Atlanta cannot compete for free agents, they have to overpay to get one. Therefore, they did not overpay for Joe. You don't seem to consider whether they got commensurate value for their investment, which is the real question when considering whether a team overpaid for a player. In other words, what you're arguing is not that Atlanta didn't overpay for JJ but that Atlanta had to overpay for JJ. In regards to the first question, I would say Atlanta did overpay for JJ. In regards to whether they had to, I partially agree. We didn't have to sign anyone, but if we wanted to sign an impact player, we probably had to overpay to get him.

That's about right. We have shown that we don't draft talent unless it just falls in our lap from an over abundance of need. I don't want to see Sund get a lottery pick and go after Swift and Petro. We can make trades but we're trading from a position of weakness. COUPLED with the fact that we have very little success enticing free agents to come to Atlanta without overpaying them.. I say that

ATL didn't overpay Joe.

That's different from saying Joe is overpaid. Joe is overpaid... but for us, we have to overpay to get talent.

However, all the monday morning QBs and some of the haters on here who wished that we would have let Joe walk... Just don't get it. It woudl have taken another 10 years for us to get back to this point.

I'd rather be winning and trying to find that one piece to get us over the hump than to be losing with no win in sight. Talk to a Raptors fan and ask them if they could do it all over would they try everything to keep Carter and McGrady. We are about like Toronto when it comes to drawing FAs.

[Guest]

Actually a diamond is very valuable beyond just the aesthetics of it. The diamond has extensive industrial usage due to its hardness, as it is ideal in many applications as a cutting or grinding agent. A better example would be gold, because gold has virtually zero practical purpose in industry or otherwise due to its softness and its weight, and is valued really only because we as humans place value on it, and arbitrarily so. If things were valued for 'practical' usage, diamonds would rank maybe an 8, silver would rank a 10, and gold would rank about a 1. But gold still holds value and grows in value, partly due to rarity but mostly because we place emotional value into it.

Gold has more value than just "emotions" or aesthetics. Most modern currencies at some point in time have been on a form of the gold standard which essentially tied valued currency at a certain rate. In order for the currency to be of some value, there needed to be a tie to gold or else the currency was worthless since its just a piece of paper. Now over time we have fiat currency and most countries are off of the gold standard, but there are many proponents of the gold standard today. Many people are actually buying gold as a commodity in order to hedge against a possible default of the US currency. All this to just summarize and say gold had value not from "emotions" or aesthetics but because of cultural norms in that there needed to be something that gave currency value.

All this is a tangent, but what Supporter was originally referring to was simply the Water-Diamond Paradox in economics, which is a valid point. With efficient markets, we should see transactions at market price determined via the supply and demand which has limited bearing on necessity or usefulness. I have thought about Joe's situation and I am not so sure I can see his actual contract as truly being market value. For one, the CBA caps the maximum value so in one sense we do not have an efficient market if you want to look at Joe's value in a marginal product type of sense. But if we cast that aside, another way to look at the free agency as not being some sort of a free market but rather in more an auction type of situation. Joe being up for bid while other teams throw bids out at him in order to gain his services. In this context Joe does not get a true market value for two reasons. One, the Hawks can offer more than anyone else which leads to distortions in the market. Thats not that big of an issue in my mind. The other two issues I see is: 1) the winner's curse and 2) revealed information. The winner's curse tells you that the winner of an auction is always "cursed" in that they always pay more than what anyone else would. The true value should be based upon what the market dictates and when looking at opportunity costs, the true value should actually be the 2nd highest bid. With revealed information, we don't actually know what someone else would have paid Joe because we lack evidence. Did any other free agent in the market get a true Max deal? Amare did not. None of the super friends. Boozer? Nope. So this is actually evidence against Joe getting a max from someone else. In this sense, no Joe did not actually get market value.

I think we are quibbling over small potatoes here though. So what if Joe is overpaid? Its not like it helps us out that much, he certainly isn't overpaid by a large enough amount where we could have actually signed someone helpful on this team to stay under the luxury tax. Its also an odd notion of market value when there is a distorted NBA free agency market, its got a much more game theory aspect to it.

[Diesel]

The problem with Joe's deal is people with no understanding of the salary cap think we could have lowballed Joe and if he didn't sign we could have used a max deal to sign someone else. It doesn't work that way. Now do I think we should have given Joe the Josh Smith/Chill treatment and said "Go find someone to give you a max deal and we'll counter with a hometown max deal"? Absolutely. The whole "We will give Joe the max deal on day ONE" treatment was poorly thought out. Of course he'd take the absolute max to stay in Atlanta. What was in serious doubt was rather someone would pay him a max deal as a free agent. That is what we should have done.

I think when you have 2 FAs that are both signed with the same NOTORIOUS agent and both are allstars, you are over a barrel. Reuping Joe was the price of doing business. Moreover, without Joe, we couldnt' attract a fly with a Boatload of sugar, ice cream and picnickers.

We all know that Joe under produced in the playoffs, but that's my point exactly. Despite his shortcomings, teams like Dallas and New York, drove up his value. He was going to get paid regardless of how he produced in the playoffs if other teams still wanted to sign him for top dollar.

When you openly have guys like Rose saying it would be great to play with Joe and Boozer and you have Amare saying Joe would be a great fit in NY... and both of those teams have money outragous.... then couple that with the fact that Al Horford is Joe's agentmate... it was a good deal. We kept talent.

100% so true. People have to understand that it wasn't about what joe was worth in the FA market, It's about what that player worth to the FRANCHISE. And for six years Joe Johnson WAS the Atlanta Hawks, he out played his original contract. The Suns knew joe's worth, some still belive that the suns could have won a championship with joe( damn,now that's a big 3 nash/joe/amare)

Nasty... and Joe shooting 48% from three because Amare and Nash spreads the defense so well in D'Antoni's system.

Here's the thing though. ASG has put cheap terrible coaching with Joe and surrounded Joe with SFs and guys with no post offense.

[Guest]

The yr we signed Deke, he made as much as Hakeem over the life of the contract (structured differently) and he was top 11 paid. The thing is that some of the guys ahead of him didn't have contracts that could match his. They were in balloon years of their contract... such as Jordan, Horace Grant, and Miller. When we signed him, he was not 2 times the player that Smitty was but yet, he made two times as much (just about). There were lots of rumblings that we had overpaid.

I don't quite get this line of reasoning. It always implies that your pay should be based on your production on the court. But it doesn't take into account the timing of when the contract was signed or whether or not someone is a draw besides their play on the court. In Iverson's hayday he actually wasn't that great in terms of production for wins on his team but he was vastly underpaid even as a max player. This was because he was such a great draw, the amount of revenue he generated alone for the Sixers was enormous and he wasn't being paid his marginal product. Its not that I don't understand what people are saying when they make arguments of production and pay, I just don't see this as a legitimate gripe. But oh well, c'est la vie.

One thing I believe you are underestimating D is how many times there are actual marquee free agents that change teams. It doesn't happen very often and when it does, generally whatever marquee player was overpaid by the team that signed him. There are only a handful of times I can think of where this didn't happen (the Heat, Shaq maybe?, Pippen). So maybe I am just quibbling over you claiming that "ATL has to overpay" to really say that "most teams that want to sign a marquee FA have to overpay". I don't think the second interpretation is against anything that you've said since I can't think of a time where there was a player choosing between ATL and a comparable team with similar contract offers that chose the other team over us.

[Diesel]

I don't quite get this line of reasoning. It always implies that your pay should be based on your production on the court. But it doesn't take into account the timing of when the contract was signed or whether or not someone is a draw besides their play on the court. In Iverson's hayday he actually wasn't that great in terms of production for wins on his team but he was vastly underpaid even as a max player. This was because he was such a great draw, the amount of revenue he generated alone for the Sixers was enormous and he wasn't being paid his marginal product. Its not that I don't understand what people are saying when they make arguments of production and pay, I just don't see this as a legitimate gripe. But oh well, c'est la vie.

One thing I believe you are underestimating D is how many times there are actual marquee free agents that change teams. It doesn't happen very often and when it does, generally whatever marquee player was overpaid by the team that signed him. There are only a handful of times I can think of where this didn't happen (the Heat, Shaq maybe?, Pippen). So maybe I am just quibbling over you claiming that "ATL has to overpay" to really say that "most teams that want to sign a marquee FA have to overpay". I don't think the second interpretation is against anything that you've said since I can't think of a time where there was a player choosing between ATL and a comparable team with similar contract offers that chose the other team over us.

My original statement was that when we signed him some said that we overpaid. I think with the power of these hindsight goggles that we're all wearing, it's easy to say.. what's 11 Million per. However at the time, 11 Million was as much as the best players in the leagues were making. I'm talking Hakem and David Robinson.

At that time was Deke really as good as those guys? Not really. He had just led his team past Seattle in the first round of the playoffs. When you really examine it, Deke was making more than Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, John Stockton and everybody else on Dream Team 1 not named Jordan or Robinson. So the point is that at the time, it seemed like we were overpaying.

And for MVP.. Deke never took us anywhere either.

[AHF]

I didn't say he was overpaid.

Yes you did.

The point is that NO FA has wanted to play in Atlanta (without being overpaid) since the freakin 80s.

Deke wanted to play in Atlanta after the 1980s. You said that "NO FA has wanted to play in Atlanta (without being overpaid)." Either you are saying Deke didn't want to play here or that he was overpaid. Since he clearly chose to play here, that means you are arguing that he was overpaid. Alternatively, you could retract the above statement although I think JJ still fits that description.

[Diesel]

Yes you did.

Deke wanted to play in Atlanta after the 1980s. You said that "NO FA has wanted to play in Atlanta (without being overpaid)." Either you are saying Deke didn't want to play here or that he was overpaid. Since he clearly chose to play here, that means you are arguing that he was overpaid. Alternatively, you could retract the above statement although I think JJ still fits that description.

Bottom line is that had we not been offering what we were... Deke would not have come. And that is the whole point. For us to get impact FAs, we have to pay (What seems like) more than the value. IN the time we signed Deke, there were two other centers signed. Shaq had signed his first contract over 100 Million and Hakeem signed a 5 year 55 Million dollar deal similar to Deke's. From a comparison standpoint, Those Centers were more complete than Deke. As was David Robinson who made around the same money. However, Deke was not coming for 9 Million or 10 Million. In fact ,he originally wanted 12 to 14 Millionto play for us, but we couldn't raise it. Babcock did the smart thing and traded our players to Detroit so that they no longer had the money to compete for Deke.

[NineOhTheRino]

JJ's current deal is probably only second to the Falcons signing Peerless Price as the dumbest move in Atlanta sports history. Only the blind JJ loyalist considers it reasonable.

Edited March 30, 2011 by NineOhTheRino

[Diesel]

JJ's current deal is probably only second to the Falcons signing Peerless Price as the dumbest move in Atlanta sports history. Only the blind JJ loyalist considers it reasonable.

Seriously?

Our team without JJ is not so good. Period. We couldn't have signed anyone else with JJ's money.

So in essence, you're saying that you'd rather have watched Marvin Williams and Zaza and Bibby (at the time) suck up money and be as sorry as they ever were than to have a shot at winning with JJ.

9o, you must be a fan who didn't suffer through the years after Deke.

[macdaddy]

'Overpaying' is subjective. If we'd have gotten him for $12 million some would be ecstatic. So how much of a difference does that extra cash make? Its not like we were signing him for the minimum.

But the real bottom line is that this team suffers from too little talent not too much. Do I wish we could have Joe for less money? I wish they were all making less. But as a fan I wish we had more players of his caliber not less.

[NineOhTheRino]

Seriously?

Our team without JJ is not so good. Period. We couldn't have signed anyone else with JJ's money.

So in essence, you're saying that you'd rather have watched Marvin Williams and Zaza and Bibby (at the time) suck up money and be as sorry as they ever were than to have a shot at winning with JJ.

9o, you must be a fan who didn't suffer through the years after Deke.

hmm...

Didn't JJ play in all those horrible playoff losses? Was that his twin brother Andre Johnson playing a few nights ago when the Bulls got up by 40-something? Sorry but the team sucks with JJ! They should have offered him 5 years 60 mill and tell him to kick rock if he didn't want it. Now they are stuck in mediocrity wilt little hope of ever competing at a high level.

Edited March 30, 2011 by NineOhTheRino

[APE]

hmm...

Didn't JJ play in all those horrible playoff losses? Was that his twin brother Andre Johnson playing a few nights ago when the Bulls got up by 40-something? Sorry but the team sucks with JJ! They should have offered him 5 years 60 mill and tell him to kick rock if he didn't want it. Now they are stuck in mediocrity wilt little hope of ever competing at a high level.

Did you not see Andre beat up Cortland Finnegan? Joe doesn't have that type of fight in him.

[benhillboy]

That darn D has a way of driving his point home. I respect his points and never claim to have any respectable knowledge about the business of the NBA off the court, so I learn from him in that aspect. I can agree to disagree. I will always have a strong dislike for Joe's game and hatred for his salary as it relates to his production, nothing will change that. It just seems there's a fair market value, then a common sense value, but hey.

I can't seem to open the Mark Abbott True Hoop Blog TV article on the worst deals this season that had Joe's picture at the forefront. Anyone seen this?

[EazyRoc]

And Jake Delhomme has been the best Panther QB ever....so what?

Bad comparison considering the Panthers haven't been around for decades like the Hawks. I want to say the Panthers are less than 15 years old.

[Crank]

Joe is not overpaid his contract is actually the bi-product of the bad contracts we gave out to Zaza,Bibby,and Marvin . Once we gave out those contract well Joes value to us now that we were cap strapped shot up tremendously .

[Endy9]

OK... Small technicality. We traded Long and Augmon to make room to get Deke. But you're right, he did sign here. 5 years 55 MILLION which, at the time, some thought we overpaid to get a C who did not have a strong offensive game.

Yep...

1. Petit

2. Nique

3. Deke

4. Joe

5. Smitty

And Joe doesn't have nearly the balanced cast and coaching that these other guys had.

Nique had Doc Rivers, Tree Rollins (and one time Moses and Theus.)>

Deke had Mookie, and Smitty.

Who wouldn't. That's not the argument. Not even a thought in the argument. The point is that NO FA has wanted to play in Atlanta (without being overpaid) since the freakin 80s.

Your list is fine until #3. I'd put Pete Maravich there. at #4 Lou Hudson. Joe I'd consider for #5, along with Deke.

[BusBoyIsBack]

Joe as indeed not overpaid because we had no alternative. THat's the problem with the Joe Johnson was overpaid talk. No one who says that ever has any alternative. They say "well we would have figured something out? " Yeah like what? Superstar players aren't interested in coming here. Never had been, and with our ownership situation problem wouldn't be looking forward to it in the future

Joe helps this team maximize its capabilities without a superstar. Those players don't grow on trees folks. And most people who have them got them by luck.

[frankthetank966]

He definitely is not having his best season, especially after making bank but I do like this post as it's a different way of approaching the whole signing. Your 100% right that we have never been able to lure a big time free agent. Even KMart who was "a done deal"