Simmons: The Worst Contracts in the NBA(Or why DF is the man)

[DrReality]

People of ny expect it and will eat them alive when they don't win

[MaceCase]

A "few million" in tax? I'd let Fanatic do the leg work on the exact amount but once you factor in the extra tax raises for every different increment above the tax limit in addition to the repeater tax that will surely kick in on the last year of many of those vaunted deals and a "few" just jumped up to closer to a hundred. This would be fine if you weren't spending that on the 4th best team in the East that's just a game and a half out of 7th.....

Add in that they don't even have Bird rights on Blatche, are restricted to a smaller MLE, can't receive any player in a sign and trade, have their picks tied up all over the league and have aging/injury prone core members and you can see why you can't count on any amount of future chemistry to offset these factors and propel them up the playoff ladder into contendership. It's not as if they have the Battiers or Allens running to them either, they have to settle for the Stackhouses and Childresses.

In short, they are shelling out $290 million to be the reincarnation of the Arenas/Butler/Jamison Wizards. That may seem like a commitment to winning but in reality it is just a commitment to mediocrity.

[Kimsey]

What Ferry did was essentially flip our previous flight path with the Nets. Solid albeit older/poor athletic core that's slowly turning into a treadmill team that can only acquire talent by absorbing the highest of salaries.

The stars had to align perfectly for him to get rid of Joe so luck was in our favor. The difference between he and Josh is the latter can still net talent back in a trade a couple years down the road.

Edited March 9, 2013 by Kimsey

[DatWerkk]

With all due respect to northcyde, you couldn't be more wrong on this one.I live in New York. In fact I live in Brooklyn, about a mile from the Nets' home arena. And I can tell you, other than the occasional dude on the subway wearing a Nets hat, the amount of attention and respect the Nets get NOW (as opposed to earlier this season) is comically sparse, especially when you consider how much salary they're on the hook for.Sure, they made a big splash. Now what? Now that they're not winning at the same clip, the novelty has worn off. They're an "also ran" in a market that demands championships. They aren't the Jets. There's no history behind this team to earn them loyalty in the face of poor performance. Oh and now baseball season is about to start too?? Sorry Nets, your 15 minutes are up.One more season like this and they might as well relocate to Buffalo because that's how much NYC will care about them.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

But look at their future now. They have a Joe who is well past his prime making more money than anyone in the NBA. They have a pg who has fallen from elite status. They have an all-star center which is great but even he is borderline all-star and not physically as tough as he should be. They have a very overpaid Gerald Wallace. They aren't even a very exciting team to watch. They are what they are and have no hope, save finding another sucker to take Joe, to do anything of significance in free agency....and they're not much better than the Hawks who cleaned house! Don't forget they are in a brand new arena too so it's not like the franchise was doomed despite their recent playoff drought. They have money to spend. They just spent it very foolishly and are trapped to be mediocre to slightly above mediocre for the foreseeable future.

There is no such thing as "foolishly spending money", when you have the money to spend. Floyd Mayweather makes $500K bets on college basketball games sometimes. To 99.9% of the people in the world, that's "foolishly spending his money". But when he makes 80 million a year, and sometimes win on those large bets he makes, it's nothing more than a form of high stakes entertainment to him. And it doesn't hurt him financially.

Why look at the NETS future now, when they were obviously constructed to compete NOW ( this year and next year )? Why should that franchise continue putting out a losing product and save money, when they had a chance to instantly build a playoff team for their new fans to cheer for?

I know why there is so much talk and even a little animosity toward the Nets. That franchise is basically the polar opposite of how our "think tank" operates in Atlanta. And most Hawks fans would not be happy to see Joe succeed in the playoffs with some other team, when he couldn't get it done as the main guy when he was in Atlanta. And the other thing has to do with Deron, who should've been our PG for the last 8 years anyway.

For a guy that people supposedly didn't like, there sure is a lot of interest in how Joe Johnson and his new team is doing around here. The guys who supported JJ hardly bring his name up, or even start topics about him, until one of you guys start talking about him and his new team.

Maybe the best thing for Hawks fans is for Brooklyn and Atlanta to meet in that 1st round, so we can all get it out of our system. If we beat them, that will give some of you validation that we made the right move. But if they beat us, with their old, overpaid, non-exciting team, it'll simply give the majority of Hawks fans even more grief.

But we have "cap space and flexibility", so that'll save us in the future and get us that NBA title ( or at least an EC Finals appearance ).

The real sad thing is this:

The "core" in ATL should've been Deron - JJ - Smith . . . not JJ - Smith - Horford.

[Eddielives]

There is no such thing as "foolishly spending money", when you have the money to spend. Floyd Mayweather makes $500K bets on college basketball games sometimes. To 99.9% of the people in the world, that's "foolishly spending his money". But when he makes 80 million a year, and sometimes win on those large bets he makes, it's nothing more than a form of high stakes entertainment to him. And it doesn't hurt him financially.

Why look at the NETS future now, when they were obviously constructed to compete NOW ( this year and next year )? Why should that franchise continue putting out a losing product and save money, when they had a chance to instantly build a playoff team for their new fans to cheer for?

I know why there is so much talk and even a little animosity toward the Nets. That franchise is basically the polar opposite of how our "think tank" operates in Atlanta. And most Hawks fans would not be happy to see Joe succeed in the playoffs with some other team, when he couldn't get it done as the main guy when he was in Atlanta. And the other thing has to do with Deron, who should've been our PG for the last 8 years anyway.

For a guy that people supposedly didn't like, there sure is a lot of interest in how Joe Johnson and his new team is doing around here. The guys who supported JJ hardly bring his name up, or even start topics about him, until one of you guys start talking about him and his new team.

Maybe the best thing for Hawks fans is for Brooklyn and Atlanta to meet in that 1st round, so we can all get it out of our system. If we beat them, that will give some of you validation that we made the right move. But if they beat us, with their old, overpaid, non-exciting team, it'll simply give the majority of Hawks fans even more grief.

But we have "cap space and flexibility", so that'll save us in the future and get us that NBA title ( or at least an EC Finals appearance ).

The real sad thing is this:

The "core" in ATL should've been Deron - JJ - Smith . . . not JJ - Smith - Horford.

Okay so you've revealed your hand by assuming that the attention and criticism towards New Jersey is just Joe haters who don't want to see him or the Nets succeed. Thanks for taking the conversation down to that. Joe is a topic in this thread based upon Bill Simmons's very reasonable assertion that his contract is the worst in the NBA, yet you take that and expect the topic to not center around Joe in an ATlanta Hawks message board? Seriously?

And if you really believe that by simply having money to spend means spend it on anything even if it means overpaying, then you are ignoring the fact that despite an extremely rich owner, there are limits to even what he can do. Your Mayweather analogy isn't relevant because you're talking about a guy using his personal money for his own personal entertainment. A nba franchise owner has much more at stake with his decisions so your analogy was a poorly constructed one.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I don't follow this. I first disagree that they had no hope for the future. Then they didn't land Dwight so now under your own criteria they still have "virtually no hope for the future" but they also have no ability to build OKC style. I don't think some short-term just better than mediocre play warrants destroying the possibility of a true team build for the next five years.

The OKC model is about as much of a pipe dream as the Detroit model of no superstars on the team ( although that was a defensive star laden team ).

The OKC model means the Nets ( or any other team ) would have to:

- draft a Hall of famer . . . . Durant

- draft an All-Star ( 2nd or 3rd team All-NBA caliber player ) . . . . Westbrook

- draft another All-Star ( 2nd or 3rd team All-NBA caliber player ) . . . . Harden

- draft one of the best shot blockers in the game . . . . Ibaka

All within a 3 year period.

They literally didn't miss on a single high level draft pick.

If it were that easy to do, the Charlotte Bobcats, Sacramento Kings, and Washington Wizards would all have high caliber playoff level teams right now.

No . . . what Brooklyn decided to do, is follow the blueprint that Miami, New York, and Boston have done in the East. Go out and bring in a bunch of veteran star level players who couldn't get it done as "the man" on their former team, and team them together to see if they can get it done on the same team.

So if you want to fault a real bad team for paying a boatload of money to beccome a mid level playoff team, it is what it is I guess.

All I know is that I wouldn't want to trade places with Charlotte, or Sacramento, or Washington for the world.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

With all due respect to northcyde, you couldn't be more wrong on this one.I live in New York. In fact I live in Brooklyn, about a mile from the Nets' home arena. And I can tell you, other than the occasional dude on the subway wearing a Nets hat, the amount of attention and respect the Nets get NOW (as opposed to earlier this season) is comically sparse, especially when you consider how much salary they're on the hook for.Sure, they made a big splash. Now what? Now that they're not winning at the same clip, the novelty has worn off. They're an "also ran" in a market that demands championships. They aren't the Jets. There's no history behind this team to earn them loyalty in the face of poor performance. Oh and now baseball season is about to start too?? Sorry Nets, your 15 minutes are up.One more season like this and they might as well relocate to Buffalo because that's how much NYC will care about them.

LOL . . this is a silly post, considering that the playoffs haven't even started yet.

Remember 2011 for us? Almost every fan of this team was throwing dirt on the Hawks because they were going into the playoffs having lost 6 games in a row, and the coach worried about if his team could just "flip the switch" and play better.

Hawks vs Orlando . . with us as the road team . . and us not having won a playoff series as the road team in God knows how long . . and the Hawks DID flip the switch.

The Nets have basically been playing like we have over the last 16 games ( basically a .500 team ). So the "novelty" may have very well worn off.

But that's until the playoffs roll around. We'll see how hyped Brooklyn gets then. And we'll see how a team that is built for the slow grind of the playoffs plays as well.

[AHF]

northcyde says that Brooklyn is doing what the Miami Heat did.

I think Brooklyn is slightly better than the Hawks of Shareef, Big Dog and Ratliff.

Thus we are going to have to agree to disagree because the level of players we think populate the Nets roster are in totally different places.

A "few million" in tax? I'd let Fanatic do the leg work on the exact amount but once you factor in the extra tax raises for every different increment above the tax limit in addition to the repeater tax that will surely kick in on the last year of many of those vaunted deals and a "few" just jumped up to closer to a hundred. This would be fine if you weren't spending that on the 4th best team in the East that's just a game and a half out of 7th.....

Add in that they don't even have Bird rights on Blatche, are restricted to a smaller MLE, can't receive any player in a sign and trade, have their picks tied up all over the league and have aging/injury prone core members and you can see why you can't count on any amount of future chemistry to offset these factors and propel them up the playoff ladder into contendership. It's not as if they have the Battiers or Allens running to them either, they have to settle for the Stackhouses and Childresses.

In short, they are shelling out $290 million to be the reincarnation of the Arenas/Butler/Jamison Wizards. That may seem like a commitment to winning but in reality it is just a commitment to mediocrity.

And this.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

Okay so you've revealed your hand by assuming that the attention and criticism towards New Jersey is just Joe haters who don't want to see him or the Nets succeed. Thanks for taking the conversation down to that. Joe is a topic in this thread based upon Bill Simmons's very reasonable assertion that his contract is the worst in the NBA, yet you take that and expect the topic to not center around Joe in an ATlanta Hawks message board? Seriously?

And if you really believe that by simply having money to spend means spend it on anything even if it means overpaying, then you are ignoring the fact that despite an extremely rich owner, there are limits to even what he can do. Your Mayweather analogy isn't relevant because you're talking about a guy using his personal money for his own personal entertainment. A nba franchise owner has much more at stake with his decisions so your analogy was a poorly constructed one.

An NBA franchise owner usually does NOT run his NBA franchise like his own business. Onwers over the years have said just that. An NBA franchise is their "hobby", their "toy". Mark Cuban initially thought that this new CBA would reign in a lot of owners. Then he saw his team go from NBA champs, to non playoff fodder, and all of a sudden, he announces that the "Bank of Cuban" is open.

- Dan Gilbert in Cleveland had no problem taking the Cavs close to 100 million in payroll when they took a gamble on Shaq.

- Jerry Buss consistently maintained an 80+ million payroll with the Lakers.

- Paul Allen ( Portland ) was routinely in that 80 - 90 million dollar range, just to try to compete with the Lakers.

- Richard DeVoss of the Magic constantly took chances on high salaried players to improve Orlando.

- And we all know about Cuban and his exploits.

And look what he reportedly tried to do at the deadline. He tried to swing a deal for "old" but still effective Paul Pierce. And in the summer, he's going to try to grab whomever the top free agent is on the board ( and probably MAX that player out, or come close to it ).

The new CBA may force some of these owners to reign in some of their spending, but it's not going to keep them from going into Luxury Tax land. It's the owners that continuously worry about the "bottom line" of the franchise, that places a premium on not paying the Tax.

As for the reasoning for this topic, of course the topic was/is going to be about Joe Johnson. And because Ferry was the one that dealt JJ, that's why it was brought to the board.

But don't think for one minute that some of the hardcore fans on here aren't watching to see what the Nets are doing, or will do. We're directly tied to each other, with the deal that we made. And yes, some of the people who dislike JJ are the very ones posting in this thread. Even if they liked JJ, but didn't like his contract, seeing JJ fail in Brooklyn will be validation that we did the right thing. Even I wasn't totally against the move, if we could've gotten back a few assets that could've helped the team.

But we got back junk, and a lot of cap space ( that will probably be used to re-sign either current Hawks or overpay for a free agent ).

The one thing that they can't deny however, is that the Hawks went all out ( if just for one season), to build the best team possible in Atlanta. We've never done that, and we probably never will. Whatever great team Ferry constructs, will probably have to be within the restraints of the Luxury Tax.

God forbid if we go 4 - 5 million into the Tax for just one year to try to get that extra player to get us to the next level. The Hawks may go bankrupt.

[Guest]

An NBA franchise owner usually does NOT run his NBA franchise like his own business. Onwers over the years have said just that. An NBA franchise is their "hobby", their "toy". Mark Cuban initially thought that this new CBA would reign in a lot of owners. Then he saw his team go from NBA champs, to non playoff fodder, and all of a sudden, he announces that the "Bank of Cuban" is open.

You don't follow this stuff very closely if this is what you believe.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

northcyde says that Brooklyn is doing what the Miami Heat did.

I think Brooklyn is slightly better than the Hawks of Shareef, Big Dog and Ratliff.

Thus we are going to have to agree to disagree because the level of players we think populate the Nets roster are in totally different places.

And this.

The current Brooklyn Nets ( with 36 wins ) have already surpassed the high win total of the Shareef, Big Dog, Ratliff, and Jason Terry Hawks, whcih was 35 wins.

Yeah, we'll agree to disagree. Even if I'm right.

The current Nets team is more comparable to the 2008 - 2010 Hawks. That 2008 team won 45 games. The 2009 - 10 team won 53 games. The Nets should fall somewhere in the middle of that pack, and probably post the 2nd best franchise win total since they've been in the NBA.

When the Hawks won those 53 games that season, this fan base was sky high. Then we struggled vs a tough defensive Milwaukee team. Then we lost to the one team that we didn't match up with all year in Orlando. That was the beginning of the end for "the core".

But what if management had used the MLE that year to get a more capable backup center than Zaza and especially Collins, and went into the Luxury Tax? Who knows how that playoff series, and the playoffs in general would've turned out.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

You don't follow this stuff very closely if this is what you believe.

I follow it very closely sir.

The teams that want to win, will go all out to win. And running their NBA franchise like they would their own business isn't part of winning.

[Guest]

A "few million" in tax? I'd let Fanatic do the leg work on the exact amount but once you factor in the extra tax raises for every different increment above the tax limit in addition to the repeater tax that will surely kick in on the last year of many of those vaunted deals and a "few" just jumped up to closer to a hundred.

Well calculating future values is a humongous waste of time since you need a projection for what BRI is going to be in the future and it isn't like they just, I don't know have a whole estimation for BRI for each year the CBA covers. That would be ludicrous! (they do, but then I would have to break it down to the team level and I just don't want to do much work).

Just right now, the Nets are sitting at $83,511,726 (or $13,204,726 over the tax line). There is not incremental rate so they will pay luxury tax payments of $13,204,726. It is next year where they will have the incremental rate which would push their tax payment to be somewhere around $25 millionish. Projecting beyond that would be pointless.

[Guest]

I follow it very closely sir.

The teams that want to win, will go all out to win. And running their NBA franchise like they would their own business isn't part of winning.

OK then I guess I should have said you are not very good at following this stuff because what you spouted off was horseshit. Teams are run very much like businesses, they just are maximizing over a combination of Wins and Profits where other businesses only maximize over Profits. It complicates things slightly, but at the end of the day things are not drastically different. And the instances where you point to teams having high payrolls, take a guess at what else was high for that business. (if you answered revenues, then you are correct)

[Sothron]

The fact that Danny dumped both Joe and Marvin for expiring contracts is one of the greatest moves I've ever seen a front office do in sports history and I've been watching sports since the 1970's.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

OK then I guess I should have said you are not very good at following this stuff because what you spouted off was horseshit. Teams are run very much like businesses, they just are maximizing over a combination of Wins and Profits where other businesses only maximize over Profits. It complicates things slightly, but at the end of the day things are not drastically different. And the instances where you point to teams having high payrolls, take a guess at what else was high for that business. (if you answered revenues, then you are correct)

The revenues for those teams were high, because the team was winning. And one of the major reasons why those teams won, is because management had no problem going all out to bring in the type of talent that wins games.

Hawks lineup 2009- 10:

G - Bibby

G - Johnson

F - Marvin

F - Josh Smith

C - Horford

6th man - Crawford

C - Zaza

G - Evans

G - Teague

F - Joe Smith

C- Collins

G - West

That team was close to the Luxury Tax line, but never went over it. They had their MLE and their LLE that they could've used that season to bolster that squad. In essence, that would be a 5 million and a 2 million dollar player. Total payroll would've been somewhere around 76- 78 million.

Teams that are serious about winning a championship, especially when they've assembled a squad that has nice pieces across the board, will have no problem using these exceptions to bolster their squad.

But the ASG, who ran the Hawks like a business ( as you referred to as some owners doing ), had no intention of doing such a thing.

Remember this, when Ferry tries to retool this team over the next 2 - 3 years. Watch and see what types of moves we make, and if claims of financial constraints keep us from doing such a move.

[AHF]

The current Nets team is more comparable to the 2008 - 2010 Hawks. That 2008 team won 45 games. The 2009 - 10 team won 53 games. The Nets should fall somewhere in the middle of that pack, and probably post the 2nd best franchise win total since they've been in the NBA.

Between 45 and 53 wins with zero potential for more and a bloated payroll? Nevermind. We agree on talent and disagree on the value of mediocrity plus.

[DatWerkk]

LOL . . this is a silly post, considering that the playoffs haven't even started yet. Remember 2011 for us? Almost every fan of this team was throwing dirt on the Hawks because they were going into the playoffs having lost 6 games in a row, and the coach worried about if his team could just "flip the switch" and play better. Hawks vs Orlando . . with us as the road team . . and us not having won a playoff series as the road team in God knows how long . . and the Hawks DID flip the switch. The Nets have basically been playing like we have over the last 16 games ( basically a .500 team ). So the "novelty" may have very well worn off. But that's until the playoffs roll around. We'll see how hyped Brooklyn gets then. And we'll see how a team that is built for the slow grind of the playoffs plays as well.

I didn't realize my post was so complex that someone might not understand. I guess I overestimated your reading comprehension skills.No one in New York cares about the Nets anymore because they are not exciting and they are not winners. The games FREQUENTLY do no sell out in this, their inaugural season. Think about how pathetic that is in this market, with the millions upon millions of prospective consumers and the unrivaled history of basketball.This is a Knicks town, and for this season at least, the Nets have failed at converting their fans. That was the purpose of taking on these ridiculous contracts. It didn't work. The end.Speculate all you want about how billions of fans will suddenly start falling out of the rafters come playoff time. Speculate 'til you're blue in the face. I'm right here in the middle of it seven days a week. The Knicks losing with their incredibly flawed, incredibly old, going-nowhere-in-the-future roster gets more play than the Nets winning. This (extremely) poor man's version of a Big 3 ain't putting asses in seats. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I didn't realize my post was so complex that someone might not understand. I guess I overestimated your reading comprehension skills.No one in New York cares about the Nets anymore because they are not exciting and they are not winners. The games FREQUENTLY do no sell out in this, their inaugural season. Think about how pathetic that is in this market, with the millions upon millions of prospective consumers and the unrivaled history of basketball.This is a Knicks town, and for this season at least, the Nets have failed at converting their fans. That was the purpose of taking on these ridiculous contracts. It didn't work. The end.Speculate all you want about how billions of fans will suddenly start falling out of the rafters come playoff time. Speculate 'til you're blue in the face. I'm right here in the middle of it seven days a week. The Knicks losing with their incredibly flawed, incredibly old, going-nowhere-in-the-future roster gets more play than the Nets winning. This (extremely) poor man's version of a Big 3 ain't putting asses in seats. Why is that so difficult for you to understand?

LOL . . . if fans in Atlanta come out for Hawks playoff games, I'm pretty sure that the Barclays Center will be rocking when the Nets get into the playoffs.

It's definitely a Knicks town . . for now.