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July 22, 2008

Signings..... and Waiting

It is amazing what a single day can do to an article and it's implications. This article was largely written yesterday before Josh Childress decided to go international.

I had thought I'd drop a line or two about recent signings and non-signings involving a few former Celtics and some other well known players.

A part of the slant was about how certain players turning down reasonable to downright solid offers from their teams a year ago is coming back to bite them in the butt now.

But first...

The Timberwolves are re-signing Sebastian Telfair to an undisclosed (as of yet) multi-year contract after not making him the one year qualifying offer of $3.5 mil.

I'd guess it starts out less than that and builds. Sebastian will give them one true point guard to go with Randy Foye who has also been used at the point a lot. Telfair seems to have settled down and is settling in as a distributing PG for the young Wolves from what I read. With Al Jefferson, Mike Miller, Kevin Love, Randy Foye, Rashad McCants, Craig Smith et al. they are starting to look more like an NBA Basketball team. One big problem? The question is the answer. They only have one big. Problem.

The Bulls are in a bit of a bind with some players that think perhaps a bit too highly of themselves. Both Ben Gordon (5 year $50 mil/ly) and Luol Deng (5 year $57 mil/ly) turned down very fair (in most people's opinions) long term deals before the start of last year's team meltdown. Now both may play out their last season and look for better deals according to K.C Johnson of the Chicago Tribune. Both have been rumored to have been offered less than what they were offered the year before.

To me, the Bulls thinking sounds fair. Shouldn't winning have something to do with your value? Honestly, I thought both should have taken the deals offered last season. Does anyone smell a trade coming?

To be sure, of all the visitor locker rooms I was in last season, the Bulls seemed the most poisoned. The few players that were there just glared at you in an almost defiant way. The anger in the room was palpable. Now I may have entered after something happened. It might have been that new coach Jim Boylan wasn't their cup of tea. Maybe I'm just that ugly. But it wasn't fun being there.

Mr. Johnson reports that Deng likes new coach Del Negro. But I would say that Vinny Del Negro has his work cut out. It is a good thing he is surrounding himself with 2 extremely experienced assistant coaches

Speaking about possibly overvaluing yourself...Emeka Okafor did much the same thing as his former UConn team mate, Ben Gordon and turned down a very fair multi year offer from the Bobcats last season. This year's Bobcat offer is rumored to be slightly less. He too, is now reported to be wanting a trade or will wait things out this season and seek another team next season.

Emeka is another UConn guy I like quite a bit. Graduated in three years and his game grew every year. But I would think that Emeka might want to take just a little bit of responsibility for the Bobcat's constant below average performances every year.

By my way of thinking, Emeka should be a difference maker for that team. Apparently he isn't, and 10-12 million a year would appear to be enough for a solid player with Emeka's stats and overall game. Warrior that he is, his game hasn't seemed to have advanced in recent years. Defensively he seems fine. Offensively, I never expected him to become Rasheed, but I thought he might possibly develop a few more reliable weapons at that end of the floor.

But even saying that, Emeka would be a great addition to the right team as the 3rd or 4th piece to the puzzle.

One thing that comes into play here is wins and losses. If a team is winning, everyone is likely to value that team's key players higher from a financial point of view (see James Posey) . The problem is all three of these players, (Gordon, Deng, and Okafor) are trying to get more when their teams have either taken 2 steps backward (Bulls) or haven't advanced (Bobcats).

But the Josh Childress jump across the pond could actually skew player values a bit more in the other direction as time goes on. It is simply the supply and demand principle at work. Much like oil, the oil producing countries have found demand growing in a new market - China. Even if the U.S. and Europe cut back 10-15%, which would be a huge cut back, China will drink that right up without even burping.

Maybe the above mentioned guys will get the money they think they deserve afterall.

On another note, it was good to see diminutive Georgia Tech's Will Bynum finally get a real NBA contract. I saw him his first year out of college trying to make the Celtics. It was the same season that the Celtics drafted Orien Greene. 6' 0" Bynum actually played very well in the pre-season minutes he was given. He attacks the basket well. He played a few years in Israel and proved to be a solid baller. Welcome back, Will. Oh yeah, he signed with Detroit, so we will be seeing him a few times this season.

Will signed for $700,000 (guaranteed) with a team option on the 2nd year. Now the question is....

Did Will turn down more money from his team in Israel, to sign with Detroit? Hmm.....it still means something to most players to play in the NBA.

Posted by Tom on July 22, 2008 10:16 PM

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Posted by: JB at August 11, 2008 6:47 AM

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