Why would they feel bad? If they didn't even offer him a deal, it's because they didn't want him. They probably feel that West is a better version and want a more defensive-minded big off the bench.
Varejao is still not signed--might be a candidate for a minimum contract as an end-of-the-bench big. He's not very productive anymore, but he's always had passing and screening skills, so he could mimic Bogut on offense. He doesn't have Bogut's rim protection ability, but he has good defensive instincts, even if he's slowed down.
I closed my eyes before entering the thread and tried to imagine his contract, and I definitely didn't imagine the vet min. Odd call on his part. (Was thinking ~7M/yr).
Yeah there is something very odd about this. With all those big men gone, he would've received even more minutes...
first clark, then ezeli, now speights. warriors free agents not named barnes are signing strangely cheap deals relative to the rest of the market. have the other 29 teams decided none of these guys can replicate the seeming magic of how they all played with the warriors? mo speights is an actual nba player and he could only get the minimum? at this rate, varejao might have to pay a team to play for them. seems hard to imagine a team needing to reach the floor wouldn't throw 5-7M at speights.
I think these players are just being dumb. There is probably a little backlash now from teams in that they feel that they overspent on the first round of players. But the truth is that even players like Anderson and Parsons are priced pretty reasonably. Parsons is getting 1/4th of his team's cap and Anderson is getting 1/5th, which is fair if you believe they are above average starters. Teams are probably playing hardball with guys like Speights and then the players undervalue themselves. It's also dumb to take a 1-year minimum deal to take advantage of next year's jump. No one's going to pay these guys off next year now that they've indicated they'll settle for anything.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Warriors re-sign James Michael McAdoo to a one-year deal, source tells <a href="https://twitter.com/TheUndefeated">@TheUndefeated</a>.</p>— Marc J. Spears (@MarcJSpearsESPN) <a href="https://twitter.com/MarcJSpearsESPN/status/751484303540760577">July 8, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> Another minimum signing. JMM back to GSW.
I can't help but think that all the big men weren't feeling any respect. I don't blame them, it's like they were told they weren't important over and over.
I think you can read from the market that big C's are not going to be needed at all in stats-minded teams' future tactical plans. The other part of it is the projections we were hearing for them were largely marketed by the agents. If you had told me at the end of our playoff series that Speights would get the minimum and Noah would get 18 I would have laughed. Ezeli went for $7.3m. That's great value, people were talking about MORE than double that amount.
He cannot do anything other than catch-shoot, and then often times, he tried to do more, usually ended up with a TO. This is a plus by minus for the Warriors, who had more than enough fire power already. All they need is some interior defense which Zaza & David West will provide. It's weird to say this about the 73 win team, but they are a much better team now. They basically get better at every position, except starting center, which is about even considering Bogut couldn't stay on the court enough. They have Shawn L, Iggs, West come off the bench to make the solid 8-man rotation, then a couple of young guys can play a few minutes here than there. The only thing they will miss is Barbosa's energy & speed.
I think the only place the Warriors got weaker was back-up center. Pachulia is not the defensive factor that Bogut is, but one problem with Bogut was that his offensive game had faded away completely, leaving the Warriors to play 4-on-5 when he (or Ezeli) were on the court. That's a big reason why their minutes were so low, even before Bogut got injured. Bogut was averaging like 15 minutes a game. Pachulia has a better offensive game, even if he's worse defensively. Overall, not a real downgrade from Bogut, IMO, just more balanced. They still don't have a real backup center, though. That could hurt them if they don't get a decent one.
