You mean better character and team/locker room presence? Yes. Better on-court defender? No. Not without a significant improvement from Capela and a significant decline from Noel.
As people have said, Capela has been fed by Harden and now Chris Paul is joining the fold..... Noel hasn't had that kind of PG. I think they resemble each other but Noel obviously didn't have that much talent around him. So I think he has more potential than Clint but I could roll with Clint any day.
ah...I'll have to disagree with that. Not only is that contract signed in era of old-salary cap money, I never believe players in his situation use the Player Option unless injured or otherwise under-performing their contract. POs are for cashing in while under-performing. Team Options are for extending while performing to contract or over-performing. Unless injured or under-performing their contract (or they are Max players delaying in order to get to the next Max tenure level for next contract), wise players looking at their last big contract opportunity most often opt-out in order to get into a new contract at a younger age to make more total money. Chris Paul is an exception because he was trying to help the Rockets get Melo and he still retains his Bird Rights for Rockets to make up the difference later.
Unless Aldridge comes into the season replacing most of his long 2's with three point shots and he hits those shots at 35+%, then Aldridge IS the glaring example of an overpaid big man. He's not an efficient scorer. He takes over 70% of his shots from midrange where he barely hits 40% on them. And he uses a lot of team possessions doing so. And only takes a little over 5% of his shots from behind the three point line. He doesn't get to the FT line enough. Therefore his TS% is relatively low for a player making as much as he does. When you throw in his mediocre rebounding.....there's the second issue. He is a quality defender. Not a great defender. But above average, a positive defensive presence. That adds up to about $8-15 million per season. And the market for bigs is likely to be more limited next summer than this one. Unless Aldridge starts knocking down a ton of three or bumps that midrange percentage to Chris Paul efficiency (not likely), I suspect he'll have to take a step backwards if he opts out next year. Don't see him getting $20+ million in a new deal unless he's taking 4-5 threes a game and knocking them down efficiently.
You are talking about his real value, and not his perceived value. Realistically speaking yes LMA needs to hit at a better clip to get that kind of offer. However his reputation as a "Max Guy" will ensure LMA gets a max or near max deal. Just look at guys like Parsons who got a max deal despite spending his entire tenure in Dallas injured. Some dumb team like NYC will pay LMA a max contract because he is a big name. I know the market for Cs are low but LMA is seen as a first option scoring big man, he comes at a premium.
Reputation won't work in today's NBA. The league was FLOODED with overpriced contracts last summer. Now the market is tight and there's nowhere for money to flow except by opening the dam of release and stretch. To compound matters we are now in this zone off very little post up play. Must post up players are considered to be interruptors to ball movement and free flow offense. And to triple down the league is chock full of young bigs who are willing to play without the ball in their hands. It's most likely that the Spurs and Aldridge agree on an extension or that he opts in and they trade him.
This really has little to do with my explanation of why players looking for their last big contact most often opt-out unless injured. The math almost always favors signing the last contact sooner than later when you value is the highest it will be in declining years. Agents want to create competitive bids starting with his best year, and then it becomes about length. If he burns that last yr of previous contract on opting-in, his negotiating position for last contract only gets worse. Your point that he also has declining value due to changing NBA arguably even makes it more important to op-out for one last long contract, like Dwight did.
Right now, as Noel cleary demonstrated, there's no market. Will that change by next summer, with once again few dollars chasing around a lot of players? I doubt it. Aldridge might be seeing his best contract right now. Seeing what guys signed for this summer, if he had been a free agent this summer he probably would not have received an offer above 4/64. Move up to next year's market might be even worse. A larger increase in cap is expected for 2019. My argument is moot under one condition: if he comes back this season with a proficient, efficient three-ball that makes his scoring efficiency leap upward. If he does that, he'll either get a huge extension or a huge new contract. In my opinion, if he doesn't the max/near max money won't be there for him.
OK, it doesn't look like you want to consider the fact most players at LMAs stage of their careers will opt-out in order to start negotiations for their last contract while they have the most negotiation power left. I think that's an interesting topic unto itself. The proven strategy to sign new contracts sooner is also an intro to discussing further why I think Noel was likely being offered DMo, $10m-ish money at best. That discussions sparked interest in the other Noel thread. Thought I was offering something of value to your bball discussion. Don't you always want that? I'll leave, because again you're showing that you don't want bball discussion, you just want us to listen to you. Why do I even bother.
There's more facts to consider besides "This is what usually happens." You have to consider everything. I did. You are standing on one fact. Good luck with that. I'm not going to bother.
Rick Carlisle said that "there's a good chance" Nerlens Noel will begin the season coming off the bench. Carlisle added that he's already had this conversation with Noel and that Noel is willing to accept the bench role. Carlisle believes that the Mavs best chance of having a winning season would be to start Dirk Nowitzki at the five with Noel acting as his primary backup.
