Just realized Jonathan Simmons is still out there on the market. The Hawks would be well served to not match the offer to Hardaway Jr and then go in for Simmons with an offer that the Spurs cant/wont match. He'll be cheaper than Hardaway Jr. and better defensively.
I don't agree with the assessment of his game. I think he's a mediocre defender and at least a slightly above average scorer. He's 25. He played for Bud, which means even the dumbest person will pick up 5-10% more about ball movement, player movement and team defense. The reason people who play for the Hawks or Spurs show less performance after they leave is, imo, because the Hawks and Spurs achieve a player's true full potential. What you are on the Hawks and Spurs is what you SHOULD be, both in terms of focusing on your strengths and in terms of sacrificing your strengths to put effort into your overall skillset for the benefit of your team. Bud's Hawks and Pop's Spurs have always won more games than their talent should allow. I'd argue that Kerr appears to also be in that boat so far. Possibly the Celtics coach as well. What happens to players after they leave is 1 of 2 things: 1) They did not like the system, in which case you now know 100% that this player is not a great team player. 2) Other reasons, which means they are now in danger of joining the 25+ teams that are not excellent at team philosophy, and so they will look bad. LMA is a great example. The truth about LMA is that if he tries (without necessarily succeeding) to play defense, move off the ball, pass to the open man, help on defense, and only take good shots >> then he is a 16-18ppg scorer. And this is hurting his ego. Truth sucks sometimes. Now putting Hardaway in this example, what the Knicks are seeing is the potential to let him shoot more. And he will slowly erode his already flimsy commitment to doing non-scoring things. And imo it will slowly get bad. But if you think about this from an actual human perspective, the GM of the Knicks BELIEVES WHOLEHEARTEDLY that he is putting together a great coaching staff. So he will not believe that a chance in coaching philosophy can dramatically alter their projection of Hardaway. I have nothing against a GM having faith in what he can do. I just don't have any faith in the Knicks organization. If Hardaway were to join the Spurs, I would believe he is worth slightly less than that money. The guy still has some maturing to do. Knicks are the worst place to do that, but you never know. What I do know for sure is that the Knicks should not have signed a role player to a big contract at this point in their process. Total stupidity.
The Hawks achieve a player's true potential? Dwight and Bazemore say hi. But anyway excluding the hawks I agree with your post.
The only thing I know about this guy is that he lit us up when they came back from down 20 or something. Again the Rockets helping the NBA players by making them get paid. Such a charitable organization
Bazemore got his fat contract because of the year before in the Hawks system. Dwight was never going to fit there but I guess Bud got desperate.
The confirmed cap hit on the Tim Hardaway Jr. contract with the Knicks is $16.50M, $17.32M, $18.15M and $18.97M. The fourth year is a player option and the contract has a 15% trade bonus. The bonus would be 15% of what is owed to Hardaway Jr. not including the 4th year. The amount would spread over Year 1-3.
Fun fact - his father, 5-time all star in a 13 year career, in which he averaged 18-8, made $46m total.
"We want no long term contracts or big salary." Carmelo Anthony: $26,243,760 | $27,928,140 Joakim Noah: $17,765,000 | $18,530,000 | $19,295,000 Tim Hardaway Jr.: $16,500,000 | $17,320,000 | $18,150,000 | $18,970,000 Courtney Lee: $11,747,890 | $12,253,780 | $12,759,670 Lance Thomas: $6,655,325 | $7,119,650 | $7,583,975 Early Termination Option Non-Guaranteed Player Option
Damn what a terrible fo... Oh, btw this should end all talks about the banana boat **** in NY. Not that i've ever considered it a possibility, but someone did...lol
Wait, so the Knicks refused to take on Ryan Anderson, but went out and got this for about the same cap space?
At least they won't make the mistake of signing Rose again Ian Begley ESPN Staff Writer To make room for Tim Hardaway Jr.'s $71 million deal, the Knicks renounced their rights to Derrick Rose, Sasha Vujacic and Ron Baker and rescinded Baker's qualifying offer. They have agreed to a deal with Baker. That contract can now be for the minimum or for part of the room midlevel exception. That leaves them with very little cap space - plus the $4.3 million exception - to spend on a point guard. The Knicks, per sources, still feel they can trade Carmelo Anthony, which could potentially open up more space. 37m
One speculation out there is that signing THJ to the big contract is how the interim head Steve Mills marks his territory and make the permanent job less attractive to an outside candidate like David Griffin-- with little salary flexibility going forward, a new GM would be less able to make his mark and change the franchise to his liking.
