So many interesting and intelligent points of view on this topic, that I dare not venture my own limited opinion, but only to say that I'm an idiot for thinking the thread title was about how much money Lin still had in the bank after blowing wads of cash on Jack in the Box tacos!
*sigh* You once again Completely misunderstand what I said. Diminished is Not the same as diminishing. If you just drank a pitcher of water, the value of a glass of water to YOU is diminished. The absolute value of the Water itself is NOT diminishing. The value of that water will remain static within the market place at large, in SPITE of it being worth less to you Specifically. That SAME water will be worth a tremendous amount to a man just walking out of the desert. That SAME water may be worth less than it is to you to a different man who is sitting in a swimming pool. However, put yourself and those two other men in the same room and have an auction (free agency), and the price will NOT be set by you, it will in fact be set by the person with the highest desire... ie, the man walking out of the desert. The absolute value of the water did not change, just your PERCEPTION of what the water is worth TO YOU changed. How else do you estimate the value of something with uncertain value? You can only go by previous data, projections of the future, and marginal utility based upon historical commonalities. Okay, I wasn't planning on teaching a valuation 101 class, but it's clear that you have NO idea how valuation works. There are multiple forms of valuation in the world, whether it's land, stocks, art, or anything you want to establish a price. Here are a few basic methods that are used either in specific or as part of a larger valuation. 1. Raw asset value. Measure the asset (in this case box scores), then assign a value based upon the value per component (points, assists, etc). 2. Growth model based upon historical comparison. Take an item (like a tree), measure it's height, age and environment, then compare it to other trees of similar age, height and environment. Then project it forward to determine a Future value. In the case of a player, look at the player's play history, consider their age and role, then project him forward until his prime. 3. Comparative utility. Take an item. Look at how useful it is to YOUR particular situation, then establish a financial value based upon how it improves or doesn't improve your situation. In the case of a player, does your team Need a PG? What are your other options for the position? And will you gain more or less from their impact versus your current situation both on and off the court? When there's real money on the line, you either assume that they are who they are, or that they'll continue to grow. With younger players you assume that they'll remain at their current level or get better unless there are risk factors (history of chronic injury ala Oden and his degenerative knee condition for example). With older players you typically assume that they aren't changing much. With very old players you assume a decline in skills and athleticism due to wear and tear and age. Hope that makes things a little clearer for you. Please feel free to Google some of the technical terms if you haven't encountered them before, and I genuinely mean that. That's not intended to be a condescending statement -- it's just a reality that not everyone studies Economics, Finance or Accounting while in school.
I was going to write tl;dr, but I read the entire post. I enjoy reading your posts a lot. Perhaps it's because I rarely see anyone use an analytical approach to write in online forums, or perhaps it's because I've seen too many troll posts and you stand out in crowd. Anyway, learned something new. Ty
I am not actually surprised to see another long post from you which addressed nothing again. You argument is so empty which you were starting to avoid mentioning the key of this whole thread - Lin's worth (on the court - originally mentioned by OP and off the court - the empty fantasy started by you). OK, let me ask you some simple questions : 1. If you truly believe that Lin had been misused by the Rockets and really think his potential will be reached to his max when he will be switching to another team - like you said, a man in the desert whose dying and need to drink the "Lin is going to save your life water", then, please educate us : which of the other 29 teams in the league you truly believe will sign Lin to be their starting PG comparing to their existing one right now? Hey, please do not avoid my question by answering : I have no idea what Lin will become 18 months from now. 2. Now assuming you can answer my first question, now from that team's point of view, how will the GM judge Lin's value by offering Lin a contract? will it be : - Lin's half season in NYK + Lin's 2 full year in Rockets + whatever team Lin will be playing in next season, and then most importantly, what is the trend of his performance moving towards, and then evaluate the other options both in the market and inside the teams for comparison and then to make decision, 1. Raw asset value. check. 2. Growth model based upon historical comparison. check. 3. Comparative utility. check. or : You know what? Screw it. I think they (his future teams) will just totally throw out whatever he did when he played in the Rockets because that's not the right way that he should be used, those are meaningless stats, we should just consider his 7 games in NYK and just believe on the LOFs on his potential. So which smart GM will make such a glorified decision in the history of the league in 18 months from now? Oh, thank you for some good advices regarding education, I am glad that I have not missed any class on this when I was in college, and that's : Common Sense.
torocan may regurgitate what he memorized by rote, he may use technical words to grind out a big list of arguments, but he lacks that most important quality, the general intelligence necessary in the final step to organize the whole, so he suffers from blindspots obvious to everyone but himself. he's just another narrow technical monkey who has to be overseen by and have his work checked by someone else. texanasiafan has no clue what he's saying either, he's just babbling, making a strawman of himself for torocan to run through.
A) content and supporting arguments and facts vs B) generic insult. I'm on the horns of a dilemna here.
Not really, I don't consider it an insult, and use the term to refer to friends who go into these narrow specialties, seem pretty good at it, but lack common sense. And they know the truth of it, which is why they hide out in these fields in the first place. But you can't let these guys actually run anything that requires general intelligence, because they will screw up nerdily.
I'm going to have to challenge you on your first point. Please support it, if you could. What are these blindspots and obvious critical flaws to his arguments that you're seeing (and I'm not)? Torocan's arguments are not always perfect, but they're usually spot on and much more intelligent, logically sound and in-depth than 99.9% of all other posters in the GARM.
The original OP was how much was Lin's play warranted at this point. Additional posters chimed in on perceived value in the marketplace. I then contributed my opinion of both situations, on court value ($6-7M) and likely contract value ($8M). Since free agency is 2 years away, I would have to start with the number of potential FA's that are PG's. We'll set aside those implications as it gets way too complicated if you start factoring in the impact of clearing the decks for cap space. Here is the list of free agents upcoming in 2015. http://www.basketballinsiders.com/nba-salaries/nba-free-agents-2015-2016/ There are 28 point guards entering free agency in 2015 (or potential free agency). This represents PG movement across 19 teams (I think, it's not sorted alphabetically). For simplicity sake we'll remove the PG's that are on team options which leaves 16 PG's. Of those 16 point guards, 2 of them will most likely be out of the league (Nash, Prigioni). There are multiple teams risking the loss of multiple PG's or their starting PG. Lakers - Nash Celtics - Rondo Bucks - Knight Knicks - Prigioni, Felton Bobcats - Kemba Walker Suns - Dragic So, just looking at that immediate list, that's 6 teams that could hypothetically be left without a chair so to speak due to their chasing a higher profile PG or failing to re-sign their existing PG. That's assuming that other PG's aren't released. Would a team like the Bobcats, Bucks or Suns balk at signing Lin as a "we lost our guy, we need a decent starting PG"? Or the Knicks that has an already existing fan base for Lin? Or the Lakers where Lin already has roots in California and they have shown a willingness to spend far past the salary cap? And this is completely ignoring injury risk. What about teams that lose their starting PG to injury? Or are shipped out in a trade? The permutations for teams that could find themselves in the position to look to Lin as an option is far from Zero. And ultimately you only need ONE team to meet his salary. Depending on what role they expect out of Lin, they would either emphasize Lin as the Starter without Harden and his time in NY (have a typical SG), Lin as a starter WITH Harden (have a ball dominant dribble drive penetration PG), or Lin as a 6th man (time on the bench and with Harden). The higher probability is that they would look more towards his time with Harden off the floor and his NY time (we won't factor in a future traded team as we don't know the role) when considering this and last year if they want him to start, with some consideration of how he utilizes his possessions when he's looking to facilitate and score. They would weigh his next season more heavily as it's the most recent in time frame, however we're assuming a static state or additional progression along normal age curves. You can't really assume a drop in performance or a leap in performance as those are atypical growth curves. Realistically you would use historical development curves. The reason that it would be more probable that they consider his time off the floor with Harden is that Harden is basically close to Unique as a shooting guard. Harden plays essentially as a ball dominant hybrid combo guard in that he drives to the basket, spot up shoots AND distributes. Really he's a big PG in a SG's clothing. If you were to go down the list of Shooting guards, they tend to be one or more of a spot up shooter, dribble drive penetrator, or slash to the basket player. They do NOT tend to be facilitator/distributors. For example, your typical SG tends to be more along the lines of a JR Smith, Monta Ellis, or Klay Thompson. How many SG's can You think of that play like Harden, ie a scorer AND facilitator? Yes, there are 2 guard combo guard line ups, however unless one of those guards are All Star/Superstar quality, you wouldn't typically have one hyper ball dominant PG over Lin. And in those cases, you wouldn't bother getting Lin at all. For example, you *could* run a 2 guard line up with CP3 + Irving, but what would be the point? Yes the perimeter offense would be really nice, but in terms of dollar value on the court, you're better off going with 1 PG and getting a more specialized player as the 2nd guard. There is a point of diminishing returns in a 2 combo guard offense when their offensive skills begin to overlap too much. So, while the part of Lin's performance they emphasize would most likely emphasize his ability to function in a starting role as the primary facilitator, once again it would depend on the specific roster and organization. That's a pity. Exposing yourself to multiple viewpoints and trying to understand and learn from them falls under what I would consider "common sense". You're entitled to your opinion of course. However, I just happen to think your base assumptions are incorrect. I think you're not giving enough credit to the price that a team will place on a player (especially middle rotation players) once you start hitting the 2nd and 3rd tier of free agency. Let's put it this way, if your option is paying Lin a premium vs starting the season with NO credible starting point guard, the utility goes WAY up. If your seat sales are in the dumps, then putting butts in the seats and attracting advertisers goes way up the list of "stuff to do". And if you're a young team in rebuilding phase, how exactly are you going to keep people interested while the young team is "developing"? And everyday "common sense" is great, but in the end GM's aren't judging value off "common sense". They're using sophisticated financial models, advanced analytics, and teams of professionals from a variety of disciplines. There's a REASON that GM's get paid Millions per year. And it's not because they're NOT considering all the angles.
Suddenly this thread has turned into "What do you think torocan is worth?". Let's stay on track, shall we? We are all just observers. It's just that some are better at it than others.
Lin as a basketball player is worth no more than a Nate Robinson or a Patty Mills. But from a marketing perspective he's a lot more valuable.
A pretty smile with nice curves can get me for a wink and a sly roll of her fingers. The rest of you will have a price premium. Marginal utility and all... :grin:
That is so meta... So if he is commenting next to a thread dominant posting guy with 5 star potential, would his value as a poster drop? What about the clear speed advantage he has in typing? How well does he deal with a trapping defense played by good cop/bad cop posters? Anyway, can't argue he is overpaid.
And does that rep balloon in the final year of his contract? I can tell you we wouldn't be able to trade him at that point. :grin:
You are still trying to dodge the question here. The question is : which of the other 29 teams in this league will prefer to have Lin instead of their current starting PG - meaning they view Lin's value is higher than what they are currently have / paying. of course you do not have an answer to it. So you have switched it to : yeah I think these 6 teams could have the job open by then and I think they can make an offer to Lin, and not only that, hey you know what, there could be more teams out there desperate for a PG and someone can make a sucker offer also. Even that's the case, lets play along with your choices. Base on the current situation, why would you think the Suns and Bobcats will decide NOT to resign their current PG with a similar range of salary but will be looking for a "high-profiled" PG like Lin at a 8 mil range like you suggested? Don't you find it funny to even think about it? Then we have the Celtics, if the Celtics will be going to keep Rondo, go back to above question. If Rondo will be traded the Celtics will be going to a rebuilding phase, why would you believe a top 5 front office in this league will not learn from the Rockets "exact same situation" 3 years ago and willing to offer the same type of contract (8 mils per year) to Lin again? OK, what's left? yeah the Knicks and Lakers, awesome. 2 cap black hole that will be cleaned and hoping to sign big time free agent to have a chance to compete again. And so you think Lin will be the "high profiled" free agent at 8 mil per year that those 2 franchises planning to sign 15 months from now? Really? You really believe this is going to happen? So, at the end, your more "logical" hope will be this : Yeah! the Bucks. Somehow the bucks will just be the bucks and they will continue to suck, somehow there are no real free agent will be willing to play there and somehow their GM will be dumb enough to offer a multi years contract with 8 mils per to a mediocre PG in another tanking season. Seriously, I feel sad about your list.
Especially since other sites would want to bundle a huge number of low rep/low value posters to meet the rep-cap requirements.
