The madness continues. At this rate, Brent Barry will command $8 million a year. This is not a good way for the new Toronto GM to start out. Tuesday, July 6, 2004 By Marc Stein ESPN.com Rafer Alston, whose transformation from a street-ball legend to a playoff point guard with Miami proved one of the season's more uplifting stories, has reached a verbal agreement with the Toronto Raptors on a six-year deal believed to be worth $29 million, league sources told ESPN.com. After stints with Milwaukee and Toronto, Alston broke through with the Heat, averaging 10.2 points and nearly five assists per game while shooting a healthy 37.1 percent from 3-point range. Miami had hoped to re-sign the guard widely known as Skip To My Lou for his role in the And1 Mix Tape series, but the Heat was reportedly hoping to split its $5 million mid-level exception between Alston and a power player such as Boston's Mark Blount. When new Toronto general manager Rob Babcock came with a strong offer to lure him back to Canada, Alston agreed to become Babcock's first free-agent signing.
Looks very similar to the Kevin Ollie contract of last year. This is a TERRIBLE contract and unfortunately sets a benchmark for PGs in Free Agency. What is it with these GMs that give marginal ROLE players 6 year contracts? No role player should be locked up for more than 4 years.
I was drawing the similarities to the LENGTH of the contract and the fact that both of them were backup PGs. Clearly 29M is much larger than 15M, but my beef was with the length of the deal. The fact it is 29M is even more outrageous!
Alston startered 1/3rd of the games and averaged 30+ minutes for the season, you could call him a servicable starter or terrific back-up--much different player than Ollie. If it wasn't for us having Lue, who is largely redundent with Alston and a lot cheaper, Alston would have been a major target. But I am surprised he got a 30 mil contract.
Actually - the contract is a 5+1 that breaks down as follows: $3.50 mil $3.85 mil $4.20 mil $4.55 mil $4.90 mil $21 mil even + $5.25 mil - 6th year option $26.25 mil total There is also rumored to be incentives in the deal that could increase the deal to about $29 mil - as reported - but we're likely talking All-Star appearances or making the Finals. Those types of incentives don't usually count on a team's salary cap total either. I don't think $3.5 mil is that bad for a 10 pt, 5 ast PG. he has improved over the past 2 years and it stands to reason that even marginal improvement makes him a 12 pt, 6 ast player - especially since Toronto has more offensive options that Miami did. I like the deal. Nash was PG 1a this summer, with Troy Hudson and Rafer Alston being 2a and 2b respectively. Toronto had to tie him up early because teams like there's close to a dozen teams looking for a FA PG.
Skip to my Lou. Next thing you know, AO is signed with the Knicks. Hot Sauce plays for the Bucks. AI plays for the 76ers.
Purplefever, good analysis. The contract look a whole lot better than Foyle's for instance and doesn't look that bad when you explain the incentives and option year (team or player?). Alston is a decent player, worthy of starting for a lot of teams. If he wasn't just a slightly more talented version of Lue in my book he would have been one of my top priorities as a FA for the Rockets. Given the Rockets do have Lue (slight but quick, pretty good 3 point shooter and OK distributer), I think we should go for a more physical or significantly taller alternative. That is why I think it is more worthwhile to pursue Barry, Arroyo or Damon Jones who all provide something different.
I know he's been working hard for it for several years, but anyone want to take bets on Skip to my Lou having a lousy "rest of his career" now that he has his payday
Well - it looks like Arroyo has agreed to 4 years / $16 mil with the Jazz. If you add up the first 4 years of Alston's deal, they are almost identical and once Hudson starts to get MLE offers - the Alston signing will look quite reasonable. He may have got an extra year, but new GM Babcock probably didn't want to take the chance that there would be a bidding war. There's some who would say that the extra year is incentive to play in Canada, though Rafer wanted to stay in TO after the 03 season and said this summer that he would like to return - so this argument doesn't really apply. I can't for the life of me understand why Foyle and Camby are getting deals that are higher than MLE. It's also become quite apparent that the Raptors had pretty much zero chance at landing a C of any quality thru free agency, making the Aroujo selection at 8 look that much more sensible. It's not easy to find a guy who's 6'11" and 290 lbs who likes to play rough. He had a good showing in the NCAA tourney and while his potential is not as high as other picks - the likelihood that he contributes in a modest way is pretty much assured. Just moving Bosh to the 4 is reason enough, IMO.
It's not easy to find a guy who's 6'11" and 290 lbs who likes to play rough. Since when was playing under the rim at 6'11 and 290 "rough" ?
Tough players that play under the rim during their prime: Karl Malone Bill Lambeer Rich Mahorn Charles Oakley Brad Miller
