I'll assume you think Shandon Anderson and Howard Eisley are worth their current contracts and that Greg Foster is an NBA caliber player. Jerry Sloan carried the Jazz last year.
AK47 is getting the max one way or another. The Jazz are just hoping the max goes down before he signs it. There are very few players in the league that contribute as much to their teams as Andre does.
at this point i wonder. they had dog crap surrounding AK47 and matt harpring (and i guess arroyo) and then harpring went down and they still competed for a playoff spot in the deepest western conference ever. that is astounding. mikey moore or someone stupid like that got significant minutes last year. i've gone from hating jerry sloan with a passion to just hating him but also respecting the hell out of his coaching ability. and that's hard to do with people associated with the jazz.
Jerry Sloan might be the only coach in the league that I'd kick JVG out the door for. Not to say that JVG is better than all these other coaches, but I don't belive in just moving guys out before they've been given a chance to succeed. Larry Brown comes close, but he's too much of a nomad for my tastes. It was fine when we had a coaching vacancy, but I don't want to be kicking out a coach in JVG that I think can do good things with this squad for a guy that probably won't stick around after a few years.
So both of you believe that unlike andrei, gasol's merit is mainly attributed to his proficient/ability in one-on-one? But from those Memphis games I watched, gasol tend to take advantage of passings/pick and roll from his teammates as well. btw, it's lame to argue AK47 doesn't have the ability to create his own shot just because he's thriving in a motion offense considering their absence of powerful bigman in lineup last season.
Gasol is a much better offensive player.If you see them both play you know it. gasol can create his own shot and AK47 just can't. i think Gasol scored less because of the team orientated offense of memphis. Look at it this way, if you want 2 points, and you have one play. who would you give the ball to? gasol or AK47. AK47 is the better defensive player. But bot the better offensive player. I would love to have either of them on the rockets.
Man, the owners really did good in the last lockout. Max contracts these days were actually less than most pre lock out contract for star players. But now that players like Lebron can only get the max instead of Garnett money, people start thinking that only players like Lebron should get the max and people a tier down like Dwayne Wade doesn't deserve the max. The max is a damn good PR move for GM's now. Just watch when Wade and Bron are both re - negotiating for contracts. Lebron will get the max while the Heats management will offer something like 6 years for 60 million, citing that they like Dwayne but he's not in Lebron's class and not a "max player" when 8 years ago, a 15mil/year is perfectly normal for a player like wade, and that's before inflation kicked in.
Nah, just a broke college student. But last I checked, we are in a free economy, and sports stars generate revenue while providing entertainment. Their salaries got that high in the mid 90's because that was their market value. If you just look at this as a labor dispute, its very obvious that the players union got pwned like nothing by the owners. Not only the players are more disadvantageous when negotiating for contracts (salary cap and luxury tax), but they also come in with less salary (rookie scale) and then there's the max which is a great PR tool for all owners for the reasons I stated above.
They should trade him for Peja. Throw in Harpring, perfect $.Whatever. Sac would do that in a heartbeat. Peja would be pissed.
AK47 is one of the few guys in this league who can dominate a game without even taking a shot. And he's still very young and his offense can definitely improve. The Jazz would be stupid to let this guy walk. They did pay all those money to Boozer and Okur, didn't they?
I don't understand why some use Kirilenko's versatility against him. Isn't it MORE impressive that he managed to score 16 a game without dominating the ball? Everyone likes to ride JKidd's jock for being the consumate team player, yet I think he is very similar to Kirilenko as a scorer in that he usually gets about 15 or 20 a game without his coach having to call plays for him. Isn't this a positive? I'm not trying to say that Kirilenko is better than JKidd (Kidd's importance as a playmaker is far greater than anything Kirilenko brings to the table), but I personally value a guy who can score his points within the flow of the game a lot more than some in this thread seem to. I would have no problem giving someone like Kirilenko a max contract because I think a player with his set of skills is much more rare than a scoring (read one-dimensional) PF like Gasol. Factor in that, after KGarnett, he is probably the most versatile defender in the league and you have the exact type of player to complement a go-to scorer. Think Scottie Pippen without the jumpshot. His value is that he can support the go-to guy as the second option without taking any touches away from the main guy. Kobe and Shaq have shown what can happen when two guys who need to dominate the ball to be effective have to fight over who takes the lead role. The fact that Kirilenko is MORE effective as the second banana, rather than the lead guy, is more valuable to making his team a winner, IMO, than a guy who scores 25 a night but doesn't do much else. Of course, without the lead horse in place, someone like Kirilenko (or Pippen) loses a lot of value because he cannot elevate his team on his shoulders. If Boozer can assume the Karl Malone role as the dominant scorer this year, I rank him and AK47 as one of the top 3 or 4 forward tandems in the league. This is how I would rank the best forward tandems: O'neal-Artest CWebb-Peja Kmart-Melo Boozer-AK47
and therein lies the problem with a max contract for guys like him. maybe if you already have mj in place and the AK guy is essential, you dish out a max contract, but since you're starting with him you have to be very wary of doing that. and of course pippen at his peak was better than AK and AK would have to reach mvp runner up status to get to that point. and with his offensive limitations he may never do it.
I would tend to say that neither AK-47 or Gasol are max guys, although I am having second thoughts after the ridiculous contract offers in the summer. I mean, if a guy like Rafer Alston can get 60 million, it would be hard to justify not giving Andrei his dough. As for between the two players, I would take AK over Gasol any day. People say that Kirilenko benefits from Jerry Sloan's system, so Gasol doesn't benefit from Hubie's system? Imagine Gasol (as a 7 footer) has to actually play center as supposed to Lorenzo Wright and Stromile Swift, both of whom are actually shorter (especially Swift at 6'9), he'd get slaughtered even more than he does. That shows just how soft he is. The key point on here is that, AK-47's offence - defence would still be in his favor on any team. You can't say that about Gasol.
When did Rafer Alston get 60 million. He got around 30 something million. Probably still overpaid, but not 60 million overpaid.
Apparently the Jazz feel they can take a harder line on AK47 now that they have Boozer at PF. I'm assuming a four-man frontcourt rotation with Kirilenko, Boozer, Okur and Harpring, plus whichever of Snyder or Humphries can play the 3. Then again, I can see why AK47 is aiming high, considering the ridiculous contracts given out to players like Adonal Foyle, Derek Fisher, and Brian Cardinal (note the Warriors connection here?)
Gasol > Kirlenko Kirlenko is like Bobby Jones.... He is a good player, but is not a Max player, IMHO. DD
Boozer's contract is similar to what you were referring to. I think Kirilenko is better than Boozer though. Boozer's contract is 6 yrs/$68 million. My guess is Kirilenko and his agent are asking for at least year 7 years with a total contract of at least $80 million. That's as close to the max as you can get. Of course, all this is great for the Rockets as this will force key West rivals to be capped out for a long time. Gasol got the max from the Grizzlies. If the Jazz do give Kirilenko what he wants, Kirilenko and Boozer will be the core of the Jazz for a long time. Personally, I don't think that's a championship duo.
