The article Bosh’s Decision in Strictly Fiscal Terms By Blake Murphy After my last Chris Bosh piece, I spent the weekend discussing with some friends whether or not he would re-up with the Raptors after this season. While I remain hopeful he’ll be the franchise’s cornerstone for the length of another max contract, the possibility exists that Bosh will leave. What my discussions about his future with the team got me thinking about was why he would stay with the Raptors. Obviously loyalty, comfort, a chance to be moderately competitive, being the face of basketball for an entire country, and money are factors that would push him toward resigning to some degree. Money is the issue most look at the closest, so I wanted to dig a little deeper in that regard. I know, for instance, that the Raptors, by way of holding his Bird Rights, can offer him larger raises (10.5% annual non-compounded vs. 8% annual non-compounded), more years (six vs. five), and a larger starting salary (110.5% of his current salary vs. 105% of his current salary) than other teams can. This, of course, can be negated via a sign and trade, basically making any team ‘able’ to offer him these contractual terms should they offer the Raptors something of significant value to do it. The sign and trade is rare and complicated, though, and could be considered an asset belonging to the Raptors as much as to another team (creating incoming value for an otherwise outgoing free agent). Over the life of the contract, the Raptors can offer approximately $36.5M more than any other team, though this is overstated to a degree by the extra year. Over just five years, they can still offer approximately $9.9M more than anyone else (and yes, that means Bosh would be pulling in $26.6M in 2015-16). But these are just numbers, and raw numbers at that. It isn’t enough to look at money in terms of a simple number, just as it isn’t enough to look at interest rates without taking inflation into account. Yes, even in the sports world, there is a large difference between nominal and real dollars. Nominal dollars, of course, are what we hear reported most often…they are easiest to understand, and the salary cap and luxury tax are explained and adhered to in terms of nominal adjustment. The Raptors get no currency exchange, the Heat face no restrictions for the lack of a state tax in Florida, and the Lakers get no kickback due to the high cost of living and operating in California. For an intelligent player, factors like these would certainly find their way into a decision set when choosing what team to sign with. The following analysis tries to take into account the Bird Rights advantage, state and federal income taxes, and local cost of living indices. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find a feasible way to incorporate market size or marketability into the analysis, however, I sorted the results before cost of living was factored in – you may want to use the After Tax Earnings as a de facto results column, since cost of living may either be ignored by players or cancelled out by the opportunities that come with a wealthier/larger market. The chart below (click to enlarge…seriously) shows all 30 teams, with disregard for actual cap space because so much can happen between now and the summer, and what they can offer Chris Bosh strictly in terms of money, factoring in a few nuances that turn nominal money into real money. Obviously, even in after-tax earnings, the Raptors can offer more money than anyone else. This is an extremely important distinction because one of the main knocks against Toronto in the free agent market is the adverse income tax structure in Ontario. After the Raptors, the tax-free-state teams can offer the most, and there are intriguing options like Memphis (strong young core), Miami (weather and Wade), Orlando (championship contender and D-12), and the three Texas teams (all competitive, and Bosh’s home state). While not all of these teams will have cap space, if they do they pose the most significant monetary threat to the Raptors. The California teams would be at the largest disadvantage, able to offer $10M less in real dollars over the course of the contract than those teams in tax-free states. When we figure in the cost of living, things get less certain for the Raps. Cost of living is a tricky area though. For one, cost of living isn’t a large part of most people’s decision sets – people simply don’t recognize the value in living in an inexpensive area. There could be several reasons for this, chief among them being (for athletes) the correlation between market size and cost of living. More expensive places to live are generally more populous, and more heavily populated areas tend to be looked at as more favorable destinations for social and marketing reasons. Again, this is why I didn’t sort the chart by the post-COLA column…cost of living may be irrelevant, or it may be cancelled out by factors that correlate with cost of living. A final note is that there is also a fairly significant cost of moving, which isn’t factored into COLA here but would affect Bosh’s financial bottom line. Selling his place in Toronto, moving, and starting anew is a costly procedure, though in terms of a $100M contract it is probably bubble gum to Bosh. (An interesting note for us local Raptor fans: Toronto is one of the most expensive cities in the world to live, checking in just ahead of Los Angeles at 54th in 2008 but falling to 85th in 2009. The more you know…) This analysis, of course, applies for all players and all teams (and feel free to email me at bmurphy5586@hotmail.com for the Excel file…it is simple but a fun thing to play around with). The conclusion is what we all knew already – if the decision were strictly financial, Bosh’s options would be limited to the Raptors or a team that could work a sign and trade. As it is, there are things like quality of the team, the city, other players and friends, taxes, and personal preferences all tugging at Bosh (and the entire Class of 2010)…what he puts into his final decision set, we’ll never know. We can wait… <a href="http://s260.photobucket.com/albums/ii7/theondeckcircle/?action=view¤t=contractgraph.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i260.photobucket.com/albums/ii7/theondeckcircle/contractgraph.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a> Out of the 3 texas teams i would think we would make the most sense due to the fact spurs have duncan and mavs have dirk. He could come here and make just as much money and most likely be the star of the team.
i hope we find a way to get him. he's taken hsi game to another level this year. and his impact will be greater playing with better role players.
If we get Bosh and Keep Yao that would be great. The ability to have a halfcourt team and a fullcourt one so guys like Ariza and Brooks can really shine.
one more thing to note: According to the above calculation, if we remove the 6th year of bosh's contract, the raptors can give bosh a salary of 64.2M (after tax) in the first 5 years, while we can give him 63.3M after tax. IOW, we can theoretically offer basically the exact same amount in terms of annual salary, only with one less year. -- of course, that is assuming we gut the team and get under the CAP enough to offer the max (which is doubtful, unfortunately) in the first place.
Among the Texas teams, the darkhorse is Dallas. They have a team option on Josh Howard's $11.8 mill salary for next season and I don't see why they would keep him (especially for that much). Of course, the Mavericks would still be over the cap but I wouldn't put it past Cuban to try and work a way to get into the Bosh mix.
Bosh would be a great addition but it is our backcourt/wing that needs the addition of a great player. Assuming TMAC won't be a Rocket for years to come, we need another SG/SF player who is elite. The frontcourt of the Roxs has been pretty solid, as long as we keep Scolandry.
Man, as much as I hate Dallas, you really have to give Cuban credit. They are always in a good position to get talent and improve themselves.
Just losing Scola is a severe understatement. More like bye bye to over half this team if we want Bosh.
i'm not sure we have what toronto would want....i think it's more likely landry will leave than scola. Landry fits in with Toronto's youth better. doesn't make sense for Toronto to agree to take on scola for multiple years at 31 yrs of age. Perhaps Morey plan all along was to go after bosh and that's why he's been grooming landry and dorsey, landry may pay off for him as planned.
i dont know but that's almost 10 mill in fillers we'd get back, would be best for us to just trade tmac and bosh+fillers, then let scola walk.
Toronto is way over the cap so expiring contracts (Tmac) won't work We have to give them actual talent. Maybe (battier/ariza) + (landy/scola) + (brooks/lowry) + (cook etc) to match salary.Why would the they want mac when bosh is expiring. I would be fine giving this up for bosh since morey has shown he can find talent.
i think it helps us in getting more talent in one individual, if you look at our roster, we have a lot of solid players, but too many of them have limited skills.. If we want athleticism at the 4 we need to take scola out, if we need rebounding we have to take landry out, for size we take chuck out...it hurts us to have to switch guys up like that. If landry is on fire offensively but we're getting killed ont he boards, what do you do? If scola is rebounding well, but not fast enough on D, what do we do? It's a tough decision to make almost on a nightly basis. With bosh, you have offense, athleticism, height, solid rebounding. The only negative is his D isnt above average, but scola and landry didn't play great d either. At worst our D just doesn't improve, but everything else is packed into one single player and for the very tough defensive matchups, we'd still have chuck.
Unfortunately, most of the time in situations like these (ones that include a perennial All-Star/Superstar), the Rockets really can't put together a package that would entice the Raptors to bite because there will most likely be other teams that can offer more young talent than the Rockets can.
Because mac makes about 6 mill more than bosh. That's more expiring money for them. They have talent at their guard spots already, the wouldn't need any of ours. At pg calderon/jack for another 3 yrs. At the swingman spot it's hedo/bellineli/derozan for 3-4 yrs too. They need guys at PF, and not a softie to go next to already-soft bargnani. Scola and landry make sense, but scola may be too old for them. Or perhaps they would take DA in a deal as well, he would fit in their system.
Our PFs are not super, but good enough. Especially, Landry is developing to a special player. I think we need a star guard player.
