Dallas signs back-up PG

These deals put them in salary cap hell for the next few years. That's why I expect some of these players to be dealt by the trading deadline.

By gamble, I'm talking about trying to win a championship without anything in the center and someone named Jordan on the team. They are hoping that the additional scoring will compensate for their inability to stop the centers that play in the West. Dirk will be great but he's no Jordan.

 

Who's vastly overpayed and is one of those bad contracts I spoke of. Best would have been a great cheap pickup for the Rockets but they are already paying big bucks for the backup PG.

If they were bring in Travis Best, what do they do about Moochie? They are paying him top dollar to be their backup PG and if he's replaced by Best, what then? He's virtually untradeable now. He'll be even more untradeable if his minutes are given to a guy who's making a fraction of what he's being paid. Think about how that would go down around here - watching Moochie get paid to sit.

No, there are no quick fixes unless you can find someone to take your bad contracts off your hands like Washington did with Juwann Howard (Dallas) and GS did with Jamison (again Dallas). No way I see that happening with Moochie so we're stuck with him for now. He'll just have to grin and make the best of it...

 

Let me get this straight.

You want Moochie Norris to play because he's overpaid.

What kind of ridiculous logic is that.

Have you ever heeard of the phrase: 2 wrongs don't make a right.

 

REIT - Question. What is JVG's opinion of Moochie? Has he said anything public about Moochie's role on the team? I don't remember Moochie playing in the summer league, so any opinion JVG has of Moochie would be from reviewing the game tapes. Be interesting to learn if JVG sees some untapped potential in Moochie or if JVG's game plan makes better use of Moochie. Let's hope there's hope for Moochie playing much better ball this year.

 

I have no idea. We all know Moochie isn't any good. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

Travis Best was probably the best backup PG available and Dallas got him for nothing.

Hell, he's as good if not better than Kevin Ollie who got Moochie type money.

I don't know what's going on but we need to sign a backup PG.

 

No, that is not my contention. My point is that giving out a bad contract has repercussions which we are seeing in the case of Moochie. Travis Best signed with Dallas for $900K and the Rockets could have easily matched that amount. Best would have represented a significant upgrade at the backup PG position.

The problem is that Moochie's big contract effectively blocked them from making that move. They cannot afford to pay Moochie that much money to sit and watch Best play his position. The ideal thing to do would be to trade Moochie and his salary to open up room for Best. The reality is that there are no takers for Moochie and his contract, so what do you do?

As a result, they are stuck with Moochie and it'll be up to JVG to make the best of a bad situation.

 

1) The Mavs got to be in position to be a championship team by free spending once they were over the cap. Once you are within 5 mil of the cap or over it with little room to get significantly lower--it makes little sense to worry about contract amounts from a winning perspective (unless you want to trade thoseplayers later) because the caproom to sign someone isn't going to be much different than the MLE you can offer anyway.

2) If our single goal was winning a championship (at whatever costs) we would have kept Posey. The money we saved from not signing Posey's 4 year deal will NEVER translate into significant cap room to sign a FA for more than the MLE because of existing contracts, a bigger contract for Grif (if he is any good), and because Yao will be getting a max after the end of his contract. In short, not signing Posey only helped the bottom line financial outlook of Les, and worst case scenario (Boki or E Griff becomes our future SF and Posey's shooting nosedives) is Posey just becomes a very quality (better than A Griffin who we hope fills 3/4 of Posey's shoes) 6th, 7th man that helps the team even if it hurts Les wallet.

3) We have seen some young talented players go over price and no apparent move from us to go after them (e.g. Jamison). Jamison and Posey are not other teams castoffs--those are what our own FA signings are. We have a nearly 30 year old guy Dallas didn't think was worth the 11th, 12th, roster spot (even for a vet min) who we expect to be a major producer for us--what does that tell you about those teams short and long term perspectives. I'd gladly keep our core players and trade for CubanD

 

At his best, Cuban is a dynamite owner who resurrected a moribund lifeless franchise. He will spend the bucks to be the best and I admire that about him. At his worst, his ego takes over and he begins to believe that he's the basketball equivalent of Jerry Jones (and we all know how that turned out) who has hamstrung the Mavs with huge contracts for the likes of Rafe LaFrenz and Shawn Bradley.

While I applaud his having the cajones to step up and take on even more salary like he did with Jamison, I question his wisdom. These deals do not address their hole at the 5 and should they fail to get the Mavs into the NBA Finals, the team faces YEARS salary cap implications.

Your #2 is exactly along the lines of what I was thinking. Looking down the way, the Rockets need to clear out both salary cap space and bad contracts (you know who they are). Stevie has been maxed out and Yao will need to be also. Giving Posey a big deal did not make sense in this scenario and may have added yet another bad contract. Let's not forget that EG will be playing for a big contract this year and may actually show up and play (although I'd be very suspicious of this should this occur). If he begins to realize his "potential", he would be the 3rd piece of a future championship team and would thus need to be paid accordingly. That money will have to come from somewhere.

None of this year's FAs in the Rockets price range could have been classified as difference makers - these weren't players who could allow them to contend this year. The line had to be drawn somewhere and Uncle Les appears to have decided to bite the bullet this year and next and maybe even the one after that. In the long run, maybe that will prove to have been the right thing to do all along.

 

Only difference is that i dont think Travis Best will be the hero in the playoffs.

 

Well yea, three superbowls.

 

I'll take my chances with a free spending if sometimes ego involved onwner over any non free spending owner. Guys should not be in the sports business (just sell the team, make you killing profit on the sale, and pass it on to a more willing owner) if winning isn't a single focused mission.

How exactly has LaFrenz and Bradley hamstrung the Mavs? Sure they are overpayed, but the Mavs would probably be within an MLE level contract of the cap without them. The Mavs were also still willing to take on Jamison and do other moves even if expensive to the owner if they think the move ultimately helps them toward their single goal. It seems to me the size of Bradley/Lafrenz contracts have a little impact on the Mavs willingness to get better (persue Zo, B Miller, land Jamison). In short we may be hamstrung my Mot and Cato because that was our choice--the Mavs have proven even with some even worse contracts there are lots of ways to pursue better if you are single focused on putting the best team out there.

Every team has holes. Jaimson is a young guy with consistent 20+ 7+ seasons. He will be a fine player for them at certainly not an outlandish price (even at 10 mil/year) given his production.

My point for the above is that a Posey match or no Posey match has in all probability no bearing on whether we can get significantly under the cap in the next 4 years (length of his contract) where we could offer a greater than MLE contract to a future player. It isn't like the 5-6-6-7 mil yearly savings by not signing him translates into cap room that we can use to go after another player that we could not have pursued anyway using a future MLE. By not matching Posey we lost player with no compensation or even practical salary cap relief. We lost talent, desperately needed talent in our weakest position, over Les's wallet--pure and simple. That is not a good sign from a sports owner, and bottom line that translates into fewer wins, less talent on the floor, and fewer commodities to trade with.

I just want to add the risk for Posey as a bad contract was minimal. It was only a 4 year MLE contract--not even in the same ballpark in yearly amount or number of years as Cato or Mot, both of whom no other teams had offered our kinds of deals to. In fact the total contract amount for Posey is much less than half of what either of those guys have. I don't want to get deep into these moot issue now (was Posey's contract reasonable market value--I think it was, was there much risk of him becoming a untradable albatros--I think the risk was minimal), but did want to point this out.

The best reasonable MLE-level target for us both in the short term (some one to provide needed skills now) and long term (someone young enough to grow with our core players) was the one we let go when we didn't even need to use our MLE to keep him (had Bird Rights). How ironic is that.

 

Desert Scar, I understand where you are coming from. I just think that Uncle Les had made up his mind to hold the line a long time ago and that is why you see the deafening silence coming from the front office. From the start, any changes they made would have been minimal in scope and that's exactly what we're getting.

 

I think you are right (Les made up his mind to hold the line). Which is why as a Rockets fan I am really bummed that despite our great fortune of having Yao and Francis basically handed to us our organization seems to be taking a free ride (or at least cheapest ride) from those gifts instead of doing the most with them they can. Quite honestly I am pretty demoralized about that.