Kaman doesn't have much of an appetite for waiting, inks 52.5 mil extension

Centers get overpayed, pure and simple. You get paid relative to your peers at your position and what he got paid, relative to his peers, is a bargain.

 

I'm guessing that the Clippers want to keep Kaman on the floor, and not risking him going to free agency, because of Elton Brand. He's their franchise face, and if he had to move to center with Kaman gone, I don't think their chemistry would that great. Overpaying for a decent center to stay is better than shifting Elton Brand from 4 to 5 and back again. I'm only speculating though.

 

Or, you know, they could just stick another center in there (it's not like Kaman is THAT irreplacable), and keep Elton Brand at PF.

Zydrunas Ilgauskas
Mehmet Okur
Marcus Camby

 

Kaman was a big part of what the Clippers accomplished, hes a legit Center and of the ones remaining in the league its a huge advantage to have one who is as skilled as Kaman and still improving.

 

The question is not much why Kaman is getting so much but why Yao is getting paid so low. NBA player's market is so regulated that players wage does not necessarily reflect their productivity and for certain teams like Rocket who can use their max contract on top players they are getting a quite a good bargain, especially if a guy is called a walking marketing machine called Yao.

I think the value for Kaman is pretty much the market value for a big men in NBA these days. Boozer got a similar deal last year if I remember correctly.
Obviously, Clippers are not going to attract top class free agent trough salary cap so they may as well spend some of their cash on extending current group of players.

The question is whether Sterling is willing open his wallet. If he intends to operate the franchise with a fixed budget below the salary cap then he is clearly making a big mistake by reckless spending the money which should be spent on Livingston. So it depends much on how Clippers intend to take their franchise from now on. I don't think Kaman's will be deadweight contract because he is a quality big men, and many top teams will need a big body or two sometime, so with right group of trading partners they can probably get a reasonable deal out of all this.

 

So what. Kaman is one of the better centers in the league. Just because YOU think he is overpaid doesn't mean the CLIPPERS think he is overpaid. The guy is productive and he's what the Clippers need. They paid the money that they thought he was worth, plain and simple.

 

You completely missed my point on the Dwight Howard thing. I wasn't compare them as players, someone said that Kaman didn't deserve the money because he didn't play what against Yao. I said that is stupid, Howard didn't play well against Yao, so what? I don't care how old they are, Kaman isn't exactly and old man at 24 years old.

 

Yeah because Centers are a dime a dozen.

The ironic thing is, you bring up Mehmet Okur's name. Okur has played 4 years in the league, do you know what his numbers were his 3rd year in the league? 12 ppg, 5 rpg, he was 26 at the time. Chris Kaman is in his 3rd year in the league at age 24, what was his numbers? 12 ppg, 7 rpg. He is actually FURTHER ahead at this stage of his career then Okur was. And at a younger age. Using your logic, Okur would have been replaceable and the Jazz would have lost him at that point in time. Okur's career average? 12 ppg, 7 rpg.

 

I didn't miss your point against playing against Yao; I agreed with it. My point is the Clips are making the same mistake the Mavs, Jazz, Sixers and Nuggets made. If the "market value" of centers like Kaman & co. is $10MM/yr, a team should focus their big money on swing and perimeter players instead. Just because it's a trend doesn't make it logical. If you gave them truth serum and asked the Mavs, Jazz, & Sixers if they regret the Dampier, Boozer & Dalembert deals, they would say yes. Some of us here feel the Clips will say the same thing on this deal within a couple of years, if not much sooner.

To Hiroshikun's point: The salary cap keeps the salaries of top-level players artificially low. This has been discussed here before. Yao, LeBron, Wade, Melo, etc are bargains for their teams because their salaries are kept lower than market value.

 

"One of the better centers" well below the best centers, as well as numerous so-called "PFs" who actually spend a good portion of their time (if not MOST of their time) at center. Again, he's only one of the "better" ones because there's so many scrub "true centers" in the league.

His production is about league average. He does NOT deserve a huge contract.

Wrong. 12.9 ppg, 7.5 rpg, 25 years of age. In just 28.1 mpg on the 5th slowest-paced team in the league. 18.3 points per 40 minutes, with a good rebounding percentage of 16.6%. Okur had a good season, achieving 18.9 PER. He also had a similarly efficient sophomore season (18.3 PER) before that.

On the other hand, Kaman in 2005-2006 got his per-game stats in 32.8 mpg on the 10th fastest team in the league. He was a better rebounder than Okur, but NOT by that much (17% rebounding), and he was the inferior scorer (14.6 points per 40 minutes). Kaman was also ridiculously turnover prone, with 16.4% of his used possessions being TOs (as opposed to Okur's 11.4% in his 3rd season).

No, he's not. Only simplistic, useless per-game stats make Kaman look comparable to Okur. He's not even close in efficiency. This is also assuming Kaman will improve (unlike Okur, who was good already), instead of just being average or even sub-par from now on. Kaman was a crap player who finally had an AVERAGE season in his 3rd year. He hasn't proven to be anything special yet.

 

10 years ago this scrub would be lucky to make $2

 

The comparisons made here make no sense. Because they don't take into consideration of the CBA. There are several factors to consider here.

1. You can't possibly compare this to Yao's contract. If there's no such thing as a "max contract", like in the 90s, do you really think Yao would settle for the 6/72 mil contract he got? Of course not. The market would indicate more towards a Shaq/KG type contract in the $120+ mil range.

2. The flexible cap means it's much easier to resign talent than grab them from other teams. The Clips might be overpaying Kaman, but it's not as if they can just spend $10 mil per year on someone else unless they're way under the cap(which I don't believe so).

3. Kaman still has "potential". I know teams tend to way overpay for potential. But there's a reason for it. If the player reaches such potential, then you've locked up a vital piece of your core team for long term.

I don't think Kaman's worth $10 mil on the open market. But I also don't think the Clippers wasted away money. They can't possibly risk losing him, considering it's never easy to find replacements for young, athletic centers. Even those only putting up average stats.

 

Clearly you do not remember the deals players like Jim McIlvane and Shawn Bradley got around ten years ago.

 

Well since your high on APBR then the least you could do is compare the players at the same age. I meen wasnt the argument that he was better at a younger stage.

At Age 23
Kaman
14.6PP40 .570TS%, 17.0RebRate, 15PER

Okur
14.5PP40 .514TS%, 14.5RebRate, 14.7PER

Im sure Kaman can continue his improvement, hes shown that he is willing to put in the work unlike the Tysons, and Dalemberts of the world, and unlike fellow 10million a year center Nene hes actually played and shown his improvement. You can doubt Kaman all you want, the guy will be one of the most productive centers for many years.

 

Jim McIlvane.. What were the Sonics thinking?

So many talented big men 10-15 years ago, now we have Yao, Dwight Howard and.. Kaman.

 

Wow, I'd say he was overpaid..

 

Yao got his max contract after his 3rd season in which he posted 18.3/8.4/2.0. To be fair, if you wanna compare the stats, this is the one you need to use 'cause it's this performance the contract was based on. You point still stands but is a lot weaker.

 

Hakeem, Ewing, Robinson, Shaq

 

To be fair, let's list the top big men in this league:


(in no particular order)

Ducan
Garnett
Yao
Shaq
Dirk
Wallace
Elton Brand
Dwight Howard
Big Z
Okur(?)
Kaman (?)

 

As to all talk about whether Kaman deserves the contract or not, I think you guys all miss the point. And I think Meh is right in pointing out that it is not just that Kaman's production which matters but his standing with regards to the way Clippers are run.

Personally I agree wtih A_3PO that leagues are moving towards guard orientation pace, and in general the role of centers are dimished than in the past. This naturally leads to the fact that the emphasis should be placed on finding skilled perimeter players and try to match right complements around the core guards. This undoubtedly devalue the worth of highly skilled big men, and I would be wary of dolling out big bucks on unexceptional but quality player such as Kaman.

Nonetheless, I really do not think this was a bad deal for the Clips, especially in relation to where their team stands right now. Kaman is, for all his faults, is at relatively young stage of career and has shown a clear path of development of last few years (I shall excuse to validate on this since it is discussed prior to this post). And taking into consideratoin by end of contract Kaman would still be in his late 20s, regardless of whether he is overpaid or not, he is a tradable commodity IMO. Tradable Kaman and competiting is probably better than loosing him for nothing IMO, especially since Clips arent not going to attractive bargain free agent capped at the max. More to the point, I think by extending Kaman's contract, Clips are gaining respectability and showing a degree of commitment to be competitive again. I suspect that this should be have positive effect on other players' morale. Overall, I think the deal was not so much Kaman himself but Clips effort to become competitive again - at a cost.