haha, funny you say that, because man, I just realized: -- who walked away with the biggest contract of the super-hyped super-frenzied free agency of 2010? Thats right, not LeBron, not Wade, but JOE JOHNSON. I never saw Joe Johnson making more than LeBron James, either. lol.
Marc Gasol is not on the level of those guys and that was a situation unique to all of NBA history. Therefore, it's an unfair comparison to suggest because Wade and lebron teamed up, j. Johnson made the big payday therefore Marc will be paid more than pau.
So they do that during a contract year? You highlighted only part of the sentence, taking what I said out of context. Yeah, I agree that there are players that get lazy AFTER receiving a max contract. But I never claimed otherwise.
Did I say that? Did I say a single word about how I feel about a player that has already received a max contract? Or has the entire conversation been about what a player should play like PRIOR to receiving a max contract? Your response here is interesting considering the VERY NEXT SENTENCE in your response. Oh, my bad. I didn't know that we offered Kyle Lowry a max contract, which is the focus of the only point that I've made in this conversation.
Eddy Curry, Tim Thomas, Erika Dampier and esp. Jerome James all played well PRIOR to receiving big money. Dampier for example posted a double double in his contract year and then didn't even post a single double once he received big money from Dallas. That was the point I was trying to make, useless players try hard during their contract year to receive guaranteed money all the time, and then chill afterwards. So I don't really see why a player performing at epic levels during his contract year is a good thing, and why you should require that on players on their contract years. My point is that franchises like Memphis tend to make good players look worse than they really are, for example Lowry was buried behind Conley when he was the superior player. Gasol isn't worth 16 million a year, but my guess is on a team like ours he would be worth at least 12 Million a year considering how rare young, healthy two way centers are in the league. Overpaying 2-3 million is a small price to pay to get your hands on talent like that.
2 things here: 1) No way Memphis will agree to snt Gasol away. He is their best player, if he is signed to a reasonable contract why will they trade him away for a loose collection of assets? 2) You can think of overpaying Gasol as the equivalent of paying extra cash instead of giving basketball assets away. Convincing Memphis to part with Gasol means giving up several assets, assets which you can use to get other players instead. For example, instead of using Hill as a package to get Gasol, you can use Hill as a package to get CP3 and pair him with Gasol.Every successful team in the NBA is over the cap right now, and if you plan on going over the cap anyway, overpaying slightly on a critical player isn't going to matter much in the long run.
Well, he's not their best player. Zach Randolph is. And I don't even think he's their second best player -- Rudy Gay is. Marc Gasol is an above-average center, but he's not elite by any standards. Memphis is struggling financially, so perhaps a collection of assets that exceed their contract worth (Morey Ball) will appeal to him. While I agree with your line of thinking, I'd like to distinguish something. The Lakers are over the cap because they have Kobe, Pau, and Odom. The Celtics because they have KG, Pierce, Allen. The Heat because of LBJ, Wade, Bosh. We would be over the cap because we have Martin, Scola and Marc. See the difference there? Yikes. If you're going to commit to three high-priced contracts that keep you above the salary cap, you better be damn sure those high-priced guys are elite players that you can contend with. This is NOT the case with our current group + Marc.
