Sometimes you people just make me want to roll my eyes. Von wanted more money than he was worth. Period. I hope that he does well, and gets to play, with Olympiakos, but my gut tells me they won't let him sniff the court.
No. He just wanted market value based on what other guys at his position and who put up similar numbers make. Unfortunately, it was just the misfortune of bad timing and him being on the market in a horrible time for NBA players trying to get comparable pay to their peers. If you're going to believe he wanted more than he is worth then you will have to concede that 90% of the players in the league are getting paid more than they are worth.
They are. Tell me Gortat deserved as much as he got for one playoff series. The fact that Bonzi was offered an unreal amount of money three years ago and is now not even in the NBA is a testament to how skewed the system is. I'd rather Morey be smart about the money and get quality guys that work hard and win games than over pay someone because of "potential" or "athleticism"
I didn't like how he let his emotions get the better of him on the floor, and how it negatively impacted his game. I didn't like the way he showed his frustrations as he headed to the bench. But I never really had a problem with his tunnel vision -- his strength was providing scoring punch and penetration, and he did that. You need some guys who are willing to take a little more than the defense is giving them. And there were stretches where he did a very good job of driving and kicking, or finding players under the rim. So its not like he was a total blackhole. He had better passing skills than Luther Head ... not saying much, but still. I think he's a guy who hasn't (and may never) learn how to control his emotions. He has maturity issues. But he's also a guy who played hard, wouldn't shy away from a big moment, and was eager to improve while he was with us. I'll miss him for that.
This is flat out wrong. When you work in another country you pay that country's taxes AND us income taxes. There are various deductions available, but someone making several million per year is going to have most of his income subject to US tax. http://taxes.about.com/od/taxhelp/a/ForeignIncome.htm Hope this helps.
Most everyone is paid on potential early in their career. Teams gamble on a guy getting better as his contract gets larger. Some gambles pay off and some don't, but that's the cost of doing business. Let me give you a example. When Billups,hedo, and salmons signed the mle deals, they were really worth it at the time, but given their age and upside, it was worth the risk. All three out performed their deals in a short amount of time, but at the time, it was like ok, lets see. Von even in his small sampling was worth around 2-2.5m. Worse case scenerio, its a easy to move contract that is short for a young guy. Best case is that the rockets get a 10ppg guy off the bench who changes offensive flow and droughts. The rockets also get a young guy that if he needs to start for a few games have shown he can do the same as a starter. No to a team like gsw,dallas, and a few others, that's not that big of a deal, but with a team like the rockets that have had major problems scoring during the regular season and the playoffs, that's huge. Like durvasa said, the playoff blowup was uncalled for and adelman has had to deal with those kind of players for years in portland, but I think with the economic climate we see today that a lot of guys are getting squeezed and its not because they can't play. I mean session don't have a deal and neither does david lee. Seesions is better than a lot of teams pg's. He's better than anything memphis,minny,portland,ny,milw,indy,char, and on and on and lee is in the same boat, but they can't get deals even being restricted. As much as I like miller, I wouldve offered sessions 6m per vs his 8, but if you look at the contracts, its really a 2 yr deal and by then maybe bayless will be ready. Everyone is loading up for next yr and they will be saddened by time, watch.
This is a pretty good summary of Von, I would have hoped that bouncing around the league his first couple of years would have helped him mature more. Hope he enjoys being overseas and develops more. Whether some think he's overrated or not, he is going to be missed this coming season.
Hopefully he can grow as a person and a player over there for the next couple years. I hope there are no hard feelings between him and the Rockets, and in 2 years if he grows up, get him back.
I think Von was seeking a deal that was very "fair" by NBA player salary standards. I agree the system is skewed but all the guy wanted was what he felt he was worth based on what everyone else around him who does the same job was making. Either way, good luck to him. I'm sure he will be a hit in Europe as well as learn a few things about team ball.
I agree completely with this. Great summary. I don't think anyone here expected him to be perfect or even well-rounded but the way some people discount his strengths as if they come a dime a dozen puzzles me.
Oh no. Just phonetically, "Von Wafer" in Greek means "Von Based." Von your Based are Belong to Greece!
Lord that was really hard to read paragraphs my friend paragraphs! I agree that people are paid on potential, but that doesn't make it fiscally intelligent to do all the time. Morey has been successful in finding people he doesn't have to overpay for their potential and still put a competitive team on the floor... despite injuries to the star players. The lowering of the cap is intended to level this out so that teams aren't paying people like Brian Cook 3.5 million dollars to suck. ('scuse my language) Yes it's going to hurt some people this year, meaning they could get paid less because the standard is lessened or they can go to Europe and maybe get paid over there. The value of a player is what the market will bare, in this case Von's value was higher than we, or apparently any other team in the NBA, is willing to pay... so he was asking too much. I don't begrudge any of them trying to earn their money, that's why they have agents to negotiate for them. But I would rather we find the hidden gems than "overpay" what other teams in the NBA are willing to spend on players with similar talents.
I guess now he is going to suck overseas now. Hmmm i guess it was all about the money after all. tisk tisk tisk.
I don't think he is just potential. He has good value... just not as high a value monetarily in this market as what his agent believed he could get. Which is why he looked for options overseas. My point wasn't that Von didn't produce and isn't a good player... it was that we weren't going to overpay him more than the market would have paid him here. And that we shouldn't overpay anyone due to the fact that we need athleticism which seems to be what a lot of people place such a high value on in Von and in James White. Also though, take into consideration that this was his first year of actually producing, which isn't odd because it takes a lot of players time to find their niche... but like with Gortat, one good season does not a long term midlevel commitment make. And I can guess what your next comment is going to be... "Well we gave it to Ariza." Ariza had more than one good season. Check out his career stats... check to the bottom and see how he compares to his peers... http://www.nba.com/playerfile/trevor_ariza/career_stats.html now compare that to Von... http://www.nba.com/playerfile/von_wafer/career_stats.html
Well now that we have Landry and Scola, Chuck Hayes is not worth the money we are paying him now, right? DD
Don't bait me! Chuck is getting paid less than both of those guys to come off the bench and save the day when they can't defend well enough. Trust me, he is being paid pretty much exactly what he is worth.
