SlightlyOdway

Off topic but thought you might be interested. Philippines playing with only 3 players in World Cup qualifier against Australia after 9 players ejected.

Says a lot about our season

I feel a bit the same way. Also, in hindsight not picking up his option is dumb, but these guys are smart guys. There would have been a level of justification in making the decision. I gather it was to get cap room to sign our RFA's. At the time maybe they thought resigning a break out Payton as our starting PG was the more likely outcome than Mario actually showing he was worthy of a spot on an NBA team. What I'd like to know, but probably never find out, is how legit was Mario's leg injury last year, were the front office fully aware of it and did they believe the seriousness of it? If it really was as bad as he is saying, then last year is a wash and not picking up his option was nuts. Having said all that I think we are in with a rough chance of signing him to a 1 & 1 (player option) contract given (as per an article I referenced last week sometime); 12 teams are projected to be in luxury tax 5 are toying with the tax line at least 3 of the bottom teams are tipped to give this free agency season a miss. There would be a handful of free agents that might be preferred over Mario (unrestricted & restricted on teams under salary pressure) There aren't going to be many teams offering much more that the tax payers MLE of $5.8m? We can offer $5.2m so the gap isn't massive.

Haven't watched the game. Is there any more to this? Did he return?

The article says 12 teams are projected to be over luxury tax, further, says that another handful (assume 5) could go over the luxury tax to resign their RFA's. Add that the article assumes at least 3 of the 7 teams with significant cap space arent buyers at this point. My assertion, based on the assumption the the article is accurate is that not many teams will be offering more than the $5.4m taxpayer midlevel exemption (to any free agent) which is not a great deal more than the $5.2m we can offer.

Here it is; http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/22263630/nba-financial-crunch-coming I've probably paraphrased / interpreted definitions wrongly?

I was reading an article that said a lot of teams are already in luxury tax and another chunk are on the edge of it. Luxury tax is apparently far more punitive than in the past and teams aren't readily going over it, especially for a guy like Mario. It suggested that most teams in the market will only have the taxpayer midlevel exemption to work with at $5.4. And those that aren't in salary hell aren't really ready to contend and might be better off keeping that flexibility until 2019 or 20 when some of the recent huge contracts start coming off the books. So a 1 + 1 (player option) at $5.2m for Mario might be enough to entice him to stay?

I know I've asked this question before and we came to the conclusion that the most we can offer Mario is $5m odd and one year if we now wish to resign him. I've been digging to try to confirm this, even downloaded the CBA, but that did my head in. Anyway, I've found a page (I'm an Aussie, so not sure if the reference is legit) that appears to confirm that we are limited to the dollars in the first year. But makes no reference to limiting the length of the contract we could offer in to just one year. Also referencing P4TW who thinks a Ben McLemore type contract is what Mario may expect in free agency, we wouldn't be far off being able to compete if we are able to offer more years even if the first year is limited to the $5m mark. Can you back end a contract to make up for that first year short fall? Anyway, this is what I found at https://basketball.realgm.com/analysis/247867/CBA-Encyclopedia-Rookie-Scale-Contracts

Go read what P4TW wrote in the game thread. We can't offer more than the 5.4m / 1yr qualifying offer. So if he keeps playing like this (big "if") we can't resign him

Thanks for that. So effectively there is no point playing him? We either end up showcasing him for other teams and get nothing in return. Or he just proves he's not up to it and he finished up at the end of the year. Either way, he's not here next year. I suppose there is a slim chance he does enough for us to justify signing him for 5.3m but not enough to get other teams interested, or he really explodes and helps us get to the playoffs but they're a very narrow window of opportunity.

I guess this is what I was asking. Are we limited to the 1 year 5.3m offer? So say he explodes over the remainder of the year we are still limited to this figure? Every other team can offer whatever they like from a $ and/or years perspective but we can't? I know this scenario isn't likely but just trying to get my head around the decision not to pick up his option.

Just for interests sake. If over the remainder of the season Mario proves that he is an actual NBA player, what are the implications of having not picked up his option? Is it simply that we would be competing on the open market for him?

Thanks

Can somebody explain how the salaries work? Seems Thomas and crowder are still $6m short. Salaries have to match right, give or take? What are draft picks worth when assessing trade values?

I gather Jeff Hammond "likes this team" :panicworker:

Australian poster here, there are nuances between the NBA and Aussie game that I'm wondering is the reason for my below observation, so maybe you guys could help me here. RE: Mario When he's on, he just stands stationary, never seems to move unless something (rarely) is specifically run for him. Looks lazy to me, but is this just by design? JJ, once the trust was there, was constantly moving ,baseline cuts, running through multiple screens to get open. Is what Mario doing the coaches decision or would Mario have the ability to move a bit more if he chose to? If its a coaches decision do posters see him taking on a bit more of a JJ role if/when he does earn the trust of the coaching staff? Does he have the engine to do this? RE: Payton Seems to me that when he came into the league he was a tenacious one on one defender. But under Skiles (to my eye anyway) his entire defensive scheme was to have the PG simply heard the offensive PG baseline into rim protecting help. Even though we had no rim protector! This seemed to take the spark right out of Payton. Seems now, Payton has more freedom to pick up the one on one defense a bit more, but still on occasions falls back into old Skiles habits. Would this be an accurate observation, or am I well off the mark?

Not sure Frye would help Pelicans much? http://www.hoopsrumors.com/2015/12/hoops-rumors-community-shootaround-122815.html

How much does league pass cost in the UK?

Hi Guy, I'm an Australian Magic supporter and I only get to see the odd magic game. However, watching this year I've been relatively impressed with Oladipo so far and was thinking that he is a long term future star guard. But then I read this and started to wonder if I just haven't seen enough Magic basketball to draw such a conclusion. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/the-dirtiest-dozen--12-nba-teams-that-have-no-reason-to-win-another-game-this-year-221606432.html "As it stands, Hennigan’s team entered a rebuilding year in 2012-13 without a high end lottery pick, and it had to use the end result of that terrible season on a second overall selection in Victor Oladipo that doesn’t really seem like a star in the making." Reading this in the context of the rest of the article, it implies to me that Oladipo is somewhat of a failure unworthy of a number 2 pick. So I initially thought that we would be drafting with the objective of finding Oladipo a star partner for the future. But reading this, should we be looking at best available even if it results in the drafting of a direct competitor for Oladipo and being open to trading him?

Just to clarify before you think JJ has done something wrong, the incident is humorous rather than malicious. My comment was tongue in cheek

Play of the game? JJ's head butt coming out of the timeout with about 5:40 left in the third period?