7/30 ESPN Insider - Teams Overspending

[OutletPass]

Teams often feel pressure to overspend
By Terry Brown
NBA Insider
Wednesday, July 30
Updated: July 30
10:03 AM ET


It is Wednesday, July 30, 2003.


Do you know where your favorite restricted free agent is?

Ten days after matching the Miami Heat's offer sheet for Elton Brand, the Los Angeles Clippers also matched an offer sheet from the Utah Jazz for Corey Maggette and have one day left to match an offer sheet for Andre Miller or lose him to the Denver Nuggets.

"That says both good and bad for Andre," Nugget general manager Kiki Vandeweghe told the Denver Post. "We'll just have to wait and see. The good is [the Clippers] used up some of their (salary) cap space, and the bad is they used some of their cap space."

Corey Maggette
Guard-Forward
Los Angeles Clippers
Profile


2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
64 16.8 5.0 1.9 .444 .802



But if Brand really is worth his reported $83 million deal and Maggette worth his $43 million deal and the Clippers really do intend to re-sign Lamar Odom at an expected $60 million as the Nuggets offer Miller $55 million, then how come this group of players won only 27 games last year to finish second to last in the entire Western Conference?

Sure, they had injuries. Yeah, one of them ran afoul of the league's drug policy. Some of them didn't get along with the owner or the coach or all of the above. Starting center Michael Olowokandi, for one, was injured, didn't get along with the front office and has already signed with another team.

But can they all really be this good?

"Through consistent hard work and effort, Corey has improved his game each year he has been in the league," Clippers general manager Elgin Baylor said in the L.A. Times, "and there is no reason to believe he won't continue to get even better. We're really glad that he will be back for the long term."

But he got better because Odom didn't. Maggette's numbers went from 11.4 points and 3.7 rebounds per game to 16.8 points and five rebounds per game last season because he played 400 more minutes than he did the previous year. And he played that many more minutes because Odom participated in only 49 of 82 games last season.

By matching Maggette's offer sheet, the Clippers are saying that he's worth about $7 million a season. Odom's asking price has been put at about $10 million per season. That's $17 million of actual money and cap space dedicated to one position.

Shouldn't it have been Maggette or Odom rather than Maggette and Odom for a franchise that was so used to getting neither Maggette nor Odom?

Or didn't it also look a bit funny when the Heat, already paying a 6- foot-9 power forward named Brian Grant more than $12 million per season, offered Brand, an even shorter 6-foot-8 power forward, about that same amount of money.

If the Clippers hadn't matched Brand's offer sheet and made him the highest-paid Clipper in franchise history, then the Heat would have had more than $24 milion in undersized, albeit talented, power forwards.

Sure, one of them would have had to play center, just like either Maggette or Odom can move to shooting guard or point guard or . . .

But then where does that leave Quentin Richardson or, dare we say it, Andre Miller?

Jason Terry
Guard
Atlanta Hawks
Profile


2002-2003 SEASON STATISTICS
GM PPG RPG APG FG% FT%
81 17.2 3.4 7.4 .428 .887



And while we're at it, we should point out that the Jazz are expected to but as of today have not yet offered Atlanta Hawk point guard Jason Terry, also a restricted free agent, an offer sheet. The Jazz, we should also mention, have $21 million in cap space. The Hawks, holding Terry's Bird Rights, can match any number the Jazz put up there.

We mention this because, looking at a scoresheet, it's hard to tell the difference between him and restricted free agent Gilbert Arenas, who has already signed an offer sheet with the Washington Wizards for $65 million.

Jason Terry: 17.2 ppg, 7.4 apg, 42 FG%

Gilbert Arenas: 18.3 ppg, 6.3 apg, 43 FG%

Andre Miller: 13.6 ppg, 6.7 apg, 40 FG%

But with Arenas all but tied up with the Wizards, Miller moves to the forefront after being wooed by the Jazz, signed by the Nuggets and, as we speak, contemplated by the Clippers. Next up will be Terry, who is talking to those same Jazz as the Hawks vow to match any forthcoming offer.

The point is that not all of these players are going to turn into all-stars and not all of them are going to be worth this type of money. It's a numbers thing involving a finite number of slots available and a limitless supply of people who want to fill them. The reality is that one or more or, possibly, even most of them will end up being overpaid.

The real danger, though, is that sometimes it takes only one player, and not even a key player, to set an entire franchise back for decades.

In 1989, before the current Collective Bargaining Agreement with its salary cap and luxury taxes and so on, the Detroit Pistons signed free-agent big man Jon Koncak to an incredible offer sheet or whatever they called it back then. It's wasn't that the Pistons had to have Koncak. They already had Bill Lambier, James Edwards, John Salley and Dennis Rodman. But they knew that the Hawks, their main rival in the East at the time, thought that they had to have him.

In reality, though, the Hawks were the only team that thought that they had to have him when they were already loaded with Dominique Wilkins, Moses Malone, Reggie Theus, Kevin Willis and Doc Rivers.

But they panicked.

What if they lost a young, 7-foot center? What if they lost a young, 7- foot center to their rivals? What if they lost a young, 7-foot center to their rivals who had just won one NBA title and would go on to win another the very next season?

Does Brad Miller sound familiar here?

You could almost hear the Pistons giggle as the Hawks went on to, basically, match the offer and pay Koncak more money than Larry Bird, Kevin McHale, Clyde Drexler, Mark Price or Alex English were making at the time.

"He thought it was a joke," Steve Kauffman, Koncak's agent, said later. "And he never felt right about it and he never played as well again."

In 1989, Koncak averaged 4.7 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.3 blocks as the Hawks won 52 games. A year later, he averaged 3.7 points, 4.1 rebounds and 0.6 blocks as the Hawks won only 41.

It is argued that neither the player nor the franchise ever recovered.

Which brings us back to Jason Terry and Andre Miller and so on at this time of the season when every franchise believes it has to have that next player.

"I'd like to speak with David McDavid -- or whoever is going to be the guy running the Hawks -- one-on-one," Raymond Brothers, Terry's agent, said to the Atlanta Journal Constitution. "Jason has some stuff on the table, but it depends on the direction the [Hawks] franchise is going."

The problem, though, is that the Hawks are still asking themselves that same question.

[Dooby]

grassy-ass.

[Chiwas]

The real danger, though, is that sometimes it takes only one player, and not even a key player, to set an entire franchise back for decades.

"If you see your neighbor's beard being cut, put yours to soak".

[jayC]

Sound familiar raef lafrentz. OH well, hes right about terry, arenas, and miller they are the same player at least two of them are way overpaid. They all are shoot first pgs, isn't it funny that in the crunch mussleman didn't even use arenas he used boykins. Their is a reason denver, atlanta are bad franchises.

[Big Boy Laroux]

miller is a shoot-first PG? has his game changed that much since going to LA?