If the Blazers sign Batum before making other moves they lose the cap space. They can go over the cap wit Batum. They can't go over the cap to sign someone else.
I like Nic and I hope he remains a Blazer for many years to come ... That said, the Blazers would be fools to pay him several million dollars over his "real" value (measured in his ability to generate wins, not what the market will bear). There are going to be some really painful penalties for overpaying guys in the new CBA and frankly I think the Blazers might be wise to keep those purse strings tight except for the truly game-bending top 15 players in the league -- such as Deron Williams, etc. If Toronto comes after him for 11 million a year then let him go and draft Harrison Barnes. Barnes won't be a star and he's pretty one-dimensional, but he'll be somewhat productive as a scorer and he'll be a helluva lot cheaper and easier to move in a trade should the need ever arise. The summer is going to require great patience and will-power from whomever is pulling the levers behind the curtain at One Center Court. Getting emotional and making rash decisions could affect the team for the next 4 or 5 years and ruin any chance this team might have of returning to a level of competitiveness that a lot of us would like to see. If they fuck it up, they could wind up with a roster full of pretty average players with not much of a ceiling higher than what you see out of the Milwaukee Bucks most nights. Spending 11 million on Nic would be a step towards a potentially pretty mediocre future because of how much cap room he would represent and all of the other fairly gaping holes that need to be filled.
Looking around the league there aren't many available swings I'd want rather rather than Batum. Barnes? He has potential but can you really plug him into a role with major minutes? It's going to be a few years with this rout. Babbitt? He's a specialist who should get spot minutes. The leverage is with Batum and his agent. It's going to be a bidding war and his agent has been pissed off at the Blazers FO since they refused to come close to what they were asking for. I get that they wanted flexibility in this FA market but with a below average roster outside LMA/Nic, a disorganized FO, how is this a destination? As a small market you build through the draft and keep those player that pan out (which is VERY rare with Portland).
Batum isn't a star and doesn't deserve more than the contract Arron Afflalo got from Denver ($7.5 mil). If the Raptors want to offer more so they can build a team around overpaid role players, then I'd let him walk. I would target a SF via trade or draft since free agent options stink for the SF spot this summer.
Yeah, I'm with craigehlo on this. I think the general rule of thumb is that you overpay for stars; you don't overpay role players. Basically, if you think Batum can be a star--or at least a legit second option on a contender--then you match whatever. If not--then you do like Nik says, pay him only his role-based value and no more. I don't think he's worth #1 or #2 money. Anything more than $8M/yr is too much, IMO.
I don't care if he gets paid 10 million, it's not like his bump in salary is going to keep the blazers from signing deron williams.
Another possibility is that we sign and trade Batum. What if we are not able to "reload", not able to sign Williams or Dragic, then we might have to "rebuild"; Toronto has the the #8 pick in the draft, that plus Kleiza or Amir Johnson. So we would have three lottery picks. Of course if we do that we'd have to consider trading Aldridge also I guess.
Your right--Deron Williams not wanting to come to Portland is what's going to keep the Blazers from signing Deron Williams. Either way, it still doesn't seem like intelligent team construction to pay $10M for a role player. It might not impact FA signings this summer (although it might), but it could impact future trades, future offseason dealings, etc. I just don't see him as worth the cost. I think that would be incredible, but I doubt TOR would give up their #8 for Batum. But even getting Kleiza in a Batum S&T deal would be pretty decent.
Batum takes up cap space before he's signed. They have the cap hold rules to prevent teams from being able to defer signing their own RFA to have the cap space his contract would otherwise consume.
There are WAY too many needs on this team to tie up so much salary on Batum. This team needs a new backcourt in the worst way and the money would be better spent gong after Dragic and Eric Gordon IMHO. On the plus side, I think Batum's stock dropped a bit in the last couple of months as the Blazers tanked.
True, but Nic's cap hold is about $5.4M and, since he'll likely command a new salary in the $8-$10M range, the Blazers still have more money to spend on UFAs by deferring signing him than they would if they signed him first.
Well, if they valued him so highly that we didn't want to match, maybe they would. i guess one problem with a S&T would be that Batum would have to agree... (But they do speak a lot of French in Canada!)
The worst thing about matching a $10mil offer to Batum would be that he would immediately become this board's new whipping boy. The bitching and sniping would be unbearable.
It's crazy to think Nicolas was once rumored as the centerpiece for CP3 and now we'd be willing to give him up for a difference for $2-2.5 mil. Maybe a new coach and new style will finally see him blossom. I'd hate to lose him.
If we can wait until after our other pieces are in place, I would match any offer. No one is going to give him anything close to the max, for crying out loud. No need to worry about it now. My guess is we'll get him for the $8-9mil per year he supposedly wanted in the first place. Although it's possible his value may have dropped.
this article at business insider places the value of a winshare at 1.47 million dollars, and last year batum accrued 4.8 winshares in 59 games. that extrapolated over 82 games would be 6.67 winshares (oddly enough, batum accrued 6.6 winshares in 2010/11 in 80 games) soooo..... it stands to reason then that batum has already been worth roughly 10 million dollars production wise over each of the last two seasons (6.6 winshares *1.47 million per winshare = 9.7 million)...then on top of that you are also likely paying a premium for his potential due to his age, so 11 or 12 million a year seems like a reasonable offer sabermetrically speaking if he gets that offer remains to be seen
umm, yes? what people make hardly ever coincides with their actual worth i didnt do the math, if you have a better figure im all ears
