<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Hours before the Celtics traded for Chucky Atkins, I caught wind of the deal and suffered a total meltdown. I banged a table with my fist, pushed over a chair, dropped a few F-bombs. I may as well have been wearing a Rasheed Wallace jersey. As my dog, Dooze, scurried for safety, I stomped over to my laptop and whipped up an angry e-mail to a friend, in which I detailed every reason the trade shouldn't happen. The gist: thanks to Danny Ainge, we were already headed to the lottery, and, as the NBA teaches us every summer, cap flexibility matters over everything else. So why target a mediocre guard with two-plus years and $9 million left on his contract? Was a lame pick and some cash really worth that? I was dumbfounded. Three hours later, the trade went through. Of course it did.</div> Full Story By Bill Simmons
Give Ainge some time, I know it's a difficult thing to do because of Boston's storied franchise, and Bean Town's fans are so passionate but it's the right thing to do. First off, Boston is the youngest team in The Eastern Conference. Rebuilding is tough, but it seems Danny Ainge has made the right moves thus far in terms of rebuilding. Plenty of young talent Chris Mihm, Jiri Welsch, Brandon Hunter, Marcus Banks, and Kendrick Perkins all show great promise and all of them are still in their early 20s are younger. Plenty of Draft Selections Boston has three first round draft picks and two second round selections. They have their first round, likely to be a lottery selection, and they have Dallas's and Detroit's first picks. They have two second round draft picks as well, their's and Cleveland's, both should be pretty low selections. CAP SPACE With Vin Baker gone, Boston will have 10 Million + to spend on free agents, pending the league rules in their favor on the matter (which is likely). They have alot of solid role players, getting another great scorer in the free agency market could improve this team dramatically. I believe Ainge has done the right thing thus far. With Walker and Pierce they were limited, they over achived, and thus it was time for a change. Ainge has bigger and better plans for this franchise, competing within The East is no longer their objective, winning a championship is. Boston has an abundance of young talent and draft picks. They're a deep team without alot of versatility. They have a star to build around and they have cap space. This team is on the right track, trust me...
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting King James X3:</div><div class="quote_post">Give Ainge some time, I know it's a difficult thing to do because of Boston's storied franchise, and Bean Town's fans are so passionate but it's the right thing to do. First off, Boston is the youngest team in The Eastern Conference. Rebuilding is tough, but it seems Danny Ainge has made the right moves thus far in terms of rebuilding. Plenty of young talent Chris Mihm, Jiri Welsch, Brandon Hunter, Marcus Banks, and Kendrick Perkins all show great promise and all of them are still in their early 20s are younger. Plenty of Draft Selections Boston has three first round draft picks and two second round selections. They have their first round, likely to be a lottery selection, and they have Dallas's and Detroit's first picks. They have two second round draft picks as well, their's and Cleveland's, both should be pretty low selections. CAP SPACE With Vin Baker gone, Boston will have 10 Million + to spend on free agents, pending the league rules in their favor on the matter (which is likely). They have alot of solid role players, getting another great scorer in the free agency market could improve this team dramatically. I believe Ainge has done the right thing thus far. With Walker and Pierce they were limited, they over achived, and thus it was time for a change. Ainge has bigger and better plans for this franchise, competing within The East is no longer their objective, winning a championship is. Boston has an abundance of young talent and draft picks. They're a deep team without alot of versatility. They have a star to build around and they have cap space. This team is on the right track, trust me...</div> Great post I agree with just about all of it. My one problem with Ainge is that, the more I think about the last trade they made the less I like it. Cap space was lost by Ainge when he gave up Mills for the draft pick and Atkins. I would rather have about 17 million in cap space and two first rounders than 10 million in cap space and 3 draft picks, two that will be in the twenties.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting King James X3:</div><div class="quote_post">With Vin Baker gone, Boston will have 10 Million + to spend on free agents</div> You had trouble with this on the Suns' forum as well... just because a player with a $10 million contract leaves via free agentcy (or in this case being released) doesn't mean that team gets $10 million extra cap space... most teams in the NBA are WELL over the Salary Cap, which means they cannot sign free agents... they can do sign and trades, and usually teams are assigned a mid-level exception by the league. There are rules allowing teams to sign free agents, but it's not like Boston can go out and sign a player to a $10 miillion contract this summer because Baker is gone... they will have $43 million in salary next year, meaning they should be a bit below the cap next year... then of course there's the draft picks they have to sign, and I'm sure Ainge has more trades in mind... so Boston cannot be a player in Free Agentcy without some Sign & Trade or if they are granted some exceptions (in which case they won't get a big name Free Agent from it). With the soft salary cap, and all the Larry Bird rights... teams can go OVER the salary cap in certain circumstances, and signing free agents (not currently on their roster) ARE NOT one of them. Take this for example... New York will free up $5.5 million next year when Travis Knight and a few others become free agents, even if Penny and Kurt Thomas opt out of their contracts ($20 million between the two), the Knicks will STILL be $30+ million over the cap.
I fully understand the cap system, I heard somewhere that The Suns had more money to spend than just 10 million like you said. Perhaps I was misinformed, the link you provided is quite helpful though. Quick question, where can you find what next years salary cap limit will be? That could help determine exactly how much money teams will have to spend on free agents.
^^^^ Here we go again. I fully understand the cap system, perhaps I should just explain myself further. Technically Boston doesn't have 10 million THIS SEASON to spend on free agents. But here's how it breaks down with Vin Baker off their pay roll. Baker was due to make I believe 36 million over the next 2 1/2 years. Now releasing Baker opens up all that cash over that time frame. I'm not exactly sure what the salary cap is going to be next season, but Boston CAN sign a solid free agent. How? They simply defer the cash over a certain period of time. Sign the free agent, give him the contract he desires. The trick is having him earn in his first season, next season, less than he will in the years following. That way if you pick up a free agent who earns say 9-10 million a year on average, you can still sign him with say 6-7 million of cap space. Simply give him that 6-7 million his first year, than defer the contract's cash over the years he signed for, paying him more as cap space opens up in the following years as it will in Boston's situation. You understand where I'm coming from? It's a common practice among NBA Franchise owners today. New Jersey did the exact same thing with Jason Kidd last offseason when resigning him to a long term deal. Look at his contract, this season he'll only make 13 million, but as his contract reaches later seasons his annual salary picks up and he earns 20 Million in both the 07-08 and 08-09 seasons.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting King James X3:</div><div class="quote_post">Give Ainge some time, I know it's a difficult thing to do because of Boston's storied franchise, and Bean Town's fans are so passionate but it's the right thing to do. First off, Boston is the youngest team in The Eastern Conference. Rebuilding is tough, but it seems Danny Ainge has made the right moves thus far in terms of rebuilding. Plenty of young talent Chris Mihm, Jiri Welsch, Brandon Hunter, Marcus Banks, and Kendrick Perkins all show great promise and all of them are still in their early 20s are younger. Plenty of Draft Selections Boston has three first round draft picks and two second round selections. They have their first round, likely to be a lottery selection, and they have Dallas's and Detroit's first picks. They have two second round draft picks as well, their's and Cleveland's, both should be pretty low selections. CAP SPACE With Vin Baker gone, Boston will have 10 Million + to spend on free agents, pending the league rules in their favor on the matter (which is likely). They have alot of solid role players, getting another great scorer in the free agency market could improve this team dramatically. I believe Ainge has done the right thing thus far. With Walker and Pierce they were limited, they over achived, and thus it was time for a change. Ainge has bigger and better plans for this franchise, competing within The East is no longer their objective, winning a championship is. Boston has an abundance of young talent and draft picks. They're a deep team without alot of versatility. They have a star to build around and they have cap space. This team is on the right track, trust me...</div> Very knowledgeable post. I like you already! The thing that made me really question Ainge's judgement is the Ricky Davis trade. I wasn't thrilled about him trading Antoine, but it was definitely time for a change and I'm sure the team ownership wanted it. In fact, the owner is probably the one who told Ainge to do all this rebuilding. Hmm... Anyway, back to the Cleveland trade, even a rebuilding team can use veteran leadership. Especially with all the young players coming in, there was no reason to trade away Williams and Battie unless it was for someone really good and young. Davis isn't the type of player you'd want to rebuild around, you know? Maybe if they would have given us Boozer, but they'd have to be crazy to do that. Williams's influence in the locker room, in practice, and on the court, is important enough to keep him around. It's even more important for a rebuilding team. Which brings me to the Atkins trade. Did Ainge feel guilty about trading away veterans, so he wanted to bring in Chucky to make up for it? I don't know how to explain this trade any other way. Mike James is a better player than Atkins, and he's cheaper. It was so close to the trade deadline, I don't think he really thought this move through. You lose money, and the team does not improve. All he did really was help Detroit out a lot. Since Ainge started this rebuilding job, it's only right to let him finish it and see if he can really restore this team. As I realized earlier in this post, though, he's probably doing everything the team owners want him to do.
I heard the cap is going to be around $53 million next season. Maybe a team like Atlanta would trade a high lottery pick like #2 or #3 for say #9 or so from Boston #24 from Dallas and #22 from Detroit. Whatever the actual numbers end up being, I think it's possible for Boston to make a trade and move up to Okafor or someone like that. I was really pissed about taking Chucky Atkins' contract too, but if three picks can bring in Okafor.....
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting King James X3:</div><div class="quote_post">With Vin Baker gone, Boston will have 10 Million + to spend on free agents</div> That was your quote, you said the same stuff on the Suns' board, you said Marbury, Penny, Googs, and McDyess are all going to be gone so they should have like $20-30 million. So I didn't misunderstand you... now you are just changing what you mean, but like I just posted on the Suns board, the CBA doesn't allow teams to sign players for cheap the first year and give them huge 2nd and 3rd year money... there is a 10% pay raise all based on the first year... so assuming the cap is similar to this year's, all of Boston's free agents are going to come from exceptions -- they can't sign somebody to a $1 million contract their first year and $10 million the next... so the free agents Boston are looking at probably aren't going to automatically make them a favorite in the East. So look for Ainge to make even more trades... LeFrentz, Davis, Stewert, and Atkins are making quite a bit of money, and in LeFrentz' case, it's way too much for way too long. They are in cap hell, and the only thing Ainge can do is trade for more talent... if you're gonna be over the cap you might as well be good.
I don't know what to say....how could Ainge be doing a good job when he took a playoff contender and made it into a potential playoff contender/possible lottery team? Everything he has done from the off-season to now has not been progressive and thats the gist of it. He has brought the team two steps back rather than foward. And it wasn't only Pierce and Walker, it was Battie, Eric Williams and Walter Mcarty that got it done in different ways
Ainge is ruining the Celtics, plain and simple...I think he'll end up doing what Layden did to the Knicks...eventually he'll target young players who wont pan out and then trade them for huge veteran contracts to try and make a forced playoff run...
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting HoustonHoopa33:</div><div class="quote_post">Ainge is ruining the Celtics, plain and simple...I think he'll end up doing what Layden did to the Knicks...eventually he'll target young players who wont pan out and then trade them for huge veteran contracts to try and make a forced playoff run...</div> That's the complete opposite of what Ainge is doing. He's stocking up on young players and draft picks, that's the direction he's going in. The reason you think that is because of Lafrentz, but that was probably the best player he could get for Walker, and he was set on moving Walker. The entire reason he made all these moves was to avoid another forced playoff run and become real contenders.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting HoustonHoopa33:</div><div class="quote_post">Ainge is ruining the Celtics, plain and simple...I think he'll end up doing what Layden did to the Knicks...eventually he'll target young players who wont pan out and then trade them for huge veteran contracts to try and make a forced playoff run...</div> No way as BigMemo said, Ainge is not doing that at all, he has traded away just about all the older Celtic players, besides Atkins, the team is very young. It seems to me as if he is against a forced playoff run as he could have made one this year, but he decided not to, to build for the future.
