Hell, it's not $11M a year for the 5 guys it would take to make up for his production. It'll be anyone it takes to stay under the cap, and next you'll be telling us that Pargo (or whoever it is) is an upgrade at SG over whoever. If you're talking about Ben Gordon, he got paid $10M last season.
It looks like the Bulls are doing neither, which is really the worst of both worlds. They're back-loading Boozer's agreement so that they have more cap space. But then they're spending that cap space on players who aren't going to be on he books when the luxury tax begins to loom. If you're going to try become a contender, make moves that will put you there; if you aren't, make moves that will give you flexibility in the future. Right now they're just splitting the baby.
There was report in the Salt Lake whatever saying the Jazz will receive a 13 million dollar trade exemption.
I don't think Boozer's contract is front loaded, it's back end loaded. The advantage of doing an S&T for the Bulls is that the contract could start out lower and end up being the same $$$ amount since Utah could give him 10.5% raises and the Bulls only 8%. At 5/$75M which was reported, he makes an average of $15M/year. If it starts at $13M, it's going to end up at $17M. Conveniently, 13,14,15,16,17 adds up to 75... The Bulls would want to pay less up front because it frees up $2M in cap space to spend on LeBron (FAIL) or Wade (FAIL).
In a nutshell. I also think they might be in for a rude awakening come ticket sales time. I don't see much to be excited about here. They're blowing it.
I'm sorry. I spoke incorrectly because I am an idiot. They are backloading the agreement which is the worst of both worlds. Also I want to mention that my analysis above is really a year off. I included the contracts one year too late. I am going to make the correction.
Seeing as how they led the league in attendance last year and didn't have many tickets to sell, I don't think that's going to be a very good proxy for how well they did. Personally, I'll judge the moves based on how far they go in the playoffs.
