When you limit yourself to the cap or the LT threshold then yes, the players' salaries are like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle that have to fit. Of course a $9M player should be better than a $5M one, if you are good at evaluating talent.
LOL, that's my point - you cannot possibly have an intelligent basketball conversation with a person who acts as if each and every roster move is determined solely by salary. Eventually, you have no choice but to assume that folks like that just aren't capable of having an intelligent conversation that deals with the realities of modern professional sports, and the salary cap ramifications of said sport. In the PROFITS!!!!!!!!!!! world, a $10 million player HAS to be better than a $4 million player, right? For example, D.J. Augustin made the league minimum last season, so obviously he had to be one of the worst players in the league, or he would have made a lot more money. In the world of the PROFITS!!!!!!!!!! fan, the Spurs had absolutely no business winning the NBA Championship last season, considering the FACT that they were $7 million below the Luxury Tax line, and considering the FACT that they had the 19th highest payroll in the league. Intelligent fans can figure out that teams try to get the best players they can at the best price they can, since having a lower payroll allows the team to add more talented players within the rules of the Salary Cap when such a situation arises. Obviously the intelligent fan realizes it has nothing to do with PROFITS!!!!!!!, it has everything to do with putting the best possible team on the floor. That's why out of the 11 Luxury Tax seasons, two Championship-winning teams were under the Luxury Tax level, and three others were less than $1 million over the LT level. Just my stupid opinion, of course. I could certainly be wrong. Except for the factual stuff, of course.
I'm waiting for an intelligent fan to show up recently. You ignored the part about talent evaluation. A $9M player is going to be better than a $5M one. Case in point, Chandler vs. Smith. But you're the expert, right? The Bulls could have had both, since Smith signed for MLE-ish salary. If they did, a better chance to win, and better pieces to deal in trades. You're the expert, right? If the Bulls were a MAX salary over the cap, even over the LT, they could still have traded for a MAX player. That would have hurt profits, though. The proof of their motives is in the moves they made. Only an idiot would ignore profit motive.
2013-14 http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries14.txt Steve Nash (LAL) ........ $9,300,500 Andris Biedrins (Uta) ... $9,000,000 DJ Augustin (Chi) ... $755,459 Mason Plumlee ......... $1,298,640 Kemba Walker .......... $2,709,720 Klay Thompson ......... $2,445,480 2012-13 http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries13.txt Andrea Bargnani (Tor) ...... $10,000,000 Andris Biedrins (GS) ....... $9,000,000 Nate Robinson .............. $1,146,337 Jamal Crawford ............. $5,000,000 Anthony Davis .............. $5,144,280 2011-12 http://www.eskimo.com/~pbender/misc/salaries12.txt Carlos Boozer .............. $13,500,000 Omer Asik .................. $1,857,500 Taj Gibson ................. $1,195,680 I could go on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on............... But I'm pretty sure that has been covered...............
All else being equal, if wisely spent, a team with a 80 million dollar payroll budget has an advantage over a team with a 40 million dollar payroll budget. All else being equal, if wisely spent, a team with a 70 million dollar payroll budget has an advantage over a team with a 60 million dollar payroll budget. And so on.
The secret's in the "all other things being equal" part. All other things are seldom equal when it comes to putting together winning NBA teams. The best Bulls' team since the dynasty, IMO, was the 2010-11 team that went 62-20 and advanced to the EC finals. In order to assemble that team, the Bulls had to shed salary in order to obtain Boozer and key members of the Bench Mob. As with any team that wants to have their hat in the ring for above-MLE free agents, the Bulls had to accept a total team salary for that season that was at or below the salary cap figure. They accepted this lower team payroll limitation in order to get better. This stands your "all things being equal" statement on its ear. and in a typical offseason, at least 20% of NBA teams employ this strategy. The Bulls employed this strategy again this offseason and, IMO, succeeded in improving their team. Because the Bulls used their new "Room" exception, their team salary this season will be a couple mil above the cap number. Team-payroll-wise, they'll probably rank in the lower half of the league. If you see that ranking as a problem, well, I don't know what else to tell ya.
I think its a tall order to try and spin the Bulls Cap Space building and trying and failing to get Lebron / Wade and having to settle for and overpay Boozer as a success. Same with the whiff on Melo. Maybe 34, 35 and 36 year old Gasol can still deliver the goods, but its was a consolation prize, and he'll likely be the 3rd best big man on the team. Both of those instances are failures of the Bulls organization in executing their plan. The plan wasn't to overpay Boozer and settle for Gasol. It was to land Lebron, Wade, or Melo. Spinning it otherwise is just corporate communications claptrap, IMO. -------- Personally, I'd rather have 2 time all-star in his prime Luol Deng still on the roster, along with Mirotic who signed for basically the MLE and the rookies. We'll see how the season plays out. -------- If the tax number is basically a hard cap line, then you end up shedding quality players when you shouldn't have to, if you have the means and desire to pay. Payroll matters in professional sports. There are some rules in the CBA that are punitive if you spend over the tax and especially over the apron, but its also no surprise (to me at least) that the organizations in the tax era willing to have high payroll for extended times have won the titles. ----- We'll see if the Bulls way pans out this year. Tough to win NBA Titles banking on rookies and 34 year olds. Its been 17 years and they have 2 division championships, 0 conference championships and 0 NBA championships, so, ya know, if results matter, it might be time to rethink a few things, if the organization is interested in basketball success. The Forbes list thing is all taken care of. They are doing great there.
Transplant, Reinsdorf bought the Bulls for like $20M. He's made more than a quarter of a $BILLION in profits the past 5 seasons alone. The value of the franchise is likely in the $2B range. Forget about all the other years they raked in big profits. $2.5 BILLION. If they paid the $90M in tax that the Nets paid last season for the next 25 years, they'd still be a profitable investment 25 years from now. Getting under the cap to be able to sign players is not the only way you can add players to the roster. Note I'm not saying they should pay $90M in tax for the next 25 years, just pointing out how ridiculous it has been to avoid the tax all along.
It seems like you want the Bulls to pay the tax to prove to you that they care, or conversely, the fact that they haven't paid the tax but once seems to be proof enough for you that they don't care. Fine...we disagree. We also disagree that past profitability has any relevance to paying the tax going forward.
I want them to pay the tax so they can have an extra player or two that are not a minimum salary caliber player. Or to keep a player they'd otherwise have to dump for cap space to stay under the LT. Those things show they care. Not particularly paying the tax. Avoiding the tax is showing they don't care.
That's the sort of thing I'd expect to be said if a team was near the tax threshold and elected not to use one of their exceptions (MLE or BAE). As far as I know, whenever the Bulls have been over the salary cap, they've used their exceptions. Do you have an example? When has this happened? Korver? Asik? They still paid the tax that year so obviously those weren't moves made to stay under the LT. If you really liked Korver, I can see how that'd tick you off. Personally, I'd still take Belinelli and can see it as a basketball decision. As for Asik, that had little or nothing to do with tax avoidance. They offered him as much as they were allowed to offer which would have increased their LT payment if accepted. They just weren't willing to pay him the 3-year/$25mil. Are there other examples that are stuck in your craw?
Transplant, They don't have to use the MLE or BAE type exceptions to get over the cap or the LT, do they? They can trade for a player whose salary is 125% of the outgoing salaries. They can re-sign their own players to bigger contracts, like they might have with Belinelli, or they did with Lu and Kirk (back when Kirk was good), or they're going to with Jimmy soon enough. Yep, I really liked Korver. He was THE very best in the league at something meaningful to winning. Not something you can say about any of our players until last season (Noah DPOY).
So the re-sign your own players and keeping them is one piece of the puzzle that's broken. They've only re-signed and retained two players to date. Taj and Jo. That's to bigger contracts than their initial one. I maintain that going over the cap and even LT during the previous CBA was the best strategy for on the court. You do have to have an eye for talent, though. If the LT was $60M and a team had $100M in salaries, they could trade $40M of it for up to 125% more. That would allow teams to deal a Deng for a Gasol while staying way over. If you're under the LT and near the cap, Gasol is a really big chunk of your payroll and you don't want to pay for similar quality players, so you punt.
Deng and Asik together are actually a perfect example. People wanted the Bulls to match Asik's offer sheet so they could trade him, instead of "letting him walk for nothing". Just like Asik, Deng turned down the Bulls' extension, so they traded him, instead of "letting him walk for nothing".
They traded him for basically nothing to avoid the tax. Deng just wanted to test free agency. As it turns out, what the Bulls were willing to pay was the best contract he was offered. Its reasonable based on that to think he could still be on the team, if the Bulls were willing to pay the tax for just one more season. The Bulls would have also been better in the playoffs last season with a player like Deng.
