If your assumption that our contracts are bad ones is wrong, then what? Guess what? Those assumptions are wrong. I don't see any one of our players not on a rookie deal that another team wouldn't take for a 2nd rounder (if they could).
No, he wasn't. We had to use the stretch provision to spread out the final year and nearly $10 million of Varejao's contract over a five year period. BNM
Here's the thing. We have evidence. NO is a proven quality GM. He's willing to sign those contracts. His moves were entirely predictable because they are what quality GMs would do. That includes the trade for Nurkic - which goes to prove that our roster (and salaries) isn't cast in concrete. Brooklyn was willing to pay Crabbe his big contract. Crabbe's contract isn't that big - it's $7M less than Dame's (next season). Boston would have matched ET, but didn't have bird rights. The evidence seems to be at least 3 GMs would take those players on their "absurd" (lol) contract. And then there's the naysaying nabob of negativism on a message board telling me what other GMs think. Another positive thing for us is the dearth of SGs in free agency this coming summer. When I look at our salary structure, the big glaring issue is we're paying $50M for our starting guards. Running up against the LT is a given if we want to try to win. With a ~$120M LT threshold, that leaves about $6.6M per player to fill out a roster of 13.
How good a GM Olshey is, isn't clear. Beyond that, even solid GMs can make mistakes. I never said every player on the roster was unmovable. He traded a player who's decent and not (yet) expensive. That says nothing for his ability to move players with (in my view) bad contracts. I certainly judge good moves by whether Brooklyn would make them. And yeah, Crabbe's contract also isn't very big when compared with the cost of a stealth bomber. It's huge for a player who's as limited as Crabbe is. McCollum is a far better player. Do you have a source for that? I'm genuinely curious. We also have the report that even Turner was shocked at Portland's offer and when he told Iguodala about the offer, Iggy told him to grab it immediately. That certainly doesn't suggest that Portland was making the standard market offer. In the end, though, we can actually see what happens since Olshey has said, in the wake of the Plumlee deal, he wants to move some of these contracts. It's certainly possible that I'm wrong and they can be moved "cheaply." While I think that the vast majority of teams would want nothing to do with the contracts of Crabbe, Turner and Meyers, it only takes one team in any of those player's cases. Maybe Olshey finds such a team. But I certainly disagree with your belief that all these contracts are completely reasonable in the eyes of the rest of the NBA.
McCullom and Dame make far more money. "Best offer" implies there were others, a bidding war of sorts, for ET. https://www.boston.com/sports/bosto...ny-ainge-says-hed-like-to-re-sign-evan-turner Danny Ainge says he’d like to re-sign Evan Turner http://www.celticsblog.com/2016/7/1...rner-leaves-boston-celtics-for-portland-trail Free Agent Evan Turner leaves Boston Celtics for Portland Trail Blazers on 4 year $70 million deal But his early bird rights always signaled a strong possibility that his future was elsewhere. The Celtics' expectations were essentially how it played out, with Turner having offers from competitive teams that were too good to turn down. Although sources told CelticsBlog yesterday that the Celtics were expected to receive a chance to compete with Turner's best offer, the $17.5 million AAV was too rich for their roster structure, cap space and free agency targets. Had the Celtics held full bird rights, they could have held on to his low cap hold of $4.5 million and signed him to a large contract after using their cap space on free agents. But with early bird rights, the amount they could use to sign Turner without reducing their cap space was around $7 million. With their space earmarked for Al Horford and Kevin Durant, the Celtics are not in a position to commit significant space to non-starters before those two targets are off the market. With Turner's market value placing him at starter-level, there was little doubt that he was leaving Boston.
http://www.espn.com/blog/nba/rumors...n-turner-drawing-interests-from-several-teams NBA Rumor Central: Evan Turner drawing interest from several teams Free-agent guard Evan Turner is a wanted man. According to Sporting News, Turner is being courted by at least six teams. On Thursday, ESPN's Ian Begley reported that Turner is planning to meet with the New York Knicks, and Sporting News reports that the Bulls, Pelicans, Mavericks, Lakers and Grizzlies are all attempting to sign Turner as well. (Seems NO snuck in and got him, as the Blazers aren't mentioned among the 6 teams with interest in him.) CBS in Boston reported that 6 teams actually prepared offers: http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/07/01/celtics-evan-turner-nba-free-agency-lakers-bulls-knicks/ But they might not be able to wait very long. The Knicks, Bulls, Pelicans, Mavericks, Lakers and Grizzlies are all preparing their bids for Turner, according to The Sporting News.
Unsurprising, since they're much better players. That article doesn't source your claim that the Celtics wanted to match Portland's offer. It says that they "expected" to compete with his best offer but it turned out his best offer was far too high: Although sources told CelticsBlog yesterday that the Celtics were expected to receive a chance to compete with Turner's best offer, the $17.5 million AAV was too rich for their roster structure, cap space and free agency targets. It also doesn't surprise me that multiple teams were interested in Turner. Turner's a solid player with clear strengths. That second report you quoted doesn't suggest that any of those teams were interested to the tune of $17-18M per year, though. Olshey didn't "sneak in" to steal Turner--from the sounds of it (Turner's reaction), he simply blew everyone else's offers away. If he was offering around what everyone else was, Turner wouldn't have been shocked by the offer.
They needed their cap space to sign Horford. They didn't have an exception big enough to match. Thus too rich. I think the smart GM would take Horford over ET. Shocked by the offer because the Blazers weren't reported interested. Not necessarily the size.
Well, that's definitely one way to look at it. As I said before, though, we'll have to agree to disagree.
