Trade Idea Realistic trade options for summer of 2023

The Blazers have been over the salary cap since they signed Evan Turner in 2016.

 

Yeah I initially misread it same as you two, it wasn't a clear statement. Yes it makes much more sense that Bones was saying as a highschooler himself he identified Dame at the draft - just saying that everyone even competent GMs or simple fans identified Dame at the draft as the best pick.

 

It is crazy, but when you consider Judge Judy made 47 million a year in salary.....it does not quite look as bad. At least NBA players are in the top 300 in the world. We have a number of condescending smart-ass posters on this board who could entertain us the same way Judge Judy did.

 

To be fair I think you have to remove all the players on rookie contracts.

Even still, I think Nurk was poor value at the $70 million the Blazers paid him, and said so at the time, as did many Blazers fans. There wasn't a single team that was paying him more than the MLE so we shouldn't have offered more than a few million over it. Cronin decided to negotiate against himself same as this franchise has done with Even Turner, Meyers Leonard, back to ZBo and Miles. Thats one of the main reasons this franchise is always in purgatory, they settle for poor value contracts of mediocre rotation players.

 

on this we agree

I said so last July...that Cronin way overpaid for Ant, Nurk, & GP3. That he bid against himself and paid well over market. Now the rebuttals I got was comparisons of what Ant/Nurk were paid to other players of their caliber. But I was basing my opinion on the market last summer. Every off-season has a distinct market. Last summer, there were very few teams with the cap-space to give that 100M deal to Ant (I think 3 teams); and maybe 1 or 2 more teams that could give Nurk 70M.

But those specific teams just didn't have a need for either player. For instance, one of the teams was Indiana. I think they had about 20-25M in space. But they had Haliburton, Hield, Duarte, Nesmith, and TJ O'Connell at guard/wing and had just drafted Mathurin & Nembhard; and had Myles Turner & Isaiah Jackson at C and were in the process of trading for Daniel Theiss

IMO, market price would have been about 18M/year for Ant and 12M/year for Nurkic. And if those guys were on those contracts they'd likely have much higher trade value

GP3 was just a bad signing, all the way around

 

Nope, it's totally sane. You might think that the league revenue is insane but it's not insane for the players in the league to get around 50% of that revenue. The revenue isn't even insane. League Pass is making the NBA a ton of money, TimeWarner and Disney are making a ton of money off of their ad revenue from their broadcasts and teams are making money and increasing in value year after year. What the average players make is about right or maybe a little bit too much (both bench and starters) the superstars are actually not getting their fair market share because they bring in way more revenue than they are getting compensated for and are the driving force behind the increased value of the teams.

 

Just remember the owners make multiple times more while the players are the ones actually bringing in the money

 

Yup, good post.

What we often hear is a poster saying well xxx player is also overpaid - or its only ~$8 million difference so why does it matter, etc.

But you add it up for damn near every player on the roster and for many years it starts to be a big problem. Yes one year in isolation is only ~$8 million and not a big difference. But multiple players together it starts to total $20-30 million of overpayments and for 5 years now were over $100 million. Then the Blazers don't have room under the luxury tax, can't add a 5th starter, the players they do have become worth less than nothing instead of having value in trades, etc.

 

Paul Allens ownership of the Blazers earned him probably close to $2 billion in unrealized gains. But it is much less than the equivalent investment in the stock market.

So yeah the owners make money; but owning any $100 million+ business does and should make money.

How many players have ever lost money in a season?

 

Virtually every superstar does, as they are paid under what they are really worth. But I understand you're overall point, just making the observation that superstars are not paid what they probably should be if there weren't arbitrary salary caps like there are.

 

Is that last question a joke? Players spend way more money than they make and do it quite frequently. Is it because they use bad judgment? Yeah it is. The last time a team in this league lost money, it was due to bad judgment as well... oh and that loss was easily offset by the increase in team value. Also when people talk about the increase in valuation not beating the stock market they aren't figuring in team profits which due to teams not being publicly traded are not published.

On another note plenty of billion dollar companies have gone under in the last 30 years but no NBA team has. In that time no NBA team has been sold at a loss. In the last 30 years very few teams have taken a shortfall in any fiscal year... they do seem to publicize those. The reason why there is a bidding war every time an NBA franchise goes up for sale is because it is a guaranteed money maker in huge proportions... it's a safe, profitable and fun investment.

I also don't know what it means when people say that the stock market has done better. Boom companies coming and then being acquired by bigger companies really drives that number. Since 2001 the S&P 500 has had a little under a 10% profit year over year... that would put an investment into that at around a 220% return. Since 2001 no NBA team has increased in value by less than %1000. You can't just invest in "the stock market" meaning it's overall value increase. It doesn't work that way... the closest thing you can do to that are funds like the S&P 500. Otherwise you've got to play that stock market and by no means is that a sure fire way to make a profit. I just don't think looking at the overall growth of the worth of all publicly traded companies versus the worth of these teams is in any way an apples to apples comparison.

 

Then why don't superstars form their own team or join a different league?

Superstars don't have to pay money to play. They always get checks. Sometimes owners have more bills than revenue. Owners have to pay players, arenas, TV production, staff, regardless of the revenue.

Yeah owners make a lot, but they put up hundred of millions or billions that's others don't have to and hold all the risk.

 

What players pay money to their teams? I've never heard of one. They play and get checks. Owners have to pay for everyone else.

I'm not talking about money they blow on houses and cars, I'm talking about money they spend on the team.

Owners sometimes make money and sometimes lose money. Players have zero risk, they only get money.

 

If you look at $1000 invested in the stock market when Paul Allen bought the team compared to $1000 he invested in the Blazers the stock market had a much higher return. I ran the numbers a couple years ago. I don't care to prove it again, just saying that the increase from a hundred million to billions over decades is not as atypical as you'd imagine it would be when looking at the large franchise valuations. Many investments have similar or larger returns.

No I don't feel sorry for owners, they have plenty of benefits they get. But they certainly deserve to make much more than the players, IMO.

 

Paul Allen bought the team in May of 88 for 70 million. From this: https://www.noelwhittaker.com.au/resources/calculators/stock-market-calculator/ random stock calculator, that would be worth a little under 1.4 billion today. They were recently offered over 2 billion, and turned it down. Likely to be worth even more than that. But say they sold for 2 even, after owning the team for 35 years, they would have had to an operate at a loss every year to an average of over 17 million per year for him to have made more money in the stock market.
Sarver profited about 2 billion more owning the Suns than if he just invested in the stock market.
I guess owners are "taking risks", but they're playing around with "Fuck you" money. It's not like some joe schmo taking out a second mortgage on their house to start a small business.

 

Holy Smokes! I came in here to see the latest trade possibilities, and instead, I got, Business 101.

 

I agree that Cronin should have had Nurk , and Ant , go get some offers, then match or move on.

 

Nurk yes, Ant I disagree on.

 

You can with ant since he was a restricted free agent

 

They would have had to call Nurk's bluff on a contract offer. I just don't see where other teams would have valued his current oft injured seasons, and desire to play , the way the Blazers do. I've often said i think if Nurk played with the desire he did in the Euros, he'd be the Nurk in "Beast" mode. Then his contract would be a bargain. But he spends entirely too much time looking cool in suits on the bench.