Nurk will be a restricted free agent. The Blazers will be able to match any offer. Why outbid ourselves early? I think part of Paul Allens reasoning for matching Crabbe's huge offer from Brooklyn was to let other teams know that it won't do any good signing our free agents because we'll just match them. Hence Leonard and Harkless didn't get any offers and we were able to sign them to reasonably good deals. (yes, looking back Leonard's might not have been that great of a deal.) I say wait and let him prove himself over the course of the season.
This is my thinking. If you can get a good deal, do it now. But that's unlikely because Nurk is a MAX player, and the only thing standing between him and a MAX contract is one healthy season of basketball.
Exactly. 16 games does not a MAX contract make/earn. I would offer him a nice deal to show him we care. Significantly higher than Leonard got.
No, I wouldn't. Nurkic carries two risks: that he can't stay consistently healthy and that he had a great but unrepresentative 15 game performance after the trade. Tears of regret are made from a max deal now and then Nurkic regressing back to closer to the guy he was in Denver. I think he's better than he looked last year in Denver, when his role was too undefined and playing time too sporadic, but he may not be the world-destroyer that he was in his brief glimpse in Portland. If he settles in as a good but not great player (the player even those of us who wanted to trade for Nurkic thought we were getting), a max deal will really kill the team's ability to maneuver because they'll be fully locked into the luxury tax with only the Lillard/McCollum core to show for it.
I would fire Neil if he even brought up the prospect of a max contract extension. Wait it out. 82 games is a long time to stay healthy, especially at nearly 300 lbs and playoffs.
I only in favor or extending him now if we get him on a sweet deal. But I will say, Nurk doesn't have to even play 82 games for other teams to see him as a MAX guy. As long as he doesn't miss more than 8 games in a row, I could see him playing only 70 games and still having a great season and teams wanting to pry him away from us.
I bet the Utah Jazz wish they offered Gordon Hayward a max deal when they had the opportunity. Instead they told him to go test the market and see what he could get. That may or may not influence his decision whether or not to stay in Utah. In other words, there is no reason to get cute. If the doctors say he's healthy, and the trainers think he can get in good shape, there's no reason not to offer him the most we can. His talent has already been established.
Different situation. Nurk is an RFA. There's no real risk in letting him test the market... other than maybe alienating him.
What Nurk did last season was really not much different than what he showed in Denver. Only difference is he got a steady role and minutes. It's not a fluke, so if he were willing to take a less than max contract, I'd be all over it if I was Olshey. Otherwise he's getting the max next offseason.
Sorry, I should have been more clear, I was talking about Hayward's previous contract. It's a very similar situation and the alienating him part is what I'm saying we should avoid.
I don't think Nurk has earned a max contract yet. I think he knows that. He went from not playing at all, to playing well, to being injured. How does someone justify a max contract with that resume?
These are true things. But max contracts aren't doled out because of justice, they're given out because they don't want some other team to steal their player. Lots of players are going to get max and near max deals this summer. The madness will continue for a least a little while I think.
I was looking around the league, and the sheer number of shitty players in the league is really quite staggering. I was looking through various rosters trying to find a potential trade partners and there are so many crappy players in the league right now. I feel that this is why we have these super teams. The rest of the league is garbage. I think the problem is that college has become completely worthless as a developing ground.
What I think is absolutely fascinating is that because of all these max contracts with either 5% or 8% raises if the cap doesn't rise along with these automatic raises, even teams that have planned so carefully to stay under the tax will find themselves struggling to swim against the current.
Yeah, I don't think he needs to play 82 games to prove his worth as a max player. 70 at the level he played in Portland would do a lot to show that this is his true level and that he can impact the vast majority of the season. I wouldn't trust Anthony Davis to play 82 games a season, but I'd love to pay him a max contract to play for a team I owned.
