Bogut:5-yr/$60mm Guaranteed + $12.5mm possible bonuses (OLD)

[ballerblogger]

I have to step out for a moment but I'll try and check back in later on today.

Feel free to rip my arguments to shreds Bucks fans.

[europa]

And to answer the question about what should Okafor get if Bogut is getting $12M a year? He should get no more than $12M and probably less since he isn't a better player and Bogut is arguably the superior player.

What's really being ignored in my opinion is the huge improvements Bogut has made defensively. He went from being a below-average defender to being one of the game's Top 10 shotblockers and a legitimate defensive presence in the post. Include the fact he has been a standout player in terms of drawing charges (why this stat continues to be minimized is beyond me) and you have a quality defensive big man. That has serious value in this league.

[LUKE23]

Harrington is a perimter 4 that doesn't rebound or defend, and loves to hang out and shoot 3's instead of taking the ball inside. There isn't one GM in the NBA that would take Harrington over Bogut if given the choice and equal contracts.

[europa]

Harrington is a perimter 4 that doesn't rebound or defend, and loves to hang out and shoot 3's instead of taking the ball inside. There isn't one GM in the NBA that would take Harrington over Bogut if given the choice and equal contracts.

It's one thing to not like Bogut and present legitimate reasons why. Nothing wrong with that. But saying Al Harrington is better than Bogut is a serious credibility issue in my opinion. You'd be hard-pressed to find anybody outside of the Harrington family who would agree with that.

As far as contracts go, my belief is you can't grossly overpay for contracts but a team like the Bucks will almost always have to overpay to some extent. That's the nature of the beast if they want to remain competitive (or start being competitive as the case would be now). The key is not to grossly overpay but overapy enough so that the deal makes the player happy but doesn't place the team's salary structure out of whack. I think there are some players by virture of what they bring to the court who are worthy of being slightly overpaid and some who are not. I think Bogut falls into the former category.

I think you'd find that the consensus around the league is Bogut is probably worth what Kaman got - $10.5M annually. So if he's worth that and you give him $12M a year annually, you're not massively overpaying for him. Sure, it would've been great to get him for $10.5M or even $11M but the extra $1.5M shouldn't break you because of what Bogut can do in terms of impacting the team on both ends of the court (something no other returning starter on this team can equal).

[LUKE23]

Kaman made $10.5M per after a 12/9.6/1.4 season. If you think that is a fair deal, then you don't have a problem with Bogut getting $12M after a 14.4/9.8/1.7 season.

People are just complaining for the sake of it if they think Bogut is getting overpaid here, looking at contracts throughout the league.

[fam3381]

A number of the salaries in that list are too low as well. For instance, Camby is making $10 million, not $8 million this year. Dampier is making $11.553 million, not $9.5. Dalembert and Chalnder are both making over $11 million.

http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages/index.jsp

[Rockmaninoff]

I understand if some people view the contract as overly generous, but to some extent that's the reality of the business. I think the Bucks were concerned that the teams with cap space might throw an even bigger deal at one of the other young players on the market and so they wanted to get the deal done and dusted at a number they felt comfortable with. I don't really see this as setting some new precedent for big man salaries, so I don't blame the Bucks as much.

It sets a precedent for guys like Bogut, who are good, but not great, to recieve extensions of this magnitude out of their rookie deals. LeBron James made $13,041,250 last season. You're telling me that Bogut is that close?

If you were only willing to pay Bogut $8-10 million then that's very principled and all, but you wouldn't sign him. As GAD has pointed out, you'd just be providing a huge incentive for him to take his $8 million QO and go someplace else in 2010, when there are likely going to be some teams that cleared cap room but didn't get one of the big fish. That's fine if you would rather not have Bogut at all than pay him $12+ mil, but if it's simply a negotiating ploy it's a risky move.

I personally would have moved him before this year's draft. Rather than overpaying for 'goodness' sake, use his potential to get a better veteran, or a top draft pick who could be special. Who could be a difference maker.

Generally speaking, if you only were willing to sign players to "good" contracts then you'd probably end up with a bunch of castoffs that other teams had reasons to be scared away from. Desirable players don't generally sign contracts that the public views as good deals. I think it's true that at some point you can't let a runaway market destroy your good sense, but I don't think the Bucks have done that either.

Pistons?

What's really being ignored in my opinion is the huge improvements Bogut has made defensively. He went from being a below-average defender to being one of the game's Top 10 shotblockers and a legitimate defensive presence in the post. Include the fact he has been a standout player in terms of drawing charges (why this stat continues to be minimized is beyond me) and you have a quality defensive big man. That has serious value in this league.

Bogut is a slightly above average defender. He has some nice stats, but his opponent still scores at an average rate, and the team defense is still horrendous. As of yet, his good defense makes no difference.

[europa]

Bogut's defensive improvements didn't make a huge difference in the standings because he was on the court with four other poor defenders throughout last season. Mo, Redd, Dez, Villanueva/Yi were not good defensively. All of them were below-average defenders and some of them were considerably below average. You could have put Bill Russell in his prime on the court with that bunch and the defense was still going to stink.

But that shouldn't minimize the improvements that Bogut clearly made defensively. It's not his fault the previous regime did a piss-poor job of putting better defenders on the court with him.

[fam3381]

It sets a precedent for guys like Bogut, who are good, but not great, to recieve extensions of this magnitude out of their rookie deals. LeBron James made $13,041,250 last season. You're telling me that Bogut is that close?

Curry, Chandler, Kaman and Dalembert all got monster deals when they were probably even less proven than Bogut. Their deals were for slightly less in part because they happened a few years ago...unfortunately the NBA rate of inflation is higher than what we see in the CPI. You can't expect the cap and luxury tax levels to rise 5-6% each year and not see that reflected in new contracts.

LeBron James made $13,041,250 last season. You're telling me that Bogut is that close?

LeBron's deal would be for $25 million per or more if the cap allowed it. You can name pretty much any player in the league not on a rookie deal and they're a ripoff compared to what LBJ gets paid.

[LUKE23]

Bogut was second in the league in charges drawn and averaged 1.7 blocks per game, on top of being one of the only willing positional defenders on our roster last season. Of course the team defense sucked, we had the worst defensive backcourt in the NBA, a rookie PF paired with the worst PF defender in the NBA. Shocking that our team defense was horrible.

[fam3381]

Rock, the Pistons were the one team I thought of when I made that statement about signing "good" contracts. That's why I phrased it "generally." I wish there were more examples of great teams that didn't have to sign their best players to monster contracts, but nowadays that's not the case. Which is in large part because the Pistons are the rare team that wins a title without a clear cut superstar.

That said, they pay their four best players over $9.5 million per. Billups was a bargain for a while because they took a risk on him before he became great.

[emunney]

LeBron James made $13,041,250 last season. You're telling me that Bogut is that close?

LeBron's deal would be for $25 million per or more if the cap allowed it. You can name pretty much any player in the league not on a rookie deal and they're a ripoff compared to what LBJ gets paid.

Also, that's just year one for LeBron. His salary only goes up every year from here on out. Bogut is at a flat 12. In the Summer of '10 when LeBron opts out, Bogut will have just completed his first season at 12 mil per. LeBron will have just made almost 16 mil, and will be about to sign a new contract which will probably average upwards of 20 mil/year. So that's the comparison you're actually making, Rock.

[Rockmaninoff]

Kaman's deal was worth $10.5M.

Actually, it was worth $10.4M.

But yes, Bogut is worth around 5 yrs/$52 million. Then the incentives would have made sense.

[LUKE23]

Kaman's deal was worth $10.5M.

Actually, it was worth $10.4M.

But yes, Bogut is worth around 5 yrs/$52 million. Then the incentives would have made sense.

If you think Kaman's deal was fair, and it sounds like you do, then Bogut should have gotten more than Kaman. He had a better season than Kaman did before Kaman signed his deal.

Either way, there really isn't a tangible argument to be made that $12M on a flat scale for Bogut is overpaying him, looking at salaries around the league.

[Rockmaninoff]

Rock, the Pistons were the one team I thought of when I made that statement about signing "good" contracts. That's why I phrased it "generally." I wish there were more examples of great teams that didn't have to sign their best players to monster contracts, but nowadays that's not the case. Which is in large part because the Pistons are the rare team that wins a title without a clear cut superstar.

That said, they pay their four best players over $9.5 million per. Billups was a bargain for a while because they took a risk on him before he became great.

Good point, but their 4 best players are arguably better than Bogut. I don't know why I'm writing that, as I'm pretty sure nobody will agree...

LeBron James made $13,041,250 last season. You're telling me that Bogut is that close?

LeBron's deal would be for $25 million per or more if the cap allowed it. You can name pretty much any player in the league not on a rookie deal and they're a ripoff compared to what LBJ gets paid.

Also, that's just year one for LeBron. His salary only goes up every year from here on out. Bogut is at a flat 12. In the Summer of '10 when LeBron opts out, Bogut will have just completed his first season at 12 mil per. LeBron will have just made almost 16 mil, and will be about to sign a new contract which will probably average upwards of 20 mil/year. So that's the comparison you're actually making, Rock.

You got me there. Using LeBron was bad on my part. Kamen is probably the best parallel.

Kaman's deal was worth $10.5M.

Actually, it was worth $10.4M.

But yes, Bogut is worth around 5 yrs/$52 million. Then the incentives would have made sense.

If you think Kaman's deal was fair, and it sounds like you do, then Bogut should have gotten more than Kaman. He had a better season than Kaman did before Kaman signed his deal.

You make it sound like Bogut was $1.5 million + incentives better than Kamen, but then he really wasn't statistically or in terms of team win/loss record.

Either way, there really isn't a tangible argument to be made that $12M on a flat scale for Bogut is overpaying him, looking at salaries around the league.

I don't agree, but thank you for as always insisting that there is only one way to look at things.

[paul]

Kaman's deal was worth $10.5M.

Actually, it was worth $10.4M.

But yes, Bogut is worth around 5 yrs/$52 million. Then the incentives would have made sense.

People get caught up in this all the time because of Kaman's play THIS season which is completely irrelevant when comparing the deals and should be entirely ignored in this case.

I hate strictly using stats because it ignores some of the most important facets of the game, but it seems unavoidable here and isn't too bad because they are comparable defensively I guess. Unless I'm mistaken Kaman signed his extension after his 3rd year as well, a season in which he averaged -

11.9 ppg (52% FG) / 9.6 rpg /1 apg / 1.4 bpg

Bogut in his 3rd season averaged -

14.3 ppg (51% FG) / 9.8 rpg / 2.6 apg / 1.7 bpg

Now if you want to argue that Bogut is overpaid for some other reason thats up to you Rock, but he DEFINITELY deserved more than Kaman got on a comparitive level even taking inflation out of the argument. If anyone can tell me how Bogut only earned Kaman's deal when comparing those stats I'll be really impressed, plus Kaman had a crap haircut which must have cost him a couple of million. Bogut is younger than Kaman was and quite clearly has a superior all around game to what Kaman did. We all would have loved to have got him for Kaman money, but that would have been a steal.

[LUKE23]

Was going to post the numbers but Paul already did; Bogut was clearly better. The W/L argument is really old and tired and needs to be retired. There are good players on bad W/L teams all over this league. If that is the argument for individual players, then there are only 16 teams that have good players on them every year. Just not true.

You also have to take two years inflation into account, which is at least $.5M per year from 2006 to 2008.

[paul]

Was going to post the numbers but Paul already did; Bogut was clearly better. The W/L argument is really old and tired and needs to be retired. There are good players on bad W/L teams all over this league. If that is the argument for individual players, then there are only 16 teams that have good players on them every year. Just not true.

You also have to take two years inflation into account, which is at least $.5M per year from 2006 to 2008.

Was about to ask about that Luke - GAD ALERT!

GAD do you know by what percentage the cap has increased in the past 2 seasons (i.e. from Kaman's 3rd to Bogut's 3rd)?

[trwi7]

paul I've always wondered about this. Are you from Australia? I thought I saw you post on how you weren't but I might be confusing you with someone else.

(No this is not for stalking purposes.)

[LUKE23]

The normal rate of inflation in 2006 was 3.24% and the normal rate of inflation in 2007 was 2.85%. So lets say 3% per year for the sake of argument. .03 * $10.5M = $315K. So you're looking at at least $11M per year for Bogut based on two years of inflation, and that is if Kaman and Bogut had put up identical seasons (Bogut was better). So it really looks like Bogut, based on production, is making what he should be on a per year basis. If he hits the incentives on top of that, that means an increased level of production.