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

[fam3381]

Press, I think you make some good points that have been largely overlooked.

I don't think there's a huge downside in terms of Bogut regressing from where he is now, which is already very valuable. But at the same time the Bucks have also structured the deal so he's never going to be bargain unless he becomes a franchise 20/10 player, which I think most of us would agree is unlikely. If the deal didn't have incentives you would have a much better chance of having him outperform his deal, as you mention.

I'd also add that the exclusion of POs/ETOs is very important because it would further cap his possible earnings over the five year span. If Bogut had an ETO after four years with an escalating contract AND he becomes a perennial all-star center, he could be looking at a new deal that gives him at least $15+ million starting salary (excluding incentives) in what would have been year five. And he could leave, too. Instead, it appears the Bucks have eliminated that possibility.

[trwi7]

Like I said, if he doesn't improve at all and remains a 16-10-3 player with good defense

If he doesn't improve at all he's a 14/9.8 player. Why do people continue to just dismiss his first 30 games of last year?

[europa]

I agree he hasn't averaged that for an entire season - I was referring to the production he put up for the majority of last season after a significant change in the team's offensive approach which had never been utilized before. Assuming that approach remains in place (and given Skiles' history, there's strong evidence to believe Bogut will become more of a focal point offensively than he's been) I believe he showed that he can consistently put up the numbers I cited and there's no reason to believe he'll regress given his talent and work ethic. But I could be proven wrong and perhaps Bogut gets fat on his contract and his play declines. It certainly wouldn't be the first time a player got a big contract and failed to do much to justify it. There are players I'm willing to gamble on and players I'm not. Bogut is someone I'm comfortable banking on. Your mileage may vary.

[europa]

Like I said, if he doesn't improve at all and remains a 16-10-3 player with good defense

If he doesn't improve at all he's a 14/9.8 player. Why do people continue to just dismiss his first 30 games of last year?

I don't. I simply believe that what he produced after the significant change in offensive approach is far too important to ignore given how I expect that role to remain in place going forward. But that's me. If others disagree, that's fine. I think what Bogut showed in the final 50 games last season is extremely relevant because I think it establishes the floor for him going forward. If his role remains the same or increases and his production declines, than we'll have some things to discuss. But I'm banking on the belief that his production will be no worse than what he showed in those final 50 games and probably will be better. I'm guessing Hammond agrees with that.

[fam3381]

Bogut has never actually average 16 points in a season... Or ten rebounds for that matter.

So he actually has improving to do just to reach the numbers that you put up there.

I realize you're talking about full seasons, but he did average that over the last four months of the season. So given that's a very respectable sample size, we're not talking about him reaching some consistent level of performance that he has until now never shown he was capable of. I think four months is very different from picking out a couple weeks or even a month of great play...it's pretty tough to fake it for that long of a period.

So unless Bogut is systematically unable to perform in the first two months of every season--thus requiring a big catch-up in the spring to bring his numbers up to par--I think his play from the last few months is a reasonable standard going forward. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if his scoring stays fairly flat given how many scorers we currently have.

[Sigra]

When is he going to officialy sign? Wasn't that suposed to be today?

[GrandAdmiralDan]

There's absolutely no way that Larry Miller would trade Boozer for Bogut straight up. I'm sorry, I disagree.

It depends on when you ask Larry Miller. He's a very emotional owner, and when it comes to Boozer specifically, he has on multiple occasions (even this offseason, before stepping back from it a bit) decided that Boozer should be traded.

Boozer would be a Buck right now if our owner had signed off on an agreed upon deal prior to the 2006 draft of Mo Williams and Jamaal Magloire for Boozer and that 1st round pick that ended up being Ronnie Brewer. That wasn't all that wise of a deal for the Jazz back then, but it also wasn't quite as laughable as it would seem right now, considering the circumstances.

I would guess that Larry Miller would trade Boozer for Bogut immediately if he had the opportunity, but I ultimately don't know one way or the other.

I think most of us agree that Bogut wasn't worth $12 million LAST SEASON. But a lot of you are in favor of paying him that much in the future. I think it's fair to assume that those of you who are in favor of that increase, are expecting Bogut to improve.

Here are his 07-08 #'s: 14.3 points, 9.8 rebounds, 2.6 assists, 1.7 blocks, 51% from the field, 59% from the free throw line.

How much improvement is necessary to justify $12 million per season?

20/10/3/2

If you have a center averaging 20/10/3/2 while playing above average defense or better, you can forget about $12 mil per season. That guy is worth more like an average salary of $17 mil in this league.

We don't know what the incentives are yet though, so you can't rationalize them one way or the other.

Sure you can and we all are. We all seemed to agree on this board for the last 3-months that Bogut was worth 5/$55 and many of us would be ok with 5/$60 at worst case.

That 5/$60 number included factoring in Bogut continuing to improve and really contribute to team success. None of us in those discussions put in the disclaimer "Well, I'd like to give him more than $60mm if he averages 17/11 or the team wins 50-games". Those things were supposed to be part of the package for the $60 million.

Now I'll anticipate the response to that being "Well, if the Bucks are doing great and Bogut is doing great, he'd then be worth $72 to $75 million so what is wrong with paying him that anyways then" The problem with that is that then the Bucks no longer get the benefit they had of locking him in at $60mm with no incentives as an offset to what they gave Bogut in lifetime financial security if the guy only stays as a 14/9 player.

Bogut is worth about $9-10 million "as-is". With a $60mm deal and no incentives, that gives him $12mm on "future growth potential" as a reward. We don't need to necessarily give him $12mm "as-is" plus another $13mm for a "reward."

Yes. This is a very excellent point that I have tried to make myself when speaking to people about this extension. I can't recall if I mentioned this at all on here or not, but your post above is an excellent way of getting that point across.

I don't have total salaries paid data offhand (which might be the best metric), but it's probably helpful to look at both the escalation of the cap and the luxury tax if we want to compare deals from a couple years ago. While it's a good guide for the general rate of salary inflation, the soft cap means that player salaries can move at a different rate than just the cap. The luxury tax is thus also a worthwhile thing to consider. And of course the "market" for specific positions and types of players could ebb and flow over time--for instance, I'd guess the perceived value for a premium PG has escalated at a rate higher than the league average.

I'll yield to GAD on a better explanation of how all these things relate, but for now let's look at both:

Cap:
05/06: 49.500
06/07: 53.135 +7.3%
07/08: 55.630 +4.7%
08/09: 58.680 +5.5%

Tax:
05/06: 61.70
06/07: 65.42 +6.0%
07/08: 67.87 +3.7%
08/09: 71.15 +4.8%

Note that the cap in '06 went up more sharply in part because the BRI calculation was slightly different. Based on these numbers, I think an NBA rate of inflation of 5% per year is fair. So if we apply that to Kaman's deal signed in 2006, we'd expect the same deal to be about 52*(1+.05)^2 = $57.33 million. On a per annum basis, that's a bump from $10.4 million to $11.47 million. Bogut's deal is still bigger, but I think this is a better (if still slightly flawed) way of comparing contracts signed at different points in time.

I'll cosign the above.

As to your pondering of whether total salaries paid would be a better metric, I'd say probably not.
Total salaries paid are a derivative of prior BRI/salary+benefits and somewhat a function of what the salary cap and luxury tax thresholds get set at each year. Everything is all tied together. The MLE and EBE amounts (among other things) are the average salary calculation from the total salaries the year prior. Max salary figures are specific percentages of a specific percentage of BRI (this sentence is not a typo). I think the

[paulpressey25]

GAD didn't you say Kohl got involved here? Something tells me we got pushed to 5/$60 and then held firm. Then Bauman started really playing hardball. Kohl and Walter (not Hammond) got nervous, and agreed to put in another $2.5 million a year in the incentives. And they (Kohl and Walter) rationalized it to themselves that if Bogut played great and the team won, paying those incentives would be the least of our problems.

I think you have to believe Bogut is a $14.5mm a year player-period to be 100% comfortable with this deal. This isn't an awful contract if he plays at an 17/12/3/2 level which I think he can hit. But just remember a couple last ideas:

a) If we are right at the luxury tax level, that $2.5mm a year in incentives really is $5 million in cost to the team after factoring in the luxury tax. That $5mm could mean another MLE player we need or could allow us a "mulligan" on a contract like Gadzuric's

b) Something tells me we will all be surprised how easy these incentives are to meet for Bogut when they are disclosed.

[randy84]

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.

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.

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.

The only problem I have is that this is the same kind of thinking that led the Bucks to overpay for M.Redd. The fear of losing the guy and then not have a good/great player on the team.

I think most of the people like this deal because they feel that Bogut will improve and the Bucks win total will improve. But let's say the same scenerio takes place with Bogut that took place with Redd (i.e. 26 losses and no team improvement), then everyone is going to be complaining that this was a horrible deal and the Bucks over paid again.

[fam3381]

The only problem I have is that this is the same kind of thinking that led the Bucks to overpay for M.Redd. The fear of losing the guy and then not have a good/great player on the team.

I think it's a valid point. I think in general you have to find ways to not let talent walk without getting anything in return, but you're right that there are definitely examples of teams who would have been better off walking away. One of the Pistons' best decisions was letting Big Ben walk.

At the same time, if the Bucks had let Redd walk I'm not sure what happens. Are we a better team now? It's tough to sort out how things would be different since so much could have changed. But my sense is that we wouldn't have necessarily found a vastly better way to spend the money. We probably would have just gotten Simmons (since he was a backup plan) or maybe upped our offer to Hughes (yikes!). Unfortunately if you have money to spend, it's generally not spent well

[LISTEN2JAZZ]

b) Something tells me we will all be surprised how easy these incentives are to meet for Bogut when they are disclosed.

This is my assumption as well. I'm worried it will be more "average 9 rpg" and less "win the MVP."

At the same time, if the Bucks had let Redd walk I'm not sure what happens. Are we a better team now? It's tough to sort out how things would be different since so much could have changed. But my sense is that we wouldn't have necessarily found a vastly better way to spend the money. We probably would have just gotten Simmons (since he was a backup plan) or maybe upped our offer to Hughes (yikes!). Unfortunately if you have money to spend, it's generally not spent well

You seem to be imagining what Larry Harris and Herb Kohl would have done without Redd, but I don't think those two lead us to a perfect outcome no matter the scenario. The right thing to do (using hindsight which is always unfair) would be to either trade Bogut for a borderline superstar back when a #1 pick was worth a #1 pick, or build slowly around Bogut with a youth movement that didn't include any B and C level veterans (Redd/Simmons/Gadz/Hughes/whoever).

[aboveAverage]

On a side note, I saw Bogut at Mayfair today. He was dressed up real nice and was walking with his agent (i assume it was his agent). His hair is longer again, like in his rookie year. He's real lanky and awkward in real life. He did wave to me when I called his name.

[andonewheel]

When is he going to officialy sign? Wasn't that suposed to be today?

Just had to say that your sig is great.

[Sigra]

When is he going to officialy sign? Wasn't that suposed to be today?

Just had to say that your sig is great.

Why thank you

[Movieman]

Let's see -- Bucks bring in Jefferson in to introduce him to the media. Brewers trade for CC. Pretty much unnoticed.

Bucks sign their drafts picks -- overshadowed by CC debut and Brewers success. Crickets.

Now they give Bogut a big contract, fly him in from Australia, and then -- Farve asks for his release.

Their three big news days of the summer, all overshadowed.

Just another week in the life of the Milwaukee Bucks.

[carmelbrownqueen]

I didn't see this posted anywhere but here is video from the Press Conference:

http://sportsbubbler.com/DisplayTopic.aspx?topicID=2101

On a side note... I hate that he grew his hair back out. He looked tougher with his head shaved.

ETA: Bucks.com has the video part with Hammond talking, and thanking Kohl for letting him make all these moves this summer. Also some comments from Skiles.

[Bernman]

Does anybody have the PER differential rankings for starting NBA centers?

I've perused various profiles at 82games and discovered Drew has a better differential than many notable centers (Sheed, Chandler, Memo, Okafor, B-Miller, etc.), he's in a similar territory as Kaman and Fat Shaq, but I haven't been able to find a consolidated list for perspective.

Of course PER doesn't include many of his contributions like charges taken and making the right pass. Nevertheless, I think he could be just below the: Bynum and even Yaos of the league; if he just finally translates that jumper and free throw shooting.

The more and more I think about the deal, the more excited I become to have Bogut committed for six more years to the Bucks.

[playmaker24]

" I'm not going to comment much on this one except say that Bogut is an All-star now and for a few more years to come"

My bad i made a typo, it was meant to refer to Boozer as an all-star, now and for a few years to come.

[REDDzone]

Berri's latest post on Bogut doesn't make very much sense, he based the entire work on the assumption that Bogut is guaranteed over 72 million dollars.

[GrandAdmiralDan]

GAD didn't you say Kohl got involved here? Something tells me we got pushed to 5/$60 and then held firm. Then Bauman started really playing hardball. Kohl and Walter (not Hammond) got nervous, and agreed to put in another $2.5 million a year in the incentives. And they (Kohl and Walter) rationalized it to themselves that if Bogut played great and the team won, paying those incentives would be the least of our problems.

Kohl did get involved. Presently I cannot elaborate further than that regarding Kohl's involvement.

As for Walter or any of the others being involved, I don't currently know whether they were or weren't.