Let's cut right to the chase here and get to the one thing teams are understanding better and better about restricted free agency: In most situations, they have a tremendous advantage. Those facts dictated most of what took place in the past 24 hours.
Wednesday was the deadline for contract extensions for players on rookie contracts, and amazingly only three of them signed deals Wednesday. Along with the already-signed extensions for
Russell Westbrook and
Derrick Rose, that brings the grand total to just five players.
The rest will become restricted free agents this summer, which in theory makes this a very alluring free-agent class.
Brook Lopez,
Eric Gordon,
Michael Beasley,
Nicolas Batum,
Rudy Fernandez,
O.J. Mayo,
Jason Thompson,
Roy Hibbert,
JaVale McGee,
J.J. Hickson,
Brandon Rush,
Ryan Anderson,
Courtney Lee,
George Hill,
.J. Augustin,
Darrell Arthur and
Marreese Speights all will be restricted free agents -- that's 17 rotation-caliber players coming on the market.
In practice, as with the past couple of seasons, only a couple of these players will even sign offer sheets because everybody knows the original team will just match it. The game is rigged; any team interested in keeping a restricted free agent can usually do so at a reasonable price -- unless you're the
Utah Jazz and the
Portland Trail Blazers like one of your players. (To wit:
Paul Millsap and
Wesley Matthews.)
In a few cases, there were some interesting cap-management issues that helped prevent players from signing. Lopez, Batum, Hibbert and McGee play for teams that could or should have lots of cap space this summer, and, as late first-round picks, each has a cap hold that is less than his likely market value. In practice, that means their teams didn't have a lot of motivation to pursue an extension unless they got a great deal.
And Gordon, of course, had the league office meddling in his extension talks, which likely helped bog things down.
Nonetheless, let's backtrack to the big picture. The reason only five of the 22 players worthy of a potential extension actually signed one is because in most cases it doesn't make sense to do so.
From the team side, there are only two criteria for signing an extension:
1. To make sure a superstar player stays in the home uniform for as long as possible; and/or
2. To offer security to a player in return for his taking a lesser contract than he might get in free agency.
Which takes us to the three players who signed Wednesday,
Kevin Love,
Danilo Gallinari and
Kosta Koufos. Koufos was a pure example of No. 2 -- he signed a three-year, $9 million extension with a team option for the third season. Koufos signed for less than his qualifying offer, let alone his cap hold, so the deal will help the Nuggets manage their cap next summer while providing some security for their fifth big. But I went to spend today talking about the other two deals, each of which is hugely interesting.
[h3]Gallinari: Comparables the key[/h3]
Denver's decision with Gallinari was similar. My initial reaction upon seeing the four-year, $42 million deal was that the
Denver Nuggets overvalued their own player again, just as they did with
Arron Afflalo. Looking a bit closer, however, this looks like a much better deal. The key is to focus on the position: Big wings who can score are very rare commodities.
And Gallinari has played extremely well thus far. Among small forwards, only
LeBron James and
Kevin Durant outrank him in PER. He has never played in an All-Star Game and might not ever do so, but he's 23 and extremely productive.
If you compare Gallo at $10 million a year to other not-quite-All-Star wings, you quickly realize this is a pretty good contract. The three best comparables all get considerably more:
Andre Iguodala makes $13.5 million this season,
Luol Deng $12 million and
Rudy Gay $15 million. I realize all three of these deals are considered to be a bit generous, but Gallinari's tally is considerably less.
Similarly, look at forwards who are clearly worse than Gallinari:
Hedo Turkoglu gets $11 million,
Richard Jefferson $9 million,
Caron Butler $8.4 million and
Marvin Williams $7.5 million, and
Tayshaun Prince made $11 million a year ago and re-signed for $7 million.
High-scoring small forwards are deceptively difficult to find, and Gallinari is still on the upswing. The Nuggets did the right thing to lock him in at those dollars.
Which takes us to Kevin Love â¦
[h3]What about Love?[/h3]
As I noted above, one of the two reasons to do an extension is to lock in a superstar for as long as possible. Max contracts for superstars are the best contracts in basketball;
as Henry Abbott has already noted, LeBron's value is probably about $50 million a year, so getting away with paying him $15 million puts his team at a massive advantage. With players of this caliber, the biggest threat isn't overpaying them; it's that they'll leave as unrestricted free agents, when everybody in the league is trying to pay them and the rules limit the amount.
There's no question: Love is a superstar. He was fifth in the league in PER a year ago and is sixth this season. He's the league's best rebounder, hands down, and shoots 40 percent on 3s. He scores 25.5 points per 40 minutes, which is a lot for a player who allegedly can't create his own shot; in fact, it's nearly what
Dirk Nowitzki did a year ago. He's 23; he has improved every year; and he's the centerpiece of a rebuilding team.
I have no idea why you wouldn't want to keep such a player for as long as possible. In fact, that should be the primary objective when extending a max contract to a player in his early 20s. The
Chicago Bulls and
Oklahoma City Thunder did that exact thing by signing Rose and Westbrook to five-year deals for the max.
The
Minnesota Timberwolves? They were reading from the wrong playbook. Not only didn't they give Love five years but the four-year deal they agreed to allows him to opt out after three. This is exactly what happened with LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, and similar to what happened with Deron Williams, Chris Paul, Carmelo Anthony and Dwight Howard. You'll note that only Wade is still with the team that signed him to the extension, and that only happened after coordinating with James and Bosh.
Because of that, I had figured no sane team would ever offer a superstar player an early opt-out, especially one in a smallish market renowned for frigid winters.
And for what? So they can keep a "designated player" option around for
Ricky Rubio? We don't even know whether Rubio is a max-caliber player, let alone one worthy of signing to a five-year deal three years from now. And if Love is already gone by then, what's the point?
Rather than beginning to cement the core of one of the most improved teams in basketball, Minnesota started the clock ticking on its best player's departure. Love's family is from Southern California, and the Lakers won't have any contracts in three years; you do the math. Yes, Love could extend the deal before then, but he'd be able to extend it by only two seasons in 2014; he might decide it's better off to force a trade and re-sign (or extend) in his new digs.
At best, the Wolves have created some needless drama for the next two seasons in return for a dubious advantage of paying Love for three years instead of for five. On a day when nearly every other decision made perfect sense, this one still has me scratching my head in bewilderment.
urant? 4-5 stupid NT'ers? People said Carmelo was more rounded offensively because he can score in the paint better using his post up game, and has a good mid-range, while Durant is a good jump shooter but has trouble against bigger defenders like Artest when he tries to post up down low. I personally believe Durant is better than Carmelo and 98% of Knicks fans I know would agree but you guys allow the delusional Knicks fans on NT to cloud your mind with their rants about Carmelo being better than Durant or whatever else they say.
