I don’t disagree with anything you are saying.

What it often comes down to is your view on a player’s current productivity and potential. I probably lean more towards paying for and drafting for potential than you do, but I sure wouldn’t be reckless about it.

The Pelicans’ situation is like stumbling upon a piece of Wagyu beef and then taking out a payday loan to buy some nice, but overpriced wine to go with it. (Then you convince your neighbor to trade his wife for the steak, make sure she knows about the deal, and then saying, “Haha, jk,” before letting the beef sit on your counter for a couple months.)

The Wolves’ situation is like stumbling upon another piece of Wagyu and then taking out a payday loan to buy a 2-liter of Diet R.C. cola for $150M.

If we’re going to throw big money at complements, I just want to be sure that the main dish is worth the debt. I agree that you eventually have to overpay (as the Warriors and Rockets are currently doing or soon to do), but the timing is critically important.

And Allan Houston was bad during his rookie contract when the knicks threw money at him. And he turned out to be better than expected (so of course they then proceeded to throw all the money they could find at him for no reason at all).

More recently, Kemba Walker and Nikola Vucevic are guys that got big extentions off of their mediocre rookie deals and, eventually, played their way into their respective contracts.

Mike Conley and Jrue Holiday have been productive players that were not so much during their rookie years.

I think the Holiday contract was the sunk-cost fallacy in action, and it coincided with the (disastrous) Cousins trade and the most critical time for the Pels to not allow AD to become Chris Paul Part II.

He’s a very good player — I would be happy to have him as a starter on the Knicks, provided he were the final piece to a 55-win core — but he’s not a superstar. Not nearly as egregious as the names I listed above, but it’s hard to get excited about Holiday when the Pelicans have one of the best players of the decade and they’ve made the playoffs just twice in his seven-year career.

Conley doesn’t fit the criteria. He got his supermax at age 28 and signed a team-friendly deal in 2010 –$9M AAV between 23 and 28.

He wasn’t a good player back then, but I guess I’m trying to articulate the difference between extending a rookie-contract player for $45M over 5 and extending for $150M over 5. Conley’s contract didn’t cripple the franchise, and he (as you’d expect) continued to improve into his mid-20s.

Can you find an example of a successful franchise having given a big contract to a guy before they knew he was a star? (And by “knew,” I mean that he put up demonstrably-great stats.)

Mike Conley and Jrue Holiday have been productive players that were not so much during their rookie years.

I remember Conley’s first FA contract to be quite criticized (meanwhile Hollinger defended it), and I think Holiday’s was too. Their 2nd FA contracts look much worse, though.

it’s a big world and many of the folks here have detailed knowledge in areas I know little to nothing about…

I’m continually amazed at the ability some folks have here to be both skilled in the use of words and numbers (not a very easy thing to accomplish)…humbled at times by the wisdom some folks share…amused by a lot of folks humor (might just be a new york/knicks thing)…

so, took a look at finnegan’s wake (full disclosure – joyce and lawrence both kicked my ass in high school)…

holy shit though:
do all a turfwoman can to piff the business on. Paff. To puff theblaziness on. Poffpoff. And even if Humpty shell fall frumptytimes as awkward again in the beardsboosoloom of all our grandremonstrancers there’ll be iggs for the brekkers come to mourn-him, sunny side up with care. So true is it that therewhere’s aturnover the tay is wet too and when you think you ketch sightof a hind make sure but you’re cocked by a hin.

I can often times recognize genius, but, it’s hard for me to fathom the intellectual capacity of someone being able to create something like that…just how freaking smart can a person actually be…

I’ve had a chance to work with a few people that were next level in their ability to think quickly and problem solve at lightning speed – jealous of some folks whom seemed to exhibit a photographic memory (which is sort of like having a cheat code in life :)…

I remember at school, up on the hudson, there’d be these guys that were super smart, extremely athletic, really good looking, from good families (as much as anyone can know about another’s home life) – and to top it all off – they would be really nice people too…it’s like they hit the genetic/early environmental development lottery…

anyways – thanks for sharing, and, as rama so aptly put:…