Okay, people, we’re less than 15 minutes away from some craziness.
Best of luck to the Knicks in their pursuits (and a preemptive welcome to the latest Nova Knick)!
Categories
Okay, people, we’re less than 15 minutes away from some craziness.
Best of luck to the Knicks in their pursuits (and a preemptive welcome to the latest Nova Knick)!
92 replies on “Donte’s Inferno: The 2023 NBA Free Agency Thread”
Maybe that Wizards pick isn’t a lost cause after all.
We are not going to regret signing Donte DiVincenzo to the MLE. I can’t recall an MLE contract for a 26 or under guy that became a problem for a team, but even if it’s happened, it won’t happen here. You can bookmark this.
2 yrs 45m for Bruce Brown going to Indiana
Jerami Grant getting 5yr 160m to stay in Portland
Lol is Donte going to want Brown money now?
Max Strus 4yrs 64m to Cleveland
I am delighted for my fellow University of Miami alumnus, so I have nothing to say about the wisdom of that for Indiana (in all seriousness I guess it’s 2 years and sometimes non-guarantees get reported later, so whatever).
That Grant contract…my god. Julius Randle is a bargain and a half.
Too much money, but he does fit there well.
The funny thing about the Detroit deal for Harris is that the Nets dealt Harris to free up money to be able to match an offer for Cam Johnson from…Detroit. It’s almost like, “Give us some picks or we’ll fuck up your cap with a big offer sheet for Johnson!”
I can’t believe how much Βruce Brown got
Niang also to Cleveland 3yrs 26m. They’re addressing their shooting needs although not with athletic defenders
The days of citing Jakob Poeltl’s contract as evidence that we shouldn’t pay Mitch have passed
Cam Johnson 4yr 108m to stay in Brooklyn, Jalen Brunson is severely underpaid.
the problem isn’t the divicenzo.. he’s a fine player and there’s a reasonable expectation that he can make the contract worth it at least some of those years….
the problem is that divicenzo at mid level money as your 8th man… is getting paid like your 5th man… your 7th man will probably get paid like your 4th man… and your 6th man will probably get paid like a starting pg…
that was the problem with bringing the band back… we just have slightly younger and WAY MORE expensive guys that we’re gonna be doing it with… and it cost in unwinding and it’s costing us to this day because of the multitude of these ‘totally reasonable deals that were super easy to rollback if we had to’ but not in actuality…
you do enough of these and they collectively will not be easy to roll back and you will be left holding the bag or costing yourself more things to unwind it… it’s super risky with not a lot of upside which is pretty onbrand with this front office but that’s why it’s bad….
The Heat are paying the price of success now…
Prince went to LA for Peanuts
12 million a year is less than what the 5th man ina contending team would make
California didn’t divert the Colorado River to grow peanuts for nothing!
Guys look at the freaking contracts being given out and how much the salary cap will be increasing in the next few years, DDV getting the mid level at 12m would be fair value for the 9th or 10th man in a rotation.
I mean shit Randle and Brunson might be the 2 most underpaid players in the NBA right now.
nope…
KCP made 14mm…. caleb martin was 6.8mm … robert williams 10.7mm…. austin reaves 1.5mm…. pj tucker 10.5… looney 7.0mm…
and that will i’m sure change your mind on all of this…
Unless we make a trade and he becomes our 5th man, which is the plan
Btw our 5th man is only making $2M and our 6th man $4M
This is largely because Mark Cuban is a weirdo and didn’t want to do a S&T. Few stars actually move via FA
Yeah and iHart makes 9 mil, Obi makes 7 mil, Quickley makes 4 mil, Grimes makes 2.3 mil…
How is it costing us today? We’re one of the top teams in the league with one of the youngest rosters.
I am with TNFH about DD in particular and about acquiring solid players on good contracts with zero good stuff going out. Barring the usual caveats about injury, DD will NEVER be an overpay at the mid-level and locking him up at that price is a no-brainer.
This is especially true when there are obviously big moves ahead. Donte is the kind of player that is either a great piece to retain when you have to include the likes of Grimes or IQ to acquire that big name, or a guy who can help make salaries match in a trade for a star because other teams will be happy to have him. For now, he will fit perfectly in with this team’s culture.
You sign him and worry about the roster crunch later.
is there some sort of bevy of stars on the market that we’re in on or something where this is assumed to be happening? that’s been the justification of all of our terrible deals… it’s like the existence of jesus… anticipating ‘consolidation trades’ is no excuse for terrible deals…
because you can just sign equivalent players when you make that trade! there’s no urgency with guys like divicenzo.. NONE…. every single contender has been able to do it… EVERY… SINGLE…ONE… period.
uh our 6th man is not gonna be paid like a 6th man very soon… so not sure if you’re actually trying to act in good faith or you just wanna feel better about yourself… and then our 5th man may or may not be the actual 5th man the year after and if he is … he will be due to be paid more than his 5th man status…
these are not going to be 1 or 2 year deals… if they are great.. i will love it… the concern is year 3 and 4…
i dunno did you forget that we had fournier and rose on the bench when you astutely made the observation that we might’ve beat miami if we actually had something useful coming out of our misfit of a bench? or that doesn’t count or something?
i assume at this point is where you ghost out of the conversation….
Gabe Vincent $11M AAV
Herb Jones $13,5M AAV
Joe Ingles $11M AAV
Bruce Brown $22.5M AAV
Tre Jones $10M AAV
Coby White $13.3M AAV
Max Strus $16M AAV?
Holy shit the money Bruce Brown got! And almost holy shit the money Herb Jones got!
Reddish to the Lakers
Hachimura returning to the Lakers on a 3yr 51m deal. 17m a year for a player who played 22 mins per game for them.
Also Levert returning to the Cavs on a 2yr 32m contract so they’ll have both Strus and Levert making 16m per season….
I’m interested to see whether LeBron can coach up Cam “I think I’m a star” Reddish….but more generally I like what the Lakers are doing.
FVV to Houston 3yrs 130m. Good thing Toronto wrapped up Poetl to a 4yr 80m deal…
wow that’s way too much money for Fred Van Vleet
Remembering when people were mad Mitch got 15 million
Houston needs to hit the floor, and I’d guess year 3 is a TO
Bruce Brown also has a team option year 2 I believe
So let me get this straight…for the next 3 years, FVV will be getting paid more than Brunson and Mitch combined….
pretty weird spot for toronto now
Is Masai still a genius?
Cam with a 2yr 4.6m contract with Lakers
Man that Brunson contract was a masterpiece
I’m sure though Brunson will make up the money with his max contract extension.
If Van Vleet is leaving Toronto will they start going the rebuilding route?
I mean they just resigned Poetl to a 4yr 80m contract so dunno what direction Toronto is headed.
Not only did I learn from a Woj Bomb that Julian Champagnie signed a free agent deal to stay with the spurs, I also learned from the same Woj Bomb that Julian Champagnie exists.
He’s violating all manner of EU trade and labeling regulations by continuing to use that name.
Julian Sparkling Wine if he isn’t actually from the Champagne region.
This free agency period is almost as exciting as the 2023 draft
Josh Richardson to Miami for $3M AAV? That seems like a value deal for the Heat. It is starting to feel like a Dame to Miami deal is coming…
Richardson stinks but I guess at that price it doesn’t matter.
If Dame is gone Portland giving all that money to bag getting legend Jerami Grant is insane.
Looks like Dennis Schroder is replacing FVV in Toronto.
Schroeder at $13M AAV…guys, DiVincenzo at the MLE is really fine.
FVV afte tax take home is going to be a lot higher.3
I don’t know what the Raptors are doing but that is not a deal I would want.
And yeah, we have some good contracts.
Does TOR lead the league in international players?
One free agent I’m quite curious about is Scott Perry. The league’s front offices must know him pretty well by now. Where he ends up partially depends on what they think of him. But even if they think he did ok, he may not get an offer. I think Grunwald never GMed again after the Knicks even though he was one of our less bad GMs.
Minivan headed to Cleveland to shore up their nickname game
Richardson seems like the exact type of dudes that Spo can get value from, despite him being useless everywhere else.
What about Austin Reeves, who you mentioned? This offseason, he will be going from 1.5 mil to what? 20?
But somehow, he’s the perfect guy to have on your roster, not Quickley. I shouldn’t even respond to your smug absurdities, but you really need to stop trying to call out posters who don’t agree with your nonsense.
Looks like Derrick Rose is signing with Memphis.
Watanabe to Phoenix on a minimum deal! Damn, what are the Knicks doing?
It was funny when Nuggets fans thought he’d take a hometown discount to stay as Jokic’s slot receiver but now it’s REALLY funny
“Watanabe to Phoenix on a minimum deal! Damn, what are the Knicks doing?”
Maybe he’ll get to play there…
These salaries are beyond insane.
This feels like the last time they were projecting huge cap increases and everyone was handing out money like they were Fed. Courtney Lee might get 20 million in this environment. 😂
Why on earth did the Wizards bring back Kuzma?
Some teams never learn.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Quickley is our 6th man but he might be the best two way player on the team next year.
“Pay him. Pay that man his money”.
Leon just got back from vacation and was told he brought the wrong spreadsheet. “Tonight is not draft night”.
For those who don’t mind just running it back (like me, I confess), we seem to be doing just that (but without Rose)
not that you’re trying to understand.. but that was an answer to a different question… those were the contenders for this season…. divicenzo couldn’t have played for our team last season….
Damn, FVV got Max Scherzer/Justin Verlander money.
🙂
…crickets…
I have to imagine that the idea is to flip him, right?
So VanVleet gets 130 mil for three.
Kyrie gets 126 mil for three.
Middleton gets 102 mil for three.
That all makes sense, right?
GM’s are winding their way around the impulse items retail checkout maze and overpaying for hot garbage.
They have to spend on someone. Who out there is not getting paid that should be?
I’m confused. I’m not a Kuzma fan at all. That’s what I would do. If I was them I’d totally tank the year.
I just watched some Donte’s defensive highlight reels….he’s damn good both on and off the mall, very physical around and through screens, great anticipation, quick hands…definitely my kind of player.
Ok so you’re bouncing it back to the potential DD midlevel signing. What does that have to do with UDFA Austin Reaves? Those are two totally different ways of acquiring players.
Let me ask: in your world, should no one use the midlevel except “real” contenders like, say, Philly, who was applauded by almost every pundit for signing PJ Tucker to the midlevel? Sadly, PJ seemed to fall off a cliff last year, even though he had a decent season the year before.
But PJ is 38. DD is 26, which is the prime of his career. Idk, maybe signing him would be a risk, but any move involves some risk.
Are we sure DiVincenzo is signing with the Knicks?
In this market, maybe so, but compare Randle at 117 mil for four and Brunson at 104 mil for four years. Our management did well with them
Some guy I’ve never heard of claims we traded Obi to the Pacers. https://twitter.com/anilgognanba/status/1674975843506958338?s=21&t=6q5k2PbXYCFg5e9fufvlUA
“Are we sure DiVincenzo is signing with the Knicks?”
Not really…reports are that we are the faves but that he has 4 meetings scheduled…
I think if he signs for the MLE it will be with us, but there’s lots of dollars being burned out there…
Alan, not buying that based on a nobody’s tweet…but wouldn’t shock me if it’s for real.
yes most good teams find ways to fill out the lineup cheaply irregardless of being contenders…. and that usually results in the 5th man generally being paid around or even below the mid level… mid level by the very definition means they are an average player and most 5th men are just that… some teams get lucky and fill it out through other means.. see lakers/heat/warriors/nuggets etc…
contenders can’t spend that big on those guys.. because it’s all going to their stars and core players… so they HAVE to gamble through lower cost means… and it must be some strange coincidence that they somehow almost always get the right role players right? it’s not like some championship role player getting big money to some bad team is not the biggest trope in nba free agency right? i hope the wheels are turning on that….
not every contender gets everything right… but yes the sixers are at the end of the win curve… and when you’re at the end of the win curve you can justify spending almost infinite amount of money… which is where you see the suns and clippers and lakers and warriors and the rest of the contenders…. your limit is basically how much you value championships…. and spending the mid level on a starter is yes exactly what you should be doing at the end of the win curve…..
when you do it in the reverse you run the risk of your role players playing very badly…. or just getting bad luck and getting hurt… and you might say you can’t foresee any of that and it is get bad luck… but no…. you could just wait until you actually need that kind of player to top off your roster and you can avoid the whole getting hurt before you accumulate your core player problem and having to dip into the bad value pool again…. because you dont get another chance usually!
right now we’re about to invest a quarter of a billion dollars in contracts on 3 players who are going to be on our bench… that is going to be the most expensive bench of all-time and it won’t be close and that is just plain lunacy… and yea people are going through potential contract figures and are behaving just like some tourist at the blackjack table or some shopaholic at the department store… you only have so much room in the budget to go for bad decisions…
and on top of the draft picks you incinerate you say ok fine no biggie.. you cannot say ok fine no biggie a half dozen more times and expect good outcomes… so really think about all the things you’re excusing for this theoretical deal that may not come to pass.. and by the time it does how much the shape of the team could possibly change.. because the last time this occurred it was 2022 and a bunch of euphoria over kemba walker…. and we’ve learned absolutely nothing from that…
Obi was a good fit in the Pacers, but they just drafted a power forward and also signed Niang, so that Tweet seems unlikely to me. But I guess their draft pick could be part of a trade with us
That’s all I wanted to hear you admit, thanks.
I have no idea if this is or isn’t your point, it’s too garbled for me to parse, but if you’re trying to say that we can find these guys later… no we can’t, that’s the whole point of the new CBA
The way the money is flying around, I’m not so sure RJ’s contract is even a problem anymore.
Maybe all the cap and strategy projections are wrong AGAIN and everyone is wildly overpaying, but I suspect the kinds of contracts we are giving out (or will be giving out) are going to look pretty attractive if this keeps up. Randle and Brunson look like screaming bargains in this environment. When we gave them out some people thought Randle’s was an albatross and Brunson was an overpay we had to do. I don’t think we’ll have a problem consolidating picks and players for a significant upgrade and I’m not entirely convinced we need one of those stars upgrades anyway if we get the right player in RJ’s slot and some development from Quick/Grimes.
I think role players sometimes look better when they are on championship teams with stars than they do on an ordinary team where they have to carry the load.
we can’t get average players without the use of the MLE? that’s a pretty incredible claim to be making….
We can’t go way over the cap and then add guys on after. Once we’re over the 2nd apron we’re pretty much stuck with the team we have. We don’t get full MLE players, we don’t get tax MLE players, we don’t get much in the way of trades. We’re stuck with what we have so when we go into the 2nd apron we want to have these guys already.
We don’t get to pickup Bruce Browns or Donte Divincenzos or restructure our roster to get Rui Hachimuras, Malik Beasleys and Vanderbilts.
We get guys on minimum contracts who leave as soon as they play well. If we get a star player and Brunson re-ups for the max we better have the whole rotation locked in because those are going to be our guys going forward.
Just because things might go wrong doesn’t mean we should never sign a player to a contract again.
Many random thoughts that I’ll probably port over to the morning thread, but I’m awake three hours too early for that, so…
* What in the world are the Wizards doing with that Kuzma deal? If the goal is to tank, tank. If the goal is to flip him later, then you risk any of the following: 1)He costs you ping pong balls, 2)He takes time, touches, and development away from their kids, 3)He becomes a John Collins-esque albatross that you later have to dump for nothing, or even have to pay to dump.
* Similarly, what sense does it make for Masai to let FVV go while resigning Poeltl? If the concern was the first that was traded to get Poeltl, that’s a sunk cost. Again, if you’re going to tank, tank. Unless Masai has a brilliant plan to flip Siakam for a whole lot, Barnes is ready to step up, etc.
* The idea of Hali deservedly getting the rookie max stings even more as the rumors get hot about us trading Obi to play alongside him, almost certainly for a light return.
* On the other hand, Bane unsurprisingly getting the max reopens the whole IQ vs Bane debate. IQ is reportedly looking for a contract around $100 million. Bane is better than IQ, but is he that much better?
For the second time in a row I did choose to sleep instead of waiting for Leon to do something and for the second time I did right (the other was draft night).
But thinking about it, maybe I’m not the only one asleep, Leon is probably snoring in a cryogenic chamber since may 12th…
It’s not over yet but, I am very disappointed we couldn’t grab one of the bigger wings that were available. Watanabe went to Phoenix for the vet minimum. Prince to the Lakers for $4 million would have been nice. Either one of them could have helped us. Are we really waiting for DiVincenzo? If we are, I really hope there is a big trade right behind him signing. He is just too redundant with our existing wings to go into next season with. Boston, Indiana, and Cleveland have really helped themselves. I think we need to do something more than rely on internal development to keep pace.
Until Thibs is fired, I don’t see the logic in signing a player like Watanabe. Prince doesn’t seem like a fit for us either.
I really like Donte but if that falls through I think we’re still in good shape when it comes to our ability to make deals to improve the team relative to other teams. There are many teams who are going to look back and rue what they did on June 30, 2023. I doubt that many will rue what they DIDN’T do.