01-10-2021, 04:11 AM
(01-10-2021, 03:51 AM)pompelmo Wrote: I thought of a number slightly over the full MLE to keep other teams with the MLE off of him. Of course if he can repeat last season's success, going up to 11-12 would not hurt much.
As for similar caliber players getting double that amount, certain factors affected that, beginning with those players being similar caliber somewhat dubious.
While Gallo and Tim have almost identical 3PT shooting numbers (C&S, PU; WO, O, T) both in volume and efficiency, Gallo is also a 6'10'' guy who can put the ball to the floor and go to the rim, drawing fouls (7.9 FTA compared to 4.2 from Tim per 100 poss, hitting almost 90% of them) and collecting rebounds. Besides, Atlanta pays that money because they have to reach the salary floor one way or another, and they may have wanted some veteran presence in the locker room.
Washington didn't have cap room, so they were not going to be able to replace Bertans if they had let him go. He signed a contract starting at 15 million$/year, which is considered an overpay by the most. And Bertans is better as a shooter! He shot 42.4% on 1.5 more attempts compared to Tim's 40.1%, more importantly he hit 47.7% on 2.1 wide open attempts, 41.4% on 4 open attempts and 40.6% on 2.2 tight attempts. Tim's numbers are 46.3%, 39% and 34% for those respectively. Bertans is also 6'10'' and he runs of screens: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpS_9OeS-q4
Joe Harris got a deal starting at 16 million$/year and he hit 57.1% of his threes last year (58.8% when wide open). So if the best shooting-only players got those contracts (and they were more valuable to the their incumbent teams because of how salary cap works), slightly above mid-level sounds fair to me. It will ultimately depend on how desperate we are for that shooting.
No players are identical obviously. But who is close to THJ who get close to MLE?
We won't have cap space to get someone else better unless Oladipo or Kawhi wants to come here.
Otherwise, we are looking for a market with ton of teams having cap space and very few players who are good enough to get paid.
I honestly will be shocked if THJ wasn't paid better than JRich, his skills right now is more valuable in this league.