(02-12-2022, 07:55 AM)Winter Wrote: No one who watches him play knows what happened in contract negotiations or what other teams are threatening to outbid them for the player's service.
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Did they overpay for Bertans? Sure. Did they think that at the time it was signed? Possibly.
I like your post, but then you go onto to say the bolded. That's my entire point and the referenced articles just reinforce that. It doesn't matter if the people posting know the contract negotiations are all the factors that went into the contract. It's an overpay. It's a bad contract. The referenced articles were posted to highlight that very point. It doesn't matter what the contract negotiations were like or any of the factors you listed and who was or wasn't privy to them. It doesn't matter if other 3PT specialists have similar bad contracts. Two wrongs don't make a right. Really great players can have bad contracts (Klay) and so can really bad players and everything in between. Players can also live up to the money they are earning on a perceived bad contract (Paul).
The Mavericks took a bad contract and turned it into two bad contracts. From a cap standpoint it looks like this:
'22-23: $33.8m (KP) vs $34m (SD/DB)
'23-24: $36.6m (KP) vs $27m-35.8m (SD/DB)
'24-25: $0(KP) vs 16m /w an ETO (DB)
These players on these contracts might be more useful to the Mavericks on the court. That's certainly Cuban's line of thinking. We can certainly argue the merits of what the team's ceiling is now versus before the trade. They might be easier to move than KP's contract because of their size but they are going to be a negative value to whoever you are moving them to. Again, that's my point. So the Mavericks paid to move off of KP's bad contract only to inherit two more bad contracts that they'd need to pay to move off if they felt so inclined. Sending out an asset and kicking some of the KP contract money a year further down the road is why I'd consider this a bad trade for the Mavericks.
The big question is, what did this accomplish? You got rid of KP. The biggest positive. You have more depth for for a run at a four seed. Yes. You broke one bad contract into two which gives you more flexibility. Sure. Are you any closer to adding top flight talent next to Luka and putting together a contender. Well, that's the debate.
And for a thought exercise for DB compared to other similar skillset players on contracts in the same range. Put all those guys on the playground and make yourself captain of both teams. Which guy is picked last? And again, a bad contract for one player doesn't make an equally bad contract for another player, suddenly good. For better and worse, the NBA is a copycat league. Lot's of guys got overpaid because Steph and Klay changed the game. The problem is none of those guys in that DB contract range have near the versatility to that skillset and DB is probably at the bottom of the list in that regard.