coolhandluke121

They went extremely cheap. Far cheaper than even I could have feared. They traded Brogdon for picks. They didn't bring everyone back. They lost Mirotic, Brogdon, and probably Hill. And they're probably not even going to pay the damn tax! Don't have Bird Rights to go far enough over the cap. Just think about that. They won't even pay the luxury tax to keep a 60-win team together for a chance at their first title in 50 years! It's a disgrace. Khris's raise + the room MLE should put them several million below the tax threshold. How convenient! Disgusting. I'm telling you, waiving Hill was not necessary. It was the red flag that they were going to be cheap. Dude, Hill has NOTHING to do with this. No team in the NBA was going to pay Hill that. Hill has ABSOLUTELY nothing to do with it. And you basically were begging the Bucks to do this earlier this season. You said it was an emergency to get rid of Brogdon? Right, so they could keep everyone else. Not so they could stay under the tax threshold completely. It's a disgrace.

Probably Hill too. Think he has to settle for a room MLE in this market? GM's can be really dumb in overrating certain players and underrating others - especially great defenders like Hill - but I would be surprised if he's back. So no, they're not as good as the playoff team last year. Not even close.

They went extremely cheap. Far cheaper than even I could have feared. They traded Brogdon for picks. They didn't bring everyone back. They lost Mirotic, Brogdon, and probably Hill. And they're probably not even going to pay the damn tax! Don't have Bird Rights to go far enough over the cap. Just think about that. They won't even pay the luxury tax to keep a 60-win team together for a chance at their first title in 50 years! It's a disgrace. Khris's raise + the room MLE should put them several million below the tax threshold. How convenient! Disgusting. I'm telling you, waiving Hill was not necessary. It was the red flag that they were going to be cheap.

Well, that's not at all been the discussion on here. The argument on here has been that he's worth that and that the Bucks owners were being cheap. So they're trading Brogdon for picks, what do you think of my concerns about being cheap now? It's exactly what I said it would be - act like they have to let a bunch of guys go to prioritize Lopez and Khris when I laid out exactly how to keep everyone except Khris. Khris is the 2nd-best player on the team like Canada is the second most powerful country in North America. Who cares, he's not better than Brogdon, Mirotic, and Hill combined. This is nuts. I'd laugh at how this all went down exactly like I warned everyone if it wasn't so sad. At least they kept all their star players though. Oh, and by January Hill would be regarded as a better value at $18m* than roughly half the players who sign for 8-figure salaries this summer. That happens every damn time teams go on a spending spree like this. Buyer's remorse will set in the very next day for many teams and they'll wish they could trade their guys for a George Hill on an expiring deal. *It's really only $17m since they have to pay him $1m either way.

I'm actually not convinced they're paying much tax at all. That's why I'm so suspicious of how things are playing out so far. They act like they have to make these moves, but it's pretty damn convenient that they even stand a chance of staying under the tax threshold, or at least the tax apron, when it's all said and done. Revenue sharing is pretty good in the NBA, and small markets can run huge payrolls when they're contenders - especially if they have a superstar who is potentially an icon. But I'm actually taking a more macro view than they are. My plan would be to let Khris walk and keep everyone else. Hill, Leuer, and Ersan would be off the books and they'd be under the cap again next summer. Whereas locking in your starting 5 leaves in long-term tax territory with no BAE and only the tax MLE for flexibility in case someone gets hurt or declines. So my plan is probably much better for long-term fiscal health. Really comes down to what you think of all the players though. Personally I think Khris, Mirotic, Bledsoe, Lopez, Brogdon, and Hill are all so close that I would much rather lose the "best" one and keep all the others than lose multiple guys.

Supposedly Mirotic got 6/$80m from Barcelona, which is absolutely unheard of. He would be considered a basketball icon over there, but Euro teams have some history of defaulting on their payments (don't know if that's been addressed). In any case, it's more than double what I can remember any Euro player getting ever, though I haven't looked it up.

Wow, why is it so hard for you to understand that you can't do this? You realize your continued insistence on this undermines all your other arguments about the financial situation, right? Use cap space, get the room MLE. Period. The owners are being cheap, just as I feared. Hey, are you able to explain at what point the MLE changes? In most links I've seen showing the Bucks using the MLE, it is not the "room" MLE that you insist it is if you use any salary cap room first. So does a team need to be OVER the salary cap by July 2nd in order to qualify for the highest MLE? If they use Bird rights to go over the cap, THEN are they allowed? Basically you can use cap space or you can use the full MLE, but not both. If at any point you can say "we are allowed to sign this contract only because we have the cap space to do it" and the league rubber-stamps it, you've lost the full MLE for the year. You have only the room MLE instead. Think of it this way - why would there be a room MLE if you could use cap space and then use the full MLE? There would be no reason for the room MLE to exist. The exceptions are basically designed to give capped out teams some flexibility and keep the market moving for players, but they don't want teams that already have cap space to have the full MLE because they don't need it I guess. You don't have to be over the cap to get the full MLE. You just can't cite "cap space" as your legal basis for signing anyone. For example, if you're only $3m under the cap, you might say screw it and take the full MLE, which would be a little more than the room MLE + $3m in cap space, allowing you to hopefully pay a slightly better player. And you can still sign minimum contracts, as those are always allowed regardless of cap space (unless maybe you're over the apron but that's an edge case). I'd prefer a hard cap, but whatever. What really bothers me about waiving Hill, besides my obvious affinity for his all-around contributions and how badly they need him, is that they still didn't really free up enough cap space to pay Lopez much more than the full MLE anyway, which is what they would have had if they hadn't waived Hill. So they're acting like they had to do it to keep Lopez, but that's not true. And they're acting like they have to stretch Leuer to create cap space, but that's not necessarily true either, although it would be true if Brogdon gets a huge offer (but they can wait until that happens to stretch Leuer). And they might even give up another asset to unload Ersan, claiming they need even more cap space. And after that, they might still lose Lopez and Hill to surprise over-bidders. And Mirotic supposedly wanted to stay, but the Bucks weren't even interested because they're too invested in trying to trick everyone into thinking they needed cap space when it sure looks like they're just trying to save money. They had Bird Rights to everyone except Lopez, whom they could use the full MLE on, and they had Hill under contract. There's no excuse for probably losing multiple good players from a 60-win team under the circumstances. I think they're not being called on their b.s. because most people will accept the excuse that they had to free up cap space and prioritize certain guys, but I think that's a misdirection play for being cheap. They do know more about what the players are thinking though, so I have my fingers crossed that they got assurances from Lopez and Hill that they would accept certain offers regardless of being able to get more elsewhere. They might get a lot more elsewhere though, now that the Bucks don't have Bird Rights to either of them and have only the room MLE.

Mirotic signed with Barcelona. Odd. I think he could have made double what he'll make there, so he must have really wanted to go back to Europe. Can't imagine his injury-related struggles tanked his value that much in one year.

I agree. In fact, I don't think he should be even a #3 option on any team that's competing to make the playoffs. But he might want the opportunity to prove otherwise, instead of having people always say he's so lucky to be playing with Giannis (and paying him accordingly).

Allowing offer sheets like that gives RFA's some leverage if they want to leave. Teams often won't make offers when they know they will be matched. Then it's a stalemate that causes the player to get low-balled. "Go get an offer, and we'll match." "Nobody wants to make an offer because they know you'll match." "Okay, here's an offer for 75% of what you would get if other teams wasted their time making market-value offers that they know we would match." I hope it doesn't happen but I could see Brogdon wanting a more featured role.

Wow, why is it so hard for you to understand that you can't do this? You realize your continued insistence on this undermines all your other arguments about the financial situation, right? Use cap space, get the room MLE. Period. The owners are being cheap, just as I feared.

He's a 25th man in the long run and realistically so are the guys who would replace him. Just because Saladino and Dubon are hitting at AAA doesn't mean they'll hit MLB pitching. Perez would probably crush AAA pitching. This is a big fat Whatever. Accountability is fine, but it needs to be with the guys who are supposed to be bigger parts of the team.

"Hill shouldn't be waived." "You're wrong, Hill will be waived!" "I didn't say he won't be waived, I said he shouldn't be waived." "Oh how convenient of you to back-track before you're proven wrong!"

You can't use the full MLE if you use cap space. You continue to have really strong opinions about things when you have huge gaps in your knowledge of the CBA. We've been through this before and I don't understand why you insist on being so over-confident in the things you assert. The CBA is exceedingly complex and I've made some mistakes too, but knowing which MLE you have under which circumstances is pretty basic stuff.

I never said he would wouldn't be waived so stop with that nonsense. I said he shouldn't be waived, and I've already been proven right about his value because of the fact that he was literally the 2nd-best player in the playoffs on a 60-win team. Where you're completely lost is on his real value if you think he's only worth $4.5m after the way he played the last 3 months of the season. It's okay though. Sometimes it's hard for casual fans to understand how valuable a guy like him is without the flashy numbers. I'm cautiously optimistic that the Bucks understand it too, but if not, they wouldn't be the first team to over-value box score stats and underestimate intangibles. I didn't say he would be claimed either, just that there's a good chance he would be. He might be waived or he might not. He might be claimed or he might not. I don't have a strong opinion either way. My argument is, and always has been, about what I think he's worth and how valuable he is, not about predicting what's actually going to happen, so knock it off with turning it into that. I've been talking about how good he is since January while everyone else thought he was just an average back-up PG on an expiring contract. I've been saying they should keep him at his current contract because they can't afford to lose him, not because I have any insight into whether they're going to or not. I have no way of knowing if they'll keep him or not. I have no way of knowing if he would be claimed on waivers. I can only speculate. I think some team will see that he's an asset on his current contract, and I hope it's the Bucks... but I'm not inside their heads. His performance in the playoffs proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I had a pretty good understanding all along of how valuable players like him really are, and trying to turn it into an argument into predicting what happens with him is just deflecting the fact that you were completely wrong in your assessment of his value. Pretty much everyone acted like I was nuts in January when I said they should keep him on his current deal.

It's not negative. It only seems negative compared to Horst. Ujiri just went years without screwing up, and when the opportunity came to get Kawhi, he didn't screw that up either. But the engine was already in place for a run of 50-win seasons before he even took the job. I believe Horst (and Bud?) had more impact with astute personnel moves.

I honestly don't think Masai Ujiri has done impressive work at all. Basically they became a regular 50-ish win team the year he took over, but with almost all the same core guys they had they year before... not guys he acquired. Then they were stuck on a rich man's treadmill for 5 years on his watch. Why didn't he trade for Kawhi then? Oh right, because it was a great opportunity that fell into his lap. Also, he could get away with making a risky, all-in move like that (not to mention trading a young center with 20/10 potential for Marc Gasol) precisely because he had them stuck in place for so long. It's actually his long-term failure to get the team forward that made it acceptable to make such a ballsy move in the first place. Horst made more dramatic improvements in 2 years than Ujiri made in 6, title or no title. Why didn't Ujiri get guys like Lopez, Bledsoe, Hill, and Mirotic for next to nothing? I'm happy for them that they got a title, and they deserved it. But before this year, they were unanimous first-ballot candidates for induction into the Pretender HOF, brought to you by the Buffalo Bills.

Hill was comfortably the team's second-best player in the playoffs. They would have to renounce Mirotic to have any cap space at all. They would have only the room MLE for Lopez or his replacement, which is almost an insulting offer, so they'd probably lose him too. I'm not losing those 3 to over-pay some aging veteran who was never even a superstar in his prime. I'm definitely not doing it for a no-defense cancer like Kyrie. Now that KD tore his Achilles, the only guy I'm doing it for is Kawhi, and he's not walking through that door. Great. The Bucks still aren't paying Hill 19 million next year. You keep saying he was great in the playoffs. I keep agreeing. But you've never actually said that you think they're going to keep him because obviously nobody thinks that. Kyrie? Has ANYONE brought up trying to sign him? LOL...and Kawhi's not walking through that door, but it was a chance KD was? And who suggested we do the part in bold? The suggestion was to use the cap space to sign Hill and Lopez before they signed Middleton and Brogdon. Who are the three players we'd be losing? Oh, and the MLE for Lopez is not really an insult. He signed for roughly 3.3 this year. Not sure why a raise to 9.7 million would be this huge slap in the face, but if that's a slap in the face, please, prey tell, what exactly do you think he WOULD sign in Milwaukee for? And wouldn't that be the point in trying to create cap space? In the event that they want to sign Lopez and Hill? They can try and use the cap space and MLE before they sign their two core FA's in Middleton and Brogdon? That's the only suggestion I've seen. Haven't seen anything about Kyrie(though you'll no doubt tell us how you told all of us we wouldn't sign him with NOBODY arguing that we would). Just answer this, do you believe that the Bucks will waive Hill, yes or no? You keep repeating the same thing while ignoring what's a foregone conclusion to seemingly everyone else, the Bucks aren't paying Hill the 18 Mill that's NOT guaranteed. Do you agree or disagree? You'll manage to tell us how you told us so the whole time either way, I'm just curious what you ACTUALLY think will happen vs what's I guess you want to happen? There's a good chance Hill will be claimed on waivers, you have to renounce Mirotic, and the room MLE is about half of the full MLE - so yes, that is an insulting offer for Lopez considering the year he had. I don't think anybody here said Kyrie. The point is that, other than Kawhi, there aren't free agents worth the trouble of creating cap space because you lose Hill, Mirotic, Leuer's expiring contract, and Lopez. I wasn't listing free agents that people here have suggested; I was just making the point that I'd rather keep the team intact. The grass is not greener on the other side. You can only use the room MLE if you create cap space, but you can use the full MLE (almost double that) if you don't. So it might be easier to keep Lopez if you don't create cap space. Even the tax-payer MLE is $1m more than the room MLE, and that compounds over a 3-4 year deal. Unless you need to pay him more than the MLE, in which case they should keep everyone else and let him walk. I believe they'll waive Hill if they think they can keep Middleton, Brogdon, and Lopez. If they think they're losing one of them, I think there's about a 50% chance they'll keep him. I'm not freeing up cap space to keep Hill and Lopez when Hill is already under contract and you can use the tax MLE to replace Lopez. You probably won't get someone with his skill set unless he takes a team-friendly deal, but there are some guys who do other things well who will command only the tax MLE or thereabouts.

Hill was comfortably the team's second-best player in the playoffs. They would have to renounce Mirotic to have any cap space at all. They would have only the room MLE for Lopez or his replacement, which is almost an insulting offer, so they'd probably lose him too. I'm not losing those 3 to over-pay some aging veteran who was never even a superstar in his prime. I'm definitely not doing it for a no-defense cancer like Kyrie. Now that KD tore his Achilles, the only guy I'm doing it for is Kawhi, and he's not walking through that door.

[sarcasm]Wow...it's not like you to pat yourself on the back for an argument that never really took place.[/sarcasm] You weren't getting people arguing with you that Giannis WAS the MVP. You were getting people arguing with you for brushing off Harden and dismissing what he was doing by claiming he was inefficient(he wasn't). So yeah, you were disrespecting Harden. Pretty much everyone said Giannis was the MVP....you weren't out on a limb there at all. I think the whole board said the same thing. Nope. I said Giannis was clearly the MVP and it wasn't even close in my eyes, and people said that was unfair to Harden. Wasn't much more to it than that. I even predicted roughly a 75/25 split and people were incredulous. And yes, efficiency was a factor because Giannis is more efficient. Defense is another huge factor. Ball-hogging is an issue. Harden is a manipulator and a quirk of the times. Giannis is an MVP for the ages because of his greatness on both ends. Shame on everyone who gave Harden their first-place vote.

Better than a 3:1 margin over Harden, just as I said it should be all along. There really wasn't much controversy at all IMO. People acted like I was disrespecting Harden, but he really didn't have much of a case against Giannis.

I think I can revise their options with Brogdon. Some site said his offer sheet kicks in immediately, but I read that part of the CBA and it seems his cap hold is still in effect until they actually match. That would make it slightly more realistic to create cap space and use it before matching an offer, but you'd still have to lose several good players to do so. Therefore the question of whether you're losing more than you gain is still in play; it's just the fact that you wouldn't have to worry about losing the cap space to a Brogdon offer sheet until 48 hours after the moratorium ends and free agency officially begins.

I don't know the explanation....but having to do with being homegrown or not I promise you has nothing to do with it. That just doesn't really make any sense to me. Also Knebel isn't homegrown and his demotion lasted a grand 3.2 innings before getting recalled on September 1st. Likely only demoted to shuffle the roster until September. Hardly much of a demotion. I think he'll be down as soon as they think Hiura clears super-2 status. And he'll stay down until rosters expand, unless they need a 3B and he's playing well.

Keep as many guys as possible and be ready for a consolidation trade if a star becomes available. You gotta have good players on matching contracts, a big expiring contract or two, and some young guys that a team trading away its star would want to take a chance on. Yet another reason to keep Hill and not waive/stretch Leuer's contract. You can't guarantee there will be a Kawhi, Paul George, or Anthony Davis available in a trade, but it seems there's a guy or two like that (or at least close) almost every year lately. You also have to have a number of cheap young assets. The Bucks could match salaries with those guys, but they don't have much of anything that teams would want in terms of young players or draft picks. That's not true at all. When stars want out, they often go for trade packages of expiring contracts, solid veterans, picks, and/or non-blue-chip prospects. Look at the KG to Boston deal, Melo to Knicks deal, Kawhi to Raptors deal, George to OKC deal, or even the Kyrie to Boston deal. Some times a potentially good pick changed hands in those deals and others like them, but the Bucks have an asset at least worth that in Brogdon. They have young guys like Wilson, Brown, Pat C, and DDV, all of whom showed promise and contributed to a 60-win team. They have expiring contracts in Hill, Leuer, and Ersan. And they could have good veterans like Bledsoe, Khris, Brogdon, and Mirotic, all of whom have trade value, whether it be directly to a team looking to trade a star without rebuilding or to a 3rd team which would send more assets and/or cap relief their way. For example, suppose Paul George or Damian Lillard wants out. With their contracts, most of the trade proposals would probably be comparable to a package the Bucks could put together with, say, Brogdon, Bledsoe or Khris, Pat C, Wilson, and an expiring contract.

Lots of pitchers are like Bumgarner? Really? The guy is a damn disgrace. Not sure anyone else I've seen in my lifetime comes close to his levels of douchebagging.