Blood Flows Red on the Salary Cap

A few days ago on the altraps forum, Scott pointed out this article regarding the rather unprecedented (at least under the current CBA, as well as its immediate predecessors) hold-outs of two Cavs restricted free agents: noted Slobodan Milosevic fan Sasha Pavlovic and noted gay community icon Anderson Varejao:

The summers of 2004, 2005 and 2006 featured record spending in the NBA. Part of it was due to a new collective bargaining agreement in 2005 that bolstered the salary cap.Lots of max contracts were given out, numerous teams had, and used, giant amounts of cap space; lots of teams used their entire mid-level exceptions to sign mid-level players to contracts worth more than $35 million; and lots of restricted free agents got huge deals without having to get legitimate offers elsewhere.

That was the flow, now is the ebb.

(The article also points out that the Raptors were the only team in the NBA this summer to use their full mid-level exemption to lure a player away from another team -- the frankly somewhat bizarre signing of Jason Kapono. This is actually not entirely accurate, as the capped-out Bulls used nearly all of theirs in the understandable but certainly no less painful signing of Joe Smith.)

I've long argued that it's these mid-level deals and not the obviously bloated max-contracts to unworthy players that destroy a team's cap flexibility. Never in their Clipper careers will Cuttino Mobley or the Talented Tim Thomas be their team's highest paid player, but the Clips will be on the hook for a combined $14 million dollars for their dubious services for each of the next three seasons. Look around the league and you see a lot of toxic tandems like this, from Vlad Radmanovic and Kwame Brown for Lakers (nearly $15 million this season) to Kenny Thomas and Shareef Abdur-Rahim for the Kings ($13 million escalating up to $15 million over the next three years).

Of course, the master of the pointless mid-level exemption is still Kevin McHale of the Minnesota Timberwolves. Prior to this summer's firesale, the Wolves were on the hook for past MLE-like duds like rap superstar Troy Hudson ($6.5 million on average over the next three years), Marko Jaric ($6 escalating to $7.5 million over the next four years) and Mike James (an average of $6.5 million over the next three years). Note that all three of them were point guards, and none have ever been good enough to start for anything resembling a playoff team. Dumping Kevin Garnett this summer was a useful distraction from the fact that the team is still on the hook for $18 million dollars for useless scrubs.

Yi Jianlian: This Year's Araujo?

In 2004 -- one of the deepest drafts in the years prior to this season -- a recently hired GM broke his NBA cherry by drafting a foreign player far higher than anyone expected. Rob Babcock really didn't have a prayer of winning any Executive of the Year awards after he plucked Rafael Araujo out of obscurity and made him the Raptors' #8 pick, passing on Andre Iguodala (#9), Andris Biedrins (#11), Al Jefferson (#15) and even Josh Smith (#17) along the way. Three years later, the scorned players (all but Iguodala were teenagers on draft day; Iggy was all of 20) are coming into their own, while Araujo is out of the NBA.

Babcock later claimed that he had inadequate time to prepare for the draft after his recent hire by the Raptors. Bucks GM Larry Harris, on the other hand, has been on the job for several years now, and doesn't have the luxury of making the same excuse after he shocked observers and drafted Yi Jianlian with the #6 overall pick in the 2007 draft.

Much of the derision aimed at the Bucks after picking Yi had to do with drafting a player that, from all indications, greeted the chance to play in Cheeseville with the enthusiasm Shawn Kemp used to have for court-ordered paternity tests. But the real risk isn't that the Bucks drafted a player that didn't want to be there, but drafted a player that no one really knew anything about.

At this point, I can say that I've seen every minute of Yi's NBA career -- a pair of exhibition games against the Bulls and Utah, respectively. Let me make a proclamation so assured that it hardly qualifies as such: if Yi Jianlian has a future in this league, it's as a rather mediocre role player.

Prior to the draft, the only footage circulating of Yi rivaled the Zapruder Film in quality. An NBA exec with a decent budget (this is Milwaukee, after all) could probably obtain more, but I wonder if the Bucks were aware that the camera only added ten pounds. Yi is pencil thin -- it's impossible to overstate just how skinny he is. I've seen Luol Deng as a 19 year old, and Tayshaun Prince in high school when he was teammates with Tyson Chandler (speaking of basing a draft pick on workouts and grainy footage...) Yi is easily the thinnest player I've seen since Manute Bol or Chuck Nevitt, and like those players, I have difficulty imaginging him putting significant weight on.

Yet with the arms of a teenage girl, one would expect Yi to possess some dimension of agility or quickness. He doesn't. And Yi is incredibly awkward both with the ball and running the court -- almost like a child that's gone through a dramatic growth spurt and hasn't yet adjusted to his size.

This then is the real importance of Yi's disputed age. He's "officially" 19 years old, though there's some evidence he may be as old as 25. Though he does look younger than the latter, this isn't exactly compelling evidence: I saw former Bulls guard BJ Armstrong a few months ago, and I'd still card him if I saw him trying to buy beer. There should be as much optimism that an older Yi will bulk up or suddenly gallop like a deer as there is that noted eunuch Doug Christie will be on an NBA roster come November 1st.

In any case, the Bucks shifted Yi around the frontcourt in both games as they're as clueless as I am about what kind of match-up would give him a marked advantage over an opponent. He was routinely beaten off the dribble by smaller players, where his lack of agility and quickness against even second-tier NBA small forwards was obvious. At the power positions, unathletic big men like the Bulls' Aaron Gray (a second round pick expected to spend most of this season commuting between the bench and the D-League) were able to knock him around and even -- surprisingly for a 7'0" defender with long arms -- shoot over him. You can't teach height, but outside of Rocky chasing chickens around, you can't teach agility either.

I'm at a loss to think of anything, in fact, that it looks like Yi can do better than the average. Outside of "hit open shots" (a skill that even Ben Wallace can manage -- I'm serious, he can drain 3 pointers in practice), I can't think of one. What you have is a fairly average seven footer with a better touch than most guys his size but deficient in nearly every other aspect of the game. Due to his physique, I have difficulty imagining this changing. It's an absolute certainty that it won't if he's as old as I think he is.

Yet the Bucks don't have the convenience of stashing Yi in the weight room for the next 12 months to try to get him to add some much needed bulk. Like the Raptors with Araujo, the pressure of being an unexpected lottery pick places considerable pressure on a team to force minutes on a player that's clearly overmatched. There's even more pressure on the Bucks to overplay Yi: after all, having him buried on the bench behind Charlie Villanueva, Desmond Mason and Bobby Simmons would be exactly what the team promised the various Commie athletic organizations would not happen.

Puffers Posts - Raps at Lottomatica Roma

An intersting game to watch from a couple of perspectives. First, Hubie Brown was one of the commentators, and I love Hubie Brown. Next, it was interesting to see the Raps playing against a well prepared unit that has already been in training camp for 2 1/2 months and played several exhbition games together. Third, Roko and several of the Roma players were obviously trying to showcase their talents with a larger (make that North American) audience, and they showed well for themselves. The ESPN commentators mentioned several as looking NBA ready.

The Raps played with a shorter rotation, only using 11 players. Interesting to see Dixon get 16 minutes, Humphries 13 and Joey only with 7. Of course, Rasho didn't play at all, and I think the Raps could have used him, so you can't read too much into the playing time thing.

Bosh and Kapono got the most minutes at around 30 each. I'm not surprised by this since I would expect Mitchell to want to see how these two perform together.

The first half was entertaining, it kind of fell apart in the thrid but the Raps tightened it up part way through the fourth to make it a respectable win.

Aside from showing the Raps a lot of love and respect, Hubie pointed out that Kapono would be a very good fit with the Raps because they have scorers who can also drive. Their starting 5 have excellent FT %'s and with Kapono stretching the defense even more than last year, guys like Parker and Bargnani are going to to benefit, since they can put the ball on the floor and either score or draw the fouls.

Also interesting were some stats that the commentators threw out. They mentioned that in the last 61 games of the season, the Raps won 40, which was better than all but 4 other teams in the league, all in the west. They had the best record in the east for that stretch, edging out Detroit. As well, that 61 game stretch represented a turn around defensively from a -4 points per game differential to a +3 points per game differential, a 7 point jump. The implication is that for the last 3/4 of the season, Totonto played much better defensively.

Watching Kapono and Delphino and seeing some improvement in Bargnani, and hoping that Garbs can play the full year, I would have to believe that losing Morris Peterson isn't going to hurt the Raps. I think they will be a defensively improved team this season.

It's early, but I'm pumped. Let's start the season NOW.