Market Madness

The free agency period in the NBA is well under way and already the market has provided us with some extremely shocking  deals.  Just to recap what has gone down so far (and how it applies to the Lakers):

·        - Lionel Hollins has agreed to become the Coach of the New Jersey Nets, which takes him out of the running for the Lakers coaching position.  It appears that the job is Byron Scott’s to lose unless Carmelo Anthony or LeBron James make having a particular coach a pre-requisite to their signing.  The Lakers have intentionally not hired a coach yet in the hopes of convincing a superstar-level player to join the team by giving them the ability to approve who the coach will be (something no other franchise can do).  Whether or not that strategy will work is yet to be seen.

·         -Jodie Meeks signed with the Detroit Pistons for $19 million over 3 years, which is significantly more than anyone expected him to make.  To his credit Meeks is coming off of a career year with the Lakers and will look to bolster Detroit’s back court as well as provide spacing for Andre Drummond.  Unfortunately for L.A. Meeks’ ginormous deal will likely drive the price up for guards league-wide as agents often use the contracts of other players as precedents to secure larger deals for their clients.  Now Nick Young in particular will probably cost far more to retain than the Lakers were hoping.

   -Kyle Lowry agreed to a 4 year, $48 million deal with the Raptors, as I predicted here.  The Lakers absolutely made the correct move in not offering that much money.  Lowry is good but simply not worth that monstrous contract.  Lowry’s deal continues the trend of overpaying that has permeated this offseason, which is bad news for the Lakers and their efforts to land affordable talent.

 

   -Avery Bradley received a 4 year $32 million contract from the Celtics.  Danny Ainge isn’t known for overpaying but for some reason he did here.  The scary part?  Bradley is an oft-injured defensive whiz whose offense is still coming along…which also describes Laker free agent Kent Bazemore. 

·         -Marcin Gortat signed a 5 year, $60 million deal with the Wizards.  Yet another overpay (we literally haven’t  seen any other kind of deal thus far this offseason).  Gortat is 30 and will likely never make an All-Star team yet he got a contract that takes him all the way to 35.  This deal certainly makes Pau Gasol smile.  The teams hoping to sign him (like the Lakers)?  Not so much.

·        - The Orlando Magic inexplicably signed Ben Gordon to a 2 year, $9 million deal.  Gordon played all of 19 games last year and is clearly far removed from his prime.  The only logic to this move is that Gordon and Magic building block Victor Oladipo share the same agent, so possibly they are looking to build a little good will there. 

***The impact of a player’s agent is often something overlooked by fans but teams are well aware that it’s important not to just have a good relationship with the players but with the agents as well.  Agents who know you take care of their clients will steer future clients to your team as well…it’s a multi-million dollar version of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”, and it can pay off big time. 

We saw Kobe traded on draft night to the Lakers in 1996 thanks in large part to the efforts of his then-agent, Arn Tellem.  Trevor Ariza’s agent David Lee wasn’t on great terms with the Lakers and he became instrumental in the decision to try to squeeze more money out of Dr. Jerry Buss, prompting Mitch Kupchak to quickly turn his attention to Ron Artest instead and leave Ariza in a lurch.  A bad relationship between a team and agent can really endanger a player (although Ariza rebounded from the Lakers snub by getting a big contract from Houston).

Of course possibly the worst player-agent-team relationship came in 2005, when Bob Gist, Lattrell Sprewell’s agent, allowed Spree to infamously turn down a three year, $21 million deal from the Wolves.  Latrell said he turned down the deal because he had “a family to feed”. This would usually be where the team and agent get together and talk the player off the insanity ledge (one of the many jobs of an agent) but for whatever reason Sprewell was determined that his family would cost more than $21 million to feed….what he fed them exactly is still up for debate, but I’m thinking it was salads made of shredded copies of “Action Comics #1” served on Stradivarius violins.     

 After Sprewell went unsigned that summer Gist said he would wait until teams got desperate and that accepting even a $5 million offer would be beneath Lattrell.  Sprewell never played again and became a cautionary tale after seeing his fortune squandered.  Obviously some agents are better than others, and to be fair Gist was probably afraid to be honest with Sprewell about his waning value in the NBA on account of Sprewell’s willingness to choke people, like he did with coach P.J. Carlesimo. 

Cell phone cameras weren’t a thing yet when the the incident happened, so to imagine what Chokegate would have looked like just think of Samuel L. Jackson with cornrows and his Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction) angry face doing the Darth Vader force-choke (except without using the force) on a young George Lucas.  Bam, Sprewell vs. Carlesimo.

But I digress.  Bottom line: Agents=important.        

 

·       -  CJ Miles signed a 4 year, $18 million deal with the Indiana Pacers.  He’s a solid yet unspectacular swingman who can help the Pacers with his slashing and outside shooting.  For the Lakers the bad news is that this deal, like the one Meeks received, will push Nick Young’s contract higher than the Lakers will be comfortable paying.  On the plus side the Miles deal will push the Pacers closer to the luxury tax and limit the amount of money they have available to give to Lance Stephenson.  Stephenson reportedly turned down a 5 year, $44 million deal already from the Pacers, so the door may be open for the Lakers to sneak in and steal him. 

However there are whispers that the Lakers are limiting all their contract offers to only 1 or 2 years for anyone not named LeBron or Carmelo, which could effectively remove them from the Stephenson race (and any other 2^nd or 3^rd tier player) unless they offer significantly more money than other teams.  The Lakers are hoping to retain flexibility to land a true superstar, and if they strike out on Melo and LeBron this summer they may choose to only sign short-term deals in order to maintain enough cap space to stay in the superstar race next summer and the one after.  More losing would not be easy on the fans but if they land Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, or Marc Gasol all will be forgiven.

    

At this point there are still more questions than answers about free agency but one thing is for sure: players are getting PAID.  So far every free agent to agree to a deal has received far above market value, which is partially due to the relatively weak free agent class and partly due to the number of teams hoarding cap space.  There are also rumblings of the salary cap rising substantially over the next few seasons as the NBA looks to take advantage of new TV contracts and the jump in revenue they will bring.  Teams are spending that TV money now even though it hasn’t come in yet, which could be a dangerous gamble. 

   Free agents right now. 

Regardless of the reason for the rapid inflation the Lakers need to stay patient and not overpay.  Do not get caught up in the madness.  Swing for the fences for superstars but refuse to overpay for borderline all stars.  On Thursday the Lakers meet with Carmelo Anthony and will pitch him on joining the purple and gold.  After Melo makes his decision we should get a better feel for exactly who the Lakers will be able to sign this summer.  

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