Not-so-prudent investments
07/24/2001
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"That money's burning a hole in your pocket." I wonder if Rod Thorn's mother said that to her son much when he was growing up. If she didn't, she should have anyway, because Thorn, president of the New Jersey Nets, must have a hole in his pocket the size of a cantaloupe these days.
The NBA is smack-dab in the middle of the annual feeding frenzy known as the free agent signing period but several teams -- with Thorn's Nets leading the way -- are paying top dollar for the leftovers and table scraps. While the Raptors, Kings, Mavericks, 76ers and, yes, even the Lakers all added (or retained) key components to their championship hopes, the Nets, Bulls, Wizards and Nuggets forked over top-tier cash for a bunch of lower-tier players.
First you have Chicago who, during the draft, kick-started a youth movement by trading Elton Brand to the Clippers for high schooler Tyson Chandler. Then a month later GM Jerry Krause opened his wallet for Charlotte free agent forward Eddie Robinson, paying $30 million over six years for a 25-year-old forward who's averaged 7.2 points and 2.9 rebounds a game over his two-year career. Scouts use the words "athletic" and "upside" when talking about Robinson, but just like the word "potential," those descriptions mean nothing until you make a name for yourself at the professional level. Remember, Michael Olowokandi had plenty of upside when the Clippers drafted him first overall in 1998, and that annoying kid from "Home Alone" was bursting with potential after he made that movie... . Leave it to Krause, though. I guess he wasn't completely satisfied with being known simply as the guy who dismantled the best team in NBA history. With his two latest brain farts -- trading Brand and signing Robinson -- he'll go down as the man who buried an entire franchise under the immense weight of his overwhelming ego... not to mention his enormous ass.
Speaking of the Bulls, Michael Jordan used free agency to put a slight damper on what, at least so far, looks to be a successful draft for the Washington Wizards. After selecting high school forward Kwame Brown with the first overall pick in June, Jordan re-signed perennial disappointment Christian Laettner to a four-year, $21 million contract, then gave Lakers reserve guard Tyronn Lue, who averaged 3.8 points in 38 games last season, a multi-year, multi-million dollar deal. Of course, Lue's stock rose significantly when he locked up Allen Iverson during stretches of last year's NBA Finals, but short spurts of success on a national stage don't necessarily equate to long-term greatness. Michael, I know you remember the names Steve Kerr and John Paxson. As for Laettner, when will teams figure out this guy's best days came under Coach Krzyzewski at Duke? I mean, he hasn't hit for more than 14 points a game since 1997-98 and, for a 6-11 power forward, his career average of 7.3 boards a game is pathetic. So while the buyout of Mitch Richmond and the subsequent drafting of Brown made Jordan's squad younger and flashier, I'm still trying to figure out how Laettner and Lue fit into the equation.
Things are looking bleak in Denver, too, after the Nuggets threw a three-year, $14.4 million contract at Avery Johnson. Yes, that Avery Johnson, the former San Antonio point guard who would trade his championship ring for Jason Kidd's jumper and Danny DeVito's height. Some would say the fact that he earned that ring while starting for the Spurs says Johnson is a "proven winner," but I'd argue that his ring only proves he knew how to let Tim Duncan, David Robinson and Sean Elliot take all the important shots. His career averages of 8.9 points and six assists a game scream "backup," which is exactly what he'll do in Denver -- backup starter Nick Van Exel. But since when do 36-year-old reserve point guards command that kind of money over three years?
But as idiotic as some of these signings are, Thorn clearly gets to don the dunce cap this year. He may have -- and I stress may have -- made the Nets better by swapping Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd, especially if New Jersey can find someone to pick up Marbury's scoring load. After all, let's not forget that, while Kidd led the league last season with 9.8 assists per game, he scored just under 17 points a night while turning the ball over 3.3 times a game. Meanwhile, Marbury, who was saddled with the dreaded "score-first mentality" label while in New Jersey, hit for nearly 24 points a night while dishing out 7.6 assists and 2.9 turnovers per game.
Still, the winner -- and loser -- in that deal won't be known until the season kicks off this fall. But it seems pretty obvious that Thorn and the Nets lost big time in the free agent market, signing seven-footer Todd MacCullough to an unbelievable six-year, $33.75 million offer sheet. Because the 255-pound center is a restricted free agent, his former team, the 76ers, has a chance to match New Jersey's offer. In other words, he's as good as gone.
You remember MacCullough: that big, oaffy guy who backed up first Theo Ratliff and then Dikembe Mutombo last season in Philly. Yeah, that's him, the mile-high lout with the slow-motion feet who got worked over whenever he found his way off the bench during last year's playoffs. Yup, $5.625 million a year for a walking lamppost with career averages of 3.9 points, 2.6 boards and 0.5 blocks per game. Sure, he only played about 10 minutes a night in his two years with the Sixers, but so what? Again, New Jersey is throwing the words "upside" and "potential" around because they apparently feel that, at only 25, MacCullough hasn't hit his peak yet. Well, that's probably true, but "upside"? About the only way that word could correctly be used when describing this guy would be, "Shaq consistently went upside MacCullough's head in the Finals last year." Honestly, is this the guy the Nets wanted to bring in to team up with their new, pass-first point guard? I understand this allows New Jersey to move second-year man Kenyon Martin to his natural power forward slot for good, and yes I also realize there is a shortage of quality big men in basketball, especially in the East. But Todd MacCullough? For $5.6 million a year? For six years?
Glad I'm not a Nets fan.
You just get the feeling 76ers execs are laughing their collective asses off back in Philly, especially after they were able to re-sign Mutombo and guard Aaron McKie to multi-year deals. I know Mutombo signed for much more than his departed backup (four years, $65 million), but that's money well spent for Philly, especially after they were also able to ink McKie, the NBA's Sixth Man of the Year last season, to a seven-year, $42 million deal. Hmm, six mill a year for someone like McKie, who can start at the point and backup both guard positions while playing stellar defense and displaying triple-double skills, or $5.6 million a year for a career backup with the foot speed of an oak tree and the athletic ability of a bloated Roseanne Barr?
Tough call.
But teams like the Nets have their hands tied because they never have even the remote chance to sign the Mutombos and Chris Webbers of the NBA. I understand that. I also understand that Thorn had the money to spend to make his team better, but where I'm a little lost is this next step: Since Thorn couldn't get the elite free agents to even look his way, he had to settle for someone like MacCullough. That makes no sense to me, especially not at the price he signed for.
Think about that for a second. You can't get what you want to win, so you go out and spend comparable money on a replacement that, chances are, won't make you that much better. That would be like going to the store to get apples for an apple pie. You've already got the crust ready (Kidd, Martin, Keith Van Horn) but you need the perfect apple (a proven center) to complete the recipe. When you get to the store, though, you find out all the apples are gone. Sold out. But you've got all this cash just smoldering in your pocket and you've got that pie crust at home, ready to bake, so you've got to find something to throw in there. Finally, you settle on a bag of onions (MacCullough) just to fill that crust, paying just about the same price for the onions that you planned on forking out for the apples. You go home, cut up the onions (Thorn may have shed a few tears by now), fill up the crust and throw it in the oven. What comes out a little later may look like an apple pie, and you may tell your family and friends (New Jersey fans) that it actually is an apple pie, but they all know it's just a crust filled with some bitter onions. And it tastes like crap.
And the worst part is, they've got to keep eating that onion pie for six years.
Mind you, I don't necessarily have a problem with the Nets signing MacCullough, it's just the length and amount of the deal that blows my mind. While Thorn spent $33 million on an unproven center, several other teams seem to have spent their millions much more wisely, shoveling heaps of cash onto true superstars and other role players that will have a definitive impact on the 2001-02 season. And beyond.
The Knicks gave Clarence Weatherspoon, a solid power forward who averaged 11.3 points and 9.7 rebounds for Cleveland last year, $27.5 million over five years, giving New York some much-needed frontcourt toughness. The Raptors kept their key free agents, Antonio Davis, Jerome Williams and Alvin Williams, signing all three for a combined $24.6 million a year and in the process, upping their chances of locking up Vince Carter long-term. In the West, the Mavericks will have Michael Finley around for another seven years at just over $14.5 million annually, and the Kings not only have Chris Webber for seven years and $122.7 million, they also were able to keep defensive wiz Doug Christie with a seven-year, $48 million deal. Then there's the Lakers, who took on forward Samaki Walker and Mitch Richmond, who'll give the champs some much-needed outside punch, for relative pennies.
So often you hear that the elite teams keep winning because they have the money to spend in the free agent market, but that's not always the case. While the perennial cellar-dwellers will never be true players for superstars like Chris Webber and Tim Duncan, the rift between the haves and the have-nots in the NBA doesn't necessarily stem from how much money you spend -- it's not like the Raptors and Kings are large-market franchises with unlimited financial resources. Instead, as teams like the Nets and Nuggets will prove this year, the key to long-term success is how you spend your cash.
In the Bullz-Eye
Oakland A's GM Billy Beane. Beane and the A's find themselves a mere five games behind in the American League wild card standings, but several rumors have Oakland ready to trade players like Johnny Damon, Jason Isringhausen and even MVP Jason Giambi, all of whom are set to test the free agent waters next winter. With the July 31 trading deadline fast approaching, Beane needs to decide if he's going to hang tough with what he's got in an attempt to take the wild card, or try to rebuild for the future by sending Giambi, Damon and other players packing.