Yesterday, Mike made an excellent point about what dark clouds the new NBA free agent circus may hold for small-to-mid-market franchises. His conclusion syncs up nicely with something I’ve been thinking about since the end of the Browns season.
The question is this: Is it possible that in a few years, the NFL will be the only sustainable pro sport in non-major markets, i.e. the only one where cities like Cleveland can legitimately hope to compete for a title?
Based on the available evidence, I believe the answer may be ‘yes.’
I’ve considered a few crucial differences between the NBA and NFL in this regard. I’ve ignored Major League Baseball because their system is currently so far out of wack—see: the complete lack of a salary cap—that it hardly seems worth addressing. (Let alone that MLB’s largest problem is that almost no one in contemporary American life wants to watch 162 regular season games that last 3.5+ hours each.)
Unless the parameters change in the new CBA, rookie contracts will be one major determinant of the answer. The current rules dictate that a player drafted in the first half of the first round can be signed to a 6-year contract; players in the second half of the first round to a 5-year contract; and players after the first round to a 4-year contract. (Thanks to Ask the Commish for the details.)
The contrast with the NBA is evident immediately. For first-round picks, the longest contract a team can extend is 4 years, with the latter 2 years both existing as team options. If a contract extension isn’t worked out by the end of the 4th year, the team can put forth a qualifying offer for a 5th year—but that only makes the player a restricted free agent. Further, if the player decides to play out the 5th year, he obtains veto power over any trades, then becomes an unrestricted free agent the following summer. (Thanks to Hoopsworld for the low-down.)
Perhaps counter-intuitively, NBA second round picks gain leverage even faster than their first-round cohorts. The longest contract an NBA team will normally negotiate here is 2-years of nonguaranteed money. However, if a second round pick pans out in a major way, he’s free to test the market as quickly as his sophomore, or at worst, junior season in the league.
The end result of this comparison? Current NFL rules protect their franchises by providing longer guarantees for potential star players than their NBA counterparts.
Consider the following: In 2010, the St. Louis Rams signed Sam Bradford to a 6-year contract. Meanwhile, LeBron was a Cav for only 7 total seasons: 4 on his rookie contract, another 3 thanks to an extension.
This example is one where simple subtraction simply doesn’t tell the story. Yes, we’re only talking about a net 1 year difference between the Rams’ agreement with Bradford and the Cavs’ two agreements with LeBron. But the difference is continuity. After going 7-9 and barely missing the playoffs in his rookie season, the Rams’ front office knows that Bradford is a franchise player that they have for the next 5 seasons, guaranteed. As we all know too well, the Cavs didn’t have such a long-term safety net. Instead, they allowed themselves to be forced into a series of panic upgrades that were never conducive to a strong, long-term foundation.
The reason was obvious: LeBron’s free agency was always pending, so they had to prove they could win now in order to keep him around. The Rams, meanwhile, have half a decade to build around Bradford.
The contrast carries through the lower branches of each sport’s draft: by the time a second round NFL pick can become a free agent, a second round NBA pick will have had the free agency option two or even three years earlier.
All of this plays into the viability of pro football versus pro basketball in cities like Cleveland. As proven by LeBron and Chris Bosh, young NBA stars are no longer prone to take slightly more money to stay with the franchise that drafted them. Their desire to build “super teams” is hardly surprising, given the (Mesa favorite) fact that only 8 different NBA franchises have won the title in the past 30 years.
But young NFL stars are basically locked into their first franchise for a substantial time period from the starting gun. With a skillful personnel department, NFL teams have the time they need to convince budding stars to stick around via complementary moves. Given the numbers, those players also have less incentive to migrate to specific alternatives than their NBA counterparts anyway; in the same 30 year period, 14 different NFL teams have won the Super Bowl.
These rookie contract considerations aren’t the only elements that empower small-to-mid-market NFL teams. Their ability to “franchise” a player otherwise ready to hit the open market is another powerful tool in the quest for competitive balance.
For the uninitiated, the franchise tag essentially blocks a player at the end of his contract from entering free agency. If he’s hit with an exclusive franchise tag, the player cannot negotiate with other teams, but is compensated by receiving one year’s salary equal to either the average of the top 5 salaries at his position in the current NFL season, or 120% of his previous contract year, whichever is greater. If he’s hit with a non-exclusive franchise tag, the player is compensated by receiving either the average of the top 5 salaries at his position in the previous NFL season, or 120% of his previous contract year, whichever is greater.
However, non-exclusive franchise players also maintain the right to negotiate with other teams. If they sign an offer sheet elsewhere, the original franchise has the right to match the offer, or else refuse it and receive two first-round draft picks from the franchise player’s chosen destination. In comparison to the NBA equivalent, this system is vastly preferable to any franchise unable to maintain a star player. Two first rounders in the NFL draft is a HUGE bounty. By contrast, the best an NBA team can do when a star chooses to go elsewhere is normally a few infinitely less valuable future draft picks and a trade exception. (We can all see how much that trade exception has helped the Cavs this season.)
If all of the above weren’t enough, also consider the prevalence of undrafted NFL free agents or late round picks not only making an NFL roster, but becoming impact players. (Peter King examines this phenomenon briefly in his most recent Monday Morning Quarterback - just scroll down to “The [Super Bowl] match-up is a reward to two organizations that built teams.”) The probability of a second round pick or undrafted NBA free agent having the same kind of effect on a team’s fortune seems to be much rarer—and again, even when it does happen, the team that took a chance on the player in question almost immediately has to work to try to retain his services.
Admittedly, I have no idea what the new NBA and NFL collective bargaining agreements will look like. However, if current rules and current trends largely remain, then I sincerely believe that we are rapidly approaching a time when the NFL is the only legitimate game in town for cities like Cleveland. Here’s hoping I’m dead wrong.
I caught a bit of Jim Rome’s show while I was eating lunch today. He did a quick take on Carmelo Anthony’s continued resistance to signing Denver’s guaranteed $65 million contract extension. I have no horse in this race, so I wasn’t expecting to have any kind of visceral reaction to the story.
Then, Rome mentioned that Melo closed his defense of his own actions with a very familiar chorus: “I just want to do what’s best for me and my family.”
At that point, I lost my cool.
The “me and my family” shield has become the bane of my life as a sports fan. It is the most transparent, self-indulgent ploy in use among professional athletes today. And it seems they simply can’t get enough of it.
Though I’m sure it wasn’t the first time anyone had used the defense, I believe it first became infamous in 2004 thanks to Latrell Sprewell. Entering the final season of his contract with the Timberwolves, Sprewell felt he was being unjustly low-balled by management on their offers of an extension. He declared in a pre-season press conference, “Why would I help them win a title? They’re not doing anything for me. I’m at risk…I got my family to feed.”
Sprewell, of course, was set to make $14.6M in the final year of his existing contract. The Wolves were reportedly offering a 3-year extension worth between $27-30MM. At the time of the press conference, Spree was 34.
Sprewell was crucified by press and fans for his comment. It’s hard to argue that the heat was unjustified. Nothing will needle a fan base—especially in a blue-collar Midwestern city like Minneapolis—quite like a pro athlete scoffing at a contract worth more than they’ll ever make in their entire lives.
Having seen the backlash against Sprewell, sports agents and players learned a lesson about how not to pitch that particular argument. However, its better-groomed cousin is all the rage. This is due in no small part to the NBA free agent class of 2010, who invoked the “do what’s best for me and my family” corollary more times than anyone with a life would care to count. (If I didn’t even attempt to research it, you know it’s bad.)
The irony of the situation is that in every instance I’ve seen it used, the athlete in question seems more than likely to do the opposite of what’s best for his family. LeBron completely disregarded the mother of his children’s wishes in choosing Miami. He also took less money to do it, and in the process, uprooted them from the only home they’d ever known.
Dwyane Wade turned down a max contract from Chicago despite the fact that long-term child custody arrangements in his divorce have yet to be finalized, meaning his kids may have to split time between South Beach and their mom in Illinois. I can’t find the quote anymore, but Wade said something to the effect of, “You can’t let those types of things get in the way of making the right decision,” when asked about the impact the divorce might have on his choice of team. Which I thought was hilarious. After all, why would you let something as minor as your children get in the way of your decisions about your career?
Carmelo is contemplating turning down $65MM guaranteed with the potential of either a lock-out or a complete financial restructuring of the NBA salary system looming this summer. In fact, recent reports from ESPN’s Ric Bucher suggest Anthony has already made his choice to leave. Depending on how the CBA negotiations conclude, it could end up being a totally fine move. But there’s also a worst-case scenario in which Anthony goes from making just over $20MM next year to making $0 (in the event of a lock-out).
Far be it from me to say I know definitively what’s the right thing for these guys to do at all times. But based on situations like this, it’s hard to deny that there are some real question marks about the family’s role in the decision-making process.
Admittedly, Anthony’s situation is a bit more complicated. He and his wife are both from the east coast (Melo from Baltimore, his wife from NYC). The Knicks are supposedly high on his list of preferred destinations. He has the opportunity to demand a sign-and-trade before the extension offer expires. If he were to manage to orchestrate a sign-and-trade for max money to his wife’s home town (and nearby his own), it would be really hard for me to argue against that.
To fans, though, “doing what’s best for me and my family” has become code for, “I’m preparing to do something completely selfish. It may make me look like a complete snake. But don’t blame me for it - it’s really about my wife / kids / girlfriend. Seriously. How can you be angry with me for that?”
It’s become the mark of the beast—a signal that something slimy is at play behind the scenes. It was only a matter of hours after Chris Paul suddenly dropped his long time representation at Octagon to (supposedly) sign with LeBron and Maverick Carter at LRMR and push for a trade from New Orleans. The telltale sign of the turn Paul had made? LeBron’s tweet to his buddy:
“Best of luck to my brother @oneandonlyCP3 … Do what’s best for You and your family.”
By contrast, Kevin Durant quietly signed an $85MM max extension this off-season. No talk of weighing his options, soul-searching, or doing what’s best for him and his family. In the process, pundits seem to have collectively decided that Durant became the moral compass of the NBA.
Do I necessarily agree with this? No. I believe at a base level that when it comes to your career, you SHOULD be selfish. You SHOULD do what’s right for yourself. You SHOULD take advantage of the opportunities you’ve earned. Depending on who you are, your family may or may not enter into that equation.
What I take offense to is the notion of pro athletes essentially using their families as scapegoats. If they want to do what’s right for themselves—whether money, championships, teammates, a coach, or a different climate are the main motivator—they should go for it. But they should also be man enough to to own up to the real reasons. Otherwise, they can run their statements through as many PR polishes as money can buy—but to those of us paying attention, the sentiment is still going to sound just as ridiculous, just as delusional, just as offensive as Latrell Sprewell did 6 years ago.
So please, for the sake of those of us paying your salaries, just cut the shit. I promise we’ll actually respect you more. If you don’t believe me, compare the public reaction to Andy Pettite’s candid PEDs admission to the wall of crap Roger Clemens hid behind. It may be the only time that I’d recommend any pro athlete in any other sport look to a baseball player for guidance, but trust me, it’s what’s best for you and your family.
Throughout this week, ESPN’s Chad Ford (of T.I.T. fame) and John Hollinger have been serially releasing their “future power rankings” of the 30 NBA teams. The concept is simple and interesting, if inexact: create an overall rating for every team’s cumulative prospects in the 2011-12, 2012-13, and 2013-14 seasons.
Ford and Hollinger attempt to do this by ranking each franchise in five categories—Players, Management, Money, Market, and Draft. “Players” means the players currently on the roster and under contract for any or all of those upcoming seasons; “Management” means the quality of the front office and its decision-making; “Money” means the owner’s willingness to spend; “Market” means the appeal of the city or region in which the franchise is located; and “Draft” means quantity and likely quality of picks in future drafts.
Each category is weighted differently, but together, they create a total possible point total of 1,000. Players account for 400 possible points, Management for 200, Money for 200, Market for 100, and Draft for 100.
Not surprisingly, the Cavs check in near the bottom of the list—specifically, at number 28, ahead of only Minnesota and Charlotte.
However, this is not because the Cavs, in Hollinger’s and Ford’s joint opinion, rank poorly in all categories. Instead, it’s because the categories in which they are strong are, in the system devised, two of the least valuable overall. For instance, Gilbert’s checkbook is good for 7th place in the league in “Money,” and the Cavs’ draft prospects place 2nd. Unfortunately, those two high ranks qualify the franchise for a grand total of only 219 points. In “Players” they rank 29th (good for a mere 45 points), “Management” they rank 26th (45 points), and in “Market” they rank 27th (22 points).
I don’t entirely disagree with some of the assessment. (In all likelihood, the parts contributed by Hollinger.) As I’ve written before, I find it entirely possible that Cleveland is, to most players, the least desirable location in the league. In that sense, ranking 27th in “Market” may be generous on Ford’s and Hollinger’s part.
That said, the inherent problem is that the entire list is based on perception—and much of the perception informing the analysis isn’t particularly in touch with reality. For instance, I think it’s ludicrous to state that the Cavs have the 5th worst front office in the NBA, especially considering the circumstances they’ve been forced to operate under for the past 3-4 years. (A point that I am currently considering for the epitaph on my tombstone.) I’m not even going to bother to link to my previous post as to why—I’ve had to do it too many times already. If you don’t know, turn off your Bill Simmons brainwashing and email me.
As usual, the roster is also being drastically underrated—a misrepresentation made even worse by the idea that the Cavs “lack trade assets.” I fully suspect Chad Ford is steering the boat on that particular argument, since he’s written it several times over the past year-plus. Somehow he seems to have missed the fact that the Cavs and Rockets were the only two teams who managed to put together sign-and-trade offers for “Lap Dog” Chris Bosh that the Raptors were interested in consummating. Not to mention that the Cavs are now flush with draft picks and a massive trade exception from the LeBron deal. But what am I thinking, other teams are never interested in picks or, essentially, the ability to trade away contracts without taking salary back. I’m being silly again.
By far my favorite swing-and-miss in the analysis, though, is the mythical power of the Dan Gilbert letter. Not coincidentally, it also comprises the overwhelming bulk of Ford’s and Hollinger’s written break-down of the numbers.
The argument in play is that Dan Gilbert’s 21-gun wake-up call to LeBron the night of “The Decision” has damaged the franchise’s rep with players as long as Gilbert owns the team. By blasting a guy who “made him hundreds of millions of dollars over the past several years,” the argument goes, Gilbert showed his true colors. No free agent will ever want to ball for the Cavs as long as they have such a fork-tongued tyrant at the helm. Hence, the Cavs’ future is so bleak.
There are just a few tiny problems with this argument.
First, as we all know, there weren’t any high profile free agents clamoring to come to Cleveland anyway. Most recently, the Cavs offered Matt Barnes a two-year contract worth ~$3.5MM per—more than double what he ultimately accepted to play for the Lakers ($1.7MM), and by far the biggest contract he’d ever been offered in his career. (The fictional one the Raptors offered doesn’t count.) Didn’t matter. He turned it down.
Did Barnes make that choice because he was afraid he’d be yelled at by Dan Gilbert? Uh, I doubt it. Dude’s got multiple neck tattoos. Considering he grew up in Sacramento and went to UCLA, living in LA and playing for a title might have had more to do with the choice.
Again, this is the entire reason Chris Grant and company are planning on rebuilding the team through trades and the draft. Hard to believe that the 5th worst front office in the league would be able to recognize its strengths and weaknesses and adjust its plan accordingly, but hey, I guess even a broken clock is right two minutes a day, right?
Second, all this talk about how terribly Gilbert treated LeBron after he chose to play elsewhere completely ignores how absurdly well he was treated while he was playing for Gilbert. Under his watch (and more importantly, on his dime), the Cavs:
Completely renovated their practice facilities to the tune of tens of millions of dollars
Moved Cleveland Clinic Courts to Independence to minimize the commute from LeBron’s house
Routinely invited LeBron’s entourage to take the team charter to road games
Created jobs within the organization for LeBron’s friends (see: Player Liaison Randy Mims)
Mandated that film sessions be kept short to accommodate LeBron’s attention span
Remade the roster according to LeBron’s urgings (see: Shaq, Jamison)
Fired the coach and GM with whom LeBron was unsatisfied—without a guarantee he’d even return to the team if it happened
Offered him the richest possible contract extensions the league would allow
And these are just some of the things that are either true or have been reported. I’m sure there were countless other concessions made in a desperate attempt to keep James happy for the past half-decade since Gilbert assumed ownership. Personally, I don’t care what the guy says about me when I embarrass him on national TV to go to another team; five years of the above kind of treatment sounds like a good deal to me.
Look, professional athlete is perhaps the only job in the world where your former boss’s opinion of you literally does not matter. Did LeBron need a letter of recommendation to get his new job with the Heat? Uh, no. Anywhere else, people in executive positions change jobs. Assuming you stay in the same or a similar industry, your former boss could somehow end up at a new company and once again have an effect on your future. Not in pro sports. It’s not as if Dan Gilbert is going to suddenly sell the Cavs, go buy the Spurs, and then freeze LeBron out of contract. Who the hell cares what Gilbert thinks of you after you vacate the team?
Third, perception is a shifty thing. Right now, few players reportedly want to play for the Cavs. My guess? The problem isn’t Gilbert; it’s that few if any players really believe the Cavs are going to be any good right now.
Think about it this way: if Donovan McNabb thought the Raiders were going to be a Super Bowl contender this year, would he have told the Eagles not to trade him there this past off-season because the team is owned by a tyrannical mummy? I highly doubt it. On a more close to home front, look at how Eric Mangini somehow transformed over the course of a season from being perceived by fans and players as a maniacal dictator (when the team was 1-11) to exactly the type of tough but admirable head coach the Browns have needed since their resurrection (when they ended the season on a 4-game winning streak, including a victory over the Steelers at Heinz Field).
Is anyone ever going to totally forget the Dan Gilbert letter? No, it’s going to be a part of Cleveland sports and NBA lore until an asteroid hits. But you can bet on the fact that when the team starts winning and Gilbert’s checkbook stays open, its perception in the basketball community is going to be completely different. And you can say the same thing about the franchise as a whole.
Trust me, I’ll be more than happy to point this out to Chad Ford in 2014 when the Cavs are surging and the Mesa team has courtside seats.
With two days remaining until free agents can officially sign contracts, I wanted to take stock of the harsh realities that are starting to pile up for LeBron-hopeful franchises—in particular, the Chicago Bulls.
Since last week, the prevailing perception among pundits is that there’s been a huge momentum shift in terms of LeBron’s expected destination. A big part of this seems to have to do with the Shakespearean power struggle playing out behind the scenes in James’s camp. Windhorst tweeted tonight that, according to his sources, there is indeed a rift between LRMR and World Wide Wes, with Wes essentially being pushed out of the process by Maverick Carter. This is significant because Wes had allegedly been telling anyone who would listen since the playoffs ended that LBJ to CHI was a done deal.
Admittedly, the Bulls are still very much in the picture. But it seems to be down to Chicago vs. Cleveland in James’s head. However, some of the reasons that Chicago’s favored status has taken a hit act as a great reminder of how much more complex free agency and the business of the NBA is than what most of the talking heads have made it out to be.
1) Resistance from the Pre-Existing Star
Again according to Windhorst’s Twitter feed, one of the factors working against Chicago is that Derrick Rose hasn’t exactly welcomed the idea of LeBron coming to town. The lesser elements of the NBA analyst community are likely baffled by this. Why would Rose, a budding superstar, not welcome the opportunity to play with arguably the best player in the league in his prime?
To me, though, it makes perfect sense—especially when you factor in that one of the main reasons for Rose’s resistance comes not from Rose directly, but from his agent.
As we’ve pointed out over and over again on Mesa, the reality is that LeBron and Derrick Rose aren’t particularly complementary players. Both of them need the ball in their hands to be their best, both of them operate primarily on the perimeter with frequent cuts to the basket, both of them have high usage rates (27.2% for Rose last season, compared to 33.5% for LeBron), meaning they were the primary decision-makers on how their teams’ possessions ended. In short, they both excel, but having both is redundant and possibly harmful to each.
Now, either Derrick Rose has recognized this, or else his agent—who also happens to represent Joe Johnson—pointed it out to him. Shockingly, in “Rose’s” opinion, Johnson would have been the best max contract fit for the Bulls. In theory, i.e. if Joe Johnson deserved max money, I would agree. He’d provide another offensive weapon who was a three point threat (37.3% career), and would happily cede leadership and responsibility to Rose and Noah.
My theory is that Rose’s agent also happens to realize that if LeBron—a very similar player in many regards to his own client—comes to town, there’s a significant chance that Rose’s numbers take a hit. In addition, he also takes a demotion, in a way, because LeBron (as the face of the NBA) automatically assumes the leadership role. Which would in turn endanger the probability that Rose receives a max extension offer the summer after next. If he’s a good agent (and it’s Arn Tellem, so history and reputation say that he is), his responsibility is to look out for his client’s best financial interests. In this case, the best case scenario would’ve been for Johnson to join Rose. The runner-up scenario is that Rose continues to be allowed to do what he’s done the past two seasons. And the only way that happens is if LeBron stays away.
Does it makes sense? Absolutely. Is it something that anyone in the pundit-at-large community would’ve mentioned in talking about what a great fit Chicago is for LeBron? Never.
2) Disconnect Between Long-Term and Short-Term Pieces
Mike mentioned this earlier, but as important as the 2010-11 season is, LeBron’s next contract will (theoretically) be for 5 or 6 years (depending on if he re-signs with the Cavs or manages to swing a sign and trade). The most attractive personnel reasons for James to go to Chicago are, of course, Rose and Noah. Rose remains on his rookie contract through the 2012-13 season. That would cover either 50% or 60% of James’s commitment. Not bad.
However, Joakim Noah’s contract at present only runs through the 2011-12 season. He becomes eligible for an extension after this upcoming season. That would cover only 30% or 40% of James’s commitment. Not as encouraging—especially when you take into account that Bulls’ ownership has consistently tried to avoid paying the luxury tax.
Assuming something resembling the current CBA (e.g. no hard cap, no salary rollbacks) is adopted in 2011, Chicago will have to max or near-max a different player for each of the next three seasons: LeBron this year, Noah (via extension) in the summer of 2011, and Rose (via extension) in the summer of 2012. And for anyone thinking that Noah will not demand a huge deal, I would point out that Amir Johnson and Darko just cashed in for a combined $54MM over the next 5 years. If you think some team like the Knicks won’t go balls-out for a legitimate young center like Noah, you’re probably wandering around the desert in a peyote-induced haze.
For a recent example of how this type of domino-effect salary play works, look at Orlando. In the span of two seasons, they paid Rashard Lewis a max contract in free agency, then max-extended Da-wight and gave a sizable extension to Jameer Nelson shortly thereafter. The Magic are committed to roughly $44MM in salary between those three players for next season, with the annual amount heading north for each player through 2012-13. Their team payroll will hover above $80MM in 2009-10 and 2010-11. Admittedly, this is partially because Otis Smith ran buckwild with his owner’s checkbook and is paying a back-up center about $6.5MM / year, not to mention $35MM total over the next two for Vince Carter. But the three deals I mentioned at the top still make up the majority of that $80+MM figure.
The bottom line is that every good roster is on a time line. At a certain point, re-signing everyone becomes untenable. (With both Kevin Durant and Jeff Green eligible for extensions this summer, Oklahoma City is rapidly approaching this point, and it will be interesting to see how they handle it.) Unless your owner is willing to go into the tax, that is. Jerry Reinsdorf has resisted that strategy, and that historical resistance may be one of the aspects giving LeBron pause about a move to the red and black.
3) The Rest of the Roster
The other problem that follows from the point above is that even if ownership pays serious scrill to keep the core together, you of course still need complementary pieces to create a championship team. We’ve discussed this point ad nauseam in regard to teams (King Slickback, I’m looking in your direction) gutting their rosters to clear cap space. In honor of the fact that we’re bringing this up again, find the nearest dead horse and whale away.
Again, per Windhorst, LeBron is wary of the fact that the Bulls currently have no shooters whatsoever on their roster. Chicago was 28th in the league in 3P% last season (33%), and just traded away one of the only guys trying to pull them up in that category (Kirk Hinrich at 37.9% career), so it stands to reason that they’re going to decline even further this upcoming season unless they can get some marksmen through free agency.
However, since Chicago can’t make any complementary moves until they know if James will actually sign with them, there’s a heavy risk involved for James. Though we won’t know the cap figure until Thursday, the Bulls should have around $13MM to spend after LeBron hypothetically signs with them. Can they split that money up and still get more than one quality shooter? Or do they just go all in and try to use most of that chunk to try to lure Ray Allen under the assumption that one elite 3P bomber will be enough? Or do they botch the entire exercise, and then LeBron is stuck on a team where no one can reliably hit a three pointer?
Say what you will about the Cavs’ roster, but as Mike pointed out on our Twitter feed tonight, the front office recognized that the team needed to surround LeBron with dunkers, rebounders, and especially shooters. If Chicago doesn’t seem equipped to do the same thing, the star power of Rose and Noah loses some of its luster. And the “sure thing” that was a move to Chicago becomes an even bigger roll of the dice than when Uncle Wes was removed from the cockpit.
The point is that almost no one in the mainstream sports world was raising these issues at the start of the free agency period. But now, as it nears decision time, the less attractive elements of the equation seem to be looming larger for LeBron. Whether or not they’re literally a deal-breaker, we apparently won’t know until Thursday. But I assure you that if a lack of role players is part of what sinks the Bulls’ hopes for LeBron, I will laugh until I’m doubled over. Here’s hoping for stomach pain.
By the time anyone reads this article, LeBron’s second day of free agency meetings will have begun. He’s scheduled to hold court with the Clippers and Heat today, then the Bulls and Cavs Saturday. But Thursday was all about the NY/NJ metropolitan area—and shockingly, all sources from inside the Knicks and Nets indicate the meetings went “extremely well.”
Pardon me if I’m not sweating yet. And pardon me again if I go on to say that none of you Cavs fans reading this post should be sweating either.
As we here at Mesa have pointed out multiple times over the course of the past few weeks (via Twitter and in columns), generating excitement about a business prospect during a meeting falls somewhere between “producing saliva” and “crapping” on the scale of difficulty. I’m not even denying that the excitement in the room for the Nets and Knicks was genuine. But the reality is that unless one of these other teams walk out of the LRMR offices with a verbal commitment from James, the emotion in the room during a presentation is irrelevant.
Let’s also not forget that the pundits reporting about yesterday’s meetings were entirely basing their opinions on sources within the Nets and Knicks, most of whom probably weren’t even at the meetings in question. As a result, reporters and beat writers end up gushing in print about how great their chances of landing LeBron are—like this, for example. (Caveat: kudos to Rod Thorn for sounding like the voice of reasonable expectation in the midst of this blowjob of a report.)
Examining this situation rationally for a moment, consider this: what else are these partisan sources going to say? “You know, I gotta be honest, I thought our presentation sorta sucked”? “I’ll tell ya, LeBron seemed really disinterested”? “We couldn’t even get a meeting with Amar’e earlier than Monday and Rudy Gay already re-signed with Memphis. Why the hell would we have any chance at signing LeBron”? Something tells me that’s not going to fly if you want to remain employed by either of those organizations.
Second, what about any of LeBron’s media appearances since he was 16 would lead anyone to believe that he wouldn’t portray interest and enthusiasm in these meetings? Not only was the first of them led by one of his best friends and biggest role models, but this is a guy who declared that at one time or another he’s dreamed about playing for every team in the league, and that he’s been looking forward to this day (free agency) for four years. This is a mega-holiday for him. I’m convinced that today’s teams could give their presentations entirely in Korean, and LeBron would still be giddy.
Third, thanks to the information that’s out in the public realm about the Knicks’ presentation, I can say with knowledge that it was laughable. For starters, one of the supposed ringers the NYK brain trust brought in for the meeting was…Allan Houston, a guy whose greatest legacy in the league is as arguably the worst return on a max contract investment in NBA history. Houston missed a combined 94 regular season games in the 3rd and 4th seasons of that contract and retired before the start of the fifth. For that, the Knicks paid him over $20M per. My sources tell me that Donnie Walsh followed up his decision to include Houston in the meeting by flying to New Orleans to pitch the Saints’ brass on selling the Super Dome’s naming rights jointly to BP and FEMA.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Forbes got a hold of an actual piece of the Knicks’ presentation—a slideshow by a marketing consultant called Interbrand that claims LeBron has the potential to gross $2 Billion (yes, that’s a ‘B’) by playing the rest of his career with the Knicks. At the very worst, his signature on a Knicks’ contract would give him a 48.6% chance of grossing at least $1 Billion.
As Forbes’s Steven Bertoni points out in the article, “the report is light on the details of its methodology.” Having gone through the slideshow personally, I concur. The results seem to be based on…well, nothing tangible, other than the fact that James Dolan cut them a check to come to a specific conclusion. Interbrand claims that the findings were determined via a battery of computers running career projections based on a variety of factors, but the overall vagueness of the presentation creates the distinct impression of junk science (or technically, junk math. I wouldn’t want to confuse my junk).
Even funnier, the unintended take-away from this preposterous slideshow is that staying in Cleveland is actually a much more profitable decision for LeBron than anyone would have ever anticipated. Interbrand’s “study” shows that James’s maximum lifetime value in Cleveland is $1.176B, his lifetime average value is $699M, and his chance at making a billion dollars stands at 1.3%. By comparison among the other non-Knicks franchises included in the model (Chicago and Miami), Chicago would offer him a slightly higher maximum lifetime value ($1.233B), but a lower average value ($689M) and lower probability of grossing his first billion (1.0%). Miami is a distant fourth in all categories. In short, Cleveland is pretty clearly his second-best option behind the bumbling carnival side show that is the Knicks.
Considering that Dolan paid for this presentation, he may have wanted to suggest that Interbrand skew the findings even further than they’re already skewed. Telling LeBron he has any chance of grossing over a billion dollars by staying in his hometown, which is widely acknowledged by now to be neck-and-neck with Chicago as his chosen destination, isn’t necessarily a tactic I’d have recommended. But then again, this is why the Knicks have been an NBA afterthought for most of the past decade.
I also love the fact that the Interbrand “study” finds that LeBron has a 0% chance of making a bill in Miami because of “lack of fan avidity,” i.e. because no one living in Miami gives a shit about the Heat. I think it may be the only nugget of truth in the entire slide show. But that’s neither here nor there.
My final point as to why Cavs fans should remain calm: Pat Riley’s grand plan for wooing LeBron is going down in flames. According to reliable sources (and common sense, my favorite of all sources), Riley’s strategy hinged on getting verbal commitments from both Wade and Bosh to come to Miami before meeting with LeBron. As of now, that has not happened. Considering that Wade met with the Bulls today, and Bosh has been tweeting like a jackass about his meetings with Houston and New Jersey (with other meetings scheduled), it seems highly unlikely that King Slickback will be able to make that pitch as planned. Without commitments from those two players, the Heat have to try to sell James on living at South Beach with Mario Chalmers and Michael “Every GM in the League Thinks I Might As Well Be Made of Uranium” Beasley. Not exactly a strong hand, especially considering that if past history is any indication, the Heat might just retire James’s jersey even if he never plays for them.
In short, I still believe that the Cavs’ faithful have nothing to fear from the tri-state area, and all signs point to Miami and the Clippers being non-factors. Which means it will all come down to Saturday. Chicago Vs. Cleveland. Only time will tell if Dan Gilbert comes out of that match-up as the ownership equivalent to Craig Ehlo. But for today, at least, I believe we can all rest easy.
