Salary Situation 2015/16 How to pay these guys?

[Harcher]

2015/16 is when all the players will be on the book at their re-signed contracts. Below is an attempt to figure out what the pay structure has to be. I made quick guess and adjusted to fit the total to be the 73M luxury limit of today. I looked at the hoopshype salaries for the teams/players for reference. Also, the numbers for the first 6 Jazz players below were numbers that were floated about in some previous threads, combined with recent contract signings - trying to get the new-normal. The trade-offs: 1) I don't recall a single team salary structure that has 6 players all paid near equal as high as this. They are either top heavy with scrubs or lower average distributed among 9 or so players. 2) I don't recall teams having 4 players below 1M as shown below. This situation may not be realizeable. 3) I used existing players to show the payment slots. But i chose to re-sign Millsap rather than Big Al to illustrate this salary arrangment and to discuss if it is feasible. (Assumption is that Big Al is high priced enough that 1 of the other 5 in the top six has to go, so i chose to leave him out of the equation.)

So if the players in the list all become worth or near-worth these salaries (All-star, borderline all-star) can you contend with this sort of salary structure? Boston sort of had this with the 'big 4' (I don't know what Ray Allen's $$ was while at Boston) Pierce is a $15m guy, KG 12, Rondo is 11.
.
Player
Derrick Favors…….12,000,000
Enes Kanter………..12,000,000
Gordon Hayward….9,000,000
Alec Burks…………….9,000,000
Maurice Williams…..7,000,000
Paul Millsap…………10,000,000
.
Randy Foye…………..4,000,000
DeMarre Carroll……4,000,000
Jeremy Evans……….2,000,000
Backup PG…………. 1,300,000
.
Scrub SG…………………800,000
Scrub SF…………………800,000
Scrub Center………….800,000
Rookie……………………475,000
…………………………..73,175,000 (This year’s tax limit)

.

For reference: Contracts Signed this year
.
S. Ibaka 12.5M………Taj Gibson 8M………….Ty Lawson 10-13………….Omar Asik 8
J Lin 8………….OJ Mayo 4………….Batum 11………….J. McGee 12.5………J Holiday – 11
Ry Anderson 8.5
.
Other Salaries
AK 10M………….Bogut 13………..Aldridge 13………Brook Lopez 13-17
K Love 13-17………..J Noah 11-14…………..D Lee 12-13
.
Journeymen
Brandon Bass 6.5………….Carl landry 4……………Chuck hayes 5.5-6……….Jason Thompson 5-7

[Ty the Turd]

Burks won't sniff 9M in this league.

[zbone]

Burks will get 6 mil tops, Millsap won't be resigned for anything above 9 mil. I doubt Carroll will get 4 mil anywhere. Tony Allen makes 3 mil and these guys are those who suffered the most with the new CBA. Evans will be happy to get minimum.
MoWill's contract is the most intriguing part in fact.

[Weezur]

Glad someone actually looked into this. My biggest fear would be that we have to let go of 2 of the four

[vslice02]

I agree and hope that resigning Millsap is indeed a future reality for the Jazz.
Honestly though, worrying about paying the Core-4 is the least of my Jazz concerns for two reasons:
1.) It's unlikely all four will become above-average-to-potential franchise players for the Jazz that command $9mil and up salaries. (However, they all show potential and if they do - then that's a terrific "problem" to have).
2.) If Utah ends up in a situation where they have multiple players due for big-money extensions - I expect they would follow the philosophy that seems to emanate from the San Antonio front-office - which is to target your 2-3 core players and consider everyone else replaceable. With the Spurs - this led to them trading George Hill to Indiana a year before he was due a big extension - and in return they got a fantastic young player in Kahwi Leonard who more imporantly is on a rookie-scaled contract. The Thunder under Sam Presti have followed a similar pattern - first by trading Jeff Green before he was due an extension (and getting a position of need in return) and then by trading James Harden to the Rockets and getting a poor-man's replacement along with multiple future assets (debateable if that will be a good move or not).

Teams have been in this scenario before - the difference between maintaining success like the Spurs & Thunder and losing good players for nothing (such as the 2004 Clippers) is knowing which 3 players to build around and when to sell high on everyone else and based off the Deron-trade and Dennis Lindsey's Spurs experience I am somewhat hopeful the Jazz will make the right moves.
Now if we could just get these players in a position to play so they'll actually have some value before 2015...(but that's another story)...

[sgjazzfan]

The ideal would be to sign Williams for something like 8M, 6M, 4M and Milsap to something like 10M, 8M, 6M so when we need to resign Kanter and Burks Milsap is at 6M and Williams is at 4M.

Along with that, Favors, Kanter and possibly Hayward might demand more (look at Hibberts contract) but Burks will likely be less.

[Zulu]

Honestly do you a think Mo is going to demand that much money.... He pretty much begged the Jazz to pick up the team option on him, since he knew he wasn't going to sniff that amount ever again!!

[Jazz4ever]

I don't see a problem. Even if we resign Sap he can always be moved for a cheaper backup two years later if the four meet or exceed expectations. I doubt his performance drops off much in that time.

[sgjazzfan]

Honestly do you a think Mo is going to demand that much money.... He pretty much begged the Jazz to pick up the team option on him, since he knew he wasn't going to sniff that amount ever again!!

I don't know, but I could see the Jazz giving it to him somehow. Hopefully 5M a year, that would be worth it for sure. But 5M a year for a "starting PG" is pretty low.

[Hack]

I think these figures are a little off. I think they get more.

I would love to lock the core four up for those prices, but I don't see it. The only hope we have is that we stunt some of their value by keeping them on the bench. Even then it will still be hard.

How I see each player getting paid one by one....

Favors- gets a max deal.

Why? Because in the short amount of time he'll get to show off, and when he finally does play, he will put up very good numbers and other teams will force the Jazz to pay him the max or lose him. I guarantee some team will be willing to take a chance on him, even if they only have a small sample size. His numbers + perceived ceiling will demand it.

Hayward- 10 mil per year - max

Hayward is a multi talented player. On the same level as Paul George who will also get a big deal. Again, teams will force the price, because there is a talent shortage in the NBA, and a lot of players get over paid.

Kanter- 10 mil per year - max

Kanter is a stud. He will no doubt be a premier big in the league. His floor is easily 10 mil per year because again, talent shortage and price bidding being out of control. He may very well end up getting the max.

Burks- 6 mil - max

Burks is much tougher to project, because his ceiling is pretty high. We are just in limbo and waiting to see if he can reach it, or does he fizzle out and plateau before he reaches it? I think he will have to prove more than the others and has longer to go, but he just might do it.


I think one of the issues that is being ignored by the Jazz right now is that this thing where we are waiting forever to see what we got is only going to give us a small window to analyze what we got, which could force us to gamble on an unfinished product or let go someone that we never fully tried out and then they go somewhere else and succeed. Both scenarios are risky and could screw us. I'd rather see a few years worth of work from them to see if they are worth it. What if we don't even know that one of them is very injury prone? Can you say Boozer 2.0?

[blackham9258]

I don't like the assumption that we will resign Mo Williams. I would rather not in fact.

[Cyrone Torbin]

Favors and Kanter are going to be max, or near max, even if they show the slightest hint of being an All-Star. They are both big, young, and talented.

Big guys get paid in the NBA.

****ing look at what Javale McGee and Deandre Jordan are getting paid.

[Cyrone Torbin]

I don't like the assumption that we will resign Mo Williams. I would rather not in fact.

I'd love too. I think he would make a great stop-gap PG until somebody else comes along, then would transition nicely to a Jason Terry-esque role off the bench.

[George]

Trey Burke/Burks (keep Tinsley as well, for our token PG vet)
Burks/Mo (playing in the Terry role as Cyrone suggested)
Hayward/Carroll
Favors/Millsap
Kanter/Favors/4th big

That's a 10 deep rotation. Hang onto Murph, Evans. Round out the roster with 2 more draft picks (incoming 2nd rounder, and GS pick) and there you have it.

I'd say thats a pretty solid roster. Sign Mo to a 3 year contract, let Burke play behind him for a bit until he's able to start. Mo would be a very solid bench player. He'd get constant open looks with all the attention the rest of the bench would get.

[Lion's Roar]

There's something like 4 draft picks plus 3 2nd rounders that aren't in your books. All traded?