Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2015 17:45:24 GMT
Compete or Think Towards the Future? The Answer – Yes
This world is not as black and white or as straight forward as we might want it to be. There are not many absolutes that control our destiny. This is equally as true when it comes to the NBADSL. The age old question haunts nearly every general manager each and every year: Should I try to contend for the title or should I rebuild? The answer is not as simple. Unfortunately unlike Major League Baseball, a team cannot stock up on talent with no regard to the salary they maintain. There are checks and balances looking at every single transaction that a team makes. NBADSL teams are held slave to the demands of the soft salary cap and of course, the unyielding hard cap. Teams have to plan years in advanced to adhere to these policies put forth by the league.
Back to the question of competing or rebuilding. To build a dynasty in this league, it requires strict and savvy financial planning, excellent building through the draft, little room for error on trades, and inevitably, luck comes into play as well. The issue is finding competitive pieces at the right price. This may mean building off players still on their rookie salary, signing players below or at their perceived value, and getting lucky when it comes to negotiating extensions for your expiring players. Working with an $84 million hard cap, you have no room to risk a long term overpaid contract. It will severely hamper your ability to maintain a talented, competitive roster. Even working with star players can become quite a bit of a hassle. On a star’s second large contract, they are likely counting on anywhere from $17,000,000 to $23,000,000 a year, with the last year of their long term contract possibly eclipsing the $30,000,000 mark. For a team to field start player over the age of 28, they are likely having to dish out a fourth of their possible salaries to said star player. This is why older teams, while the players may still be in their prime, have little chance of long term success due to the need to maintain their payroll. The best teams must do constant retooling, hopefully trading prime stars for stars in the future, to continue their success. 
This season the Brooklyn Nets became victim to this tricky balance. Throughout the years, the Nets have flirted with the hard cap several times. Many times, they escaped the deadline to get under $84 million in salary by just minutes in order to try to keep their team together the best they could. This season, the hard cap has been much less of an issue being nearly seven million way from the hard cap threshold. That was only for this year. Before crippling injuries decimated their team, the Nets were working to have their best season in history. Unfortunately Ewing and Payton both had significant injuries causing them to miss long stretches during the same time period. With only twenty days left in the season, both Gary Payton and Patrick Ewing were set to make their return to the team. Everything looked bright for the home stretch as the Nets were finally healthy and still at the top of their division with a fairly decent lead on the Boston Celtics and the Orlando Magic. However, there have been rumblings around the organization for months that the team needed to make a trade by the end of the season despite their team’s success. Why? Well the answer to that question is simple: the future. From a trade last season that sent Dominique Wilkins to the San Antonio Spurs brought in young player Rasheed Wallace. Thought by some as a tier 2 or B prospect, Rasheed Wallace showed his resilience to become an all-around impactful player that will grow much more for years to come. Too much talent is never a bad thing, but with every reaction there is an opposite but equal reaction. Rasheed Wallace is on the last year of his rookie deal making his sudden resurgence as a blessing and a crux for the Brooklyn Nets. If the Nets decided to maintain their current roster with Patrick Ewing, Gary Payton, Wayman Tisdale, Rik Smits, and Lenny Cooke, the team would likely not be able to afford the expected salary of young Rasheed Wallace next season. This reality haunted the Nets General Manager all season, but stood pat for the first 80% of the season. The Nets remained quiet through towards trade deadline with most executives expecting the Nets to make no more moves. That all changed on Deadline Saturday. Someone had to go, but who ended up leaving the franchise? 
The odd man out is star big man, just returned from injury, Patrick Ewing. But why? Could it have been someone else to go? While Patrick Ewing has been a staple to the Brooklyn Nets success this season before going down with a twenty game injury, the man makes a lot of money and stands to make a lot more. There were three players in total that could have been shipped out to save salary for next season, including Ewing, Gary Payton and Rik Smits were the other players. Trading Gary Payton was a non-starter for the team as the market for replacement point guards could not compare to the great handling and defensive ability of Payton. Rik Smits may have been a good candidate for trade, but the trade market on him has not been the best with all his minutes coming off the bench. Trading Rik Smits also would not have done much to make a dent in the paid out salary of the Nets unless they traded for expiring with little to no quality players in return. Like it or not Nets fans, Patrick Ewing was always meant to leave the franchise, with rumors been swirling around about his departure since late last year where the Nets missed the playoffs due to one of his many injuries. But why when the team is likely to win more than 50 games and make some noise in the playoffs? It is far easier to trade salary before there is a problem then after. Expiring will not be available at the offseason and any team with cap space will be looking towards free agency instead of talent through trade. This is the only time to make the deal with regards to the present and future of the Nets franchise. This does come with a lot of risk, because Rasheed Wallace may well decide that he does not want to stay with the Nets and opt for free agency. That is one of those risks a team must take.
So who did the Brooklyn Nets receive in return? The future. A missing dynamic from this team for the last few seasons has been a capable shooting guard. As of last trade deadline, the Nets have relied on Lenny Cooke to move from his natural position of small forward to shooting guard with much success as he has worked hard to improve his game inside and out. While Cooke will remain there for the foreseeable future, newcomer Manu Ginobili out of Argentina looks to be a future face of the franchise. In his rookie season thus far off the bench 8.3 points a game with 2.8 rebounds and 1.1 steals. Solid numbers for a rookie campaign from the bench, but will be expected to take on much more in the future needing to improve in nearly every part of his game. The foundation is set for him and he will hopefully have a long and promising career. In the deal the Nets also received Jakob Poeltl and Tookie Brown. Poeltl will ultimately be used as the Nets third or fourth big man to Tisdale, Smits, and Wallace. He is a great step down from Patrick Ewing obviously, but he does have some blocking and rebounding prowess that the team will sorely need with Ewing’s departure. The largest part of this deal is the fact that Rik Smits will be inserted full time in the starting lineup. Smits has had amazing rebounding numbers this season, working with several twenty plus rebound games. He will be expected to improve offensively and defensively to soften the blow of losing Ewing.
Will the Nets be alright? Probably. They still hold a convincing lead over the Atlantic division making it likely for them to hold the second seed in the playoffs. Will they be able to make as much noise as they started the year? That remains to be scene. The Nets have struggled greatly without Ewing in the lineup, but they hope to have the additions of Manu Ginobili and Jakob Poeltl to help fill in the gaps. The team is still very competitive and it may be addition by subtraction when you look at this deal in the future.
