1. Due to the luxury tax, at best you can pay a "big 3" and then fill in around it. As a "Big 3", Melo/Boozer/Rose is easier to fill around with cheaper pieces than Noah/Boozer Rose. In the former case (with Melo), you just need a serviceable center, a serviceable three point shooter, and a serviceable defender and you've got yourself a possible title. Serviceable can be had for cheap. In the latter case (with Noah), you've got more than a serviceable center, but you still need yourself something more than a serviceable shooter or defender playing on the wing. You need a guy who can really take scoring pressure off Rose or Boozer, or fill in to keep things rolling if one of them is out. A guy who can go out and rip off points like that is usually hard to come by and fairly expensive. Thus, the fear is if we devote our extra money to Noah, we can't/won't spend on the necessary pieces to fill out the team. 2. We won't be happy with Noah at the price he's going to command. Really, we haven't been happy with anyone at the price they've gotten for as long as I can remember. This is true whether they re-signed with us (Chandler, Deng, Nocioni, Hinrich) or went elsewhere because the the Bulls wouldn't pay what some other team would (Gordon, Tyrus, Curry, Crawford). Everyone that's been re-signed has eventually been traded, except for Deng, whom is not exactly in high demand from what reports tell us. I know, I know... Noah is different from all those guys. But so was Chandler. He was so different than Curry! And Deng was so different than Gordon! And Nocioni was such a great inspiration that we'd never, ever get sick of him! Well, we did. I think the number of guys you re-sign and feel unequivocally good about is very small. Like, I don't feel terrible about Deng. He's still fairly young, and he's a well above average, if not spectacular player. I'm not one of those who thinks he's a terrible value, and in fact I'm surprised that a team like Denver seems to not be at all interested in him. But I understand why they, and anyone else, aren't excited about him at his cost. His cost takes a lot of other options off the table. He's not drastically overpaid, but he's not multiplying your force either on the court or on the cap. When I think about Noah, I think at worst he'll be like Deng on his new contract. I don't think he'd be an outright disastrous re-sign like Nocioni was (that's how I felt at the time, and I think more time passing bore it out) because Nocioni was a guy who didn't start and for whom we'd already drafted replacements for (Thabo and Tyrus) when we re-signed. On the other hand, I'm not sure he'll be a guy who we any longer look at as a great value when he's making $10-12M a year. And at that point, his salary will sort of foreclose a lot of other options for getting guys. The point I'm leading to with all of this is that there's some uncertainty and expectations that are likely to be unmet in how we deal with Noah on a new contract. With a player from the outside whose value is already set, like Anthony, you pretty much don't have this sort of issue. I don't hear anyone really questioning whether Anthony is overpaid or not.
