ALDRIDGE SIGNED! (merged)

julius · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

RoyToy said:
If you want to talk about paying too much, look at Rashard Lewis' contract. 6/118.

Aldridge averaged more pts, rebs, blks, and had a better shooting % the past two seasons, and Aldridge can still get better while Lewis has undoubtedly hit his ceiling.

or Hedo 5 year 55 million.

RayDavies · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

I, for one, am super stoked that this is out of the way. I always suspected that 60-70 was FAIR MARKET VALUE for a player of LMAs caliber.

Shit, Jermaine O'neal is making over 20 this year. Bosh is set to make 16. Brand is making ~ 15. K-Mart is making 15.

For a player with LMA's combo of offense and defense, lack of off the court issues, and length/athleticism, not to mention relative youth and remaining upside, I think the 5/65 deal is market value. This is basically Ty Chandler/Carlos Boozer money. I don't know about y'all, but I'd take LMA over any of the aforementioned players.

Well, maybe not Bosh...

RayDavies · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

julius said:
or Hedo 5 year 55 million.

Ed O · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

andalusian said:
This is what Al Jeff makes. Which makes this deal "market correct". Al Jeff is a better offensive player. LMA is a better defensive player. Overall - does not seem too bad.

Jefferson signed two years ago, before the salary cap was clearly on the decline and the economy was in the shitter. The CBA was two years farther from expiring. Jefferson signed a bigger extension because market conditions were better for players.

Aldridge and Jefferson are similar players, I agree... but Aldridge did much better than Jefferson did given the economic conditions around the league and country.

Ed O.

Jayps15 · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

Like many others, I'm thrilled this deal got done and Aldridge is locked up long term, but the future ramifications are a little worrisome. Ideally I would have liked to see a deal around 5 years 60mil, at a flat 12 per year. What I will say is that without knowing the starting salary and the per year raises I'm hopeful the Blazers front loaded this contract as much as they could. His final year could be over 15mil, but if they structured it right it could also be close to 14 mil. That would give the organization a small sliver of breathing room relatively speaking.

LittleAlex · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

If LMA plays as well as I hope he does this season, the contract will be a bargin.

Why? Because this next off season is the one teams have been targeting for 3 years. There are going to be teams out there with a metric fuck ton of money under the cap.

If they can't get a LeBron, Wade or Bosh LMA might be a fantastic consolation prize. They could offer him more then he is going to get paid under this deal with Portland.

Not I am not saying that would happen for sure. But it is possible.

andalusian · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

Ed O said:
Jefferson signed two years ago, before the salary cap was clearly on the decline and the economy was in the shitter. The CBA was two years farther from expiring. Jefferson signed a bigger extension because market conditions were better for players.

True, but Jeffesron also signed for a team clearly rebuilding for many years to come, the Blazers feel like they have an opportunity at greatness for a pretty decent stretch of years - and as such, to miss on Aldridge, one of the pillars of that team - would hurt the team more, it seems, in the grand scheme of things.

At the end of the day - it seems like a fair price, for a very good player with some untapped potential.

Aldridge and Jefferson are similar players, I agree... but Aldridge did much better than Jefferson did given the economic conditions around the league and country.

Maybe, maybe not. I think LMA's potential as an all around player is higher than Al Jeff - simply because he seems like he has the tools and interest in being a great defensive player. So - overall, I think this can come down to a win-win situation.

Both parties should be feeling good about this deal.

Pinwheel1 · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

Being an "Allstar" should not be part of the equation. Making that part of the incentive starts promoting selfishness amongst the players IMO. They start playing for themselves and not the team. Having a deep team mean your stats go down. Winning is everything and the only thing that matters. 13 million a year is just fine for LMA. Why worry about an extra million a year when your payroll is that high anyways. Someone would over pay to steal him away. Good move.

oldguy · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

SlyPokerDog said:
I won the bet! Hurray! Yippee!

Thanks KP!!

The question is, will he pay up?

SlyPokerDog · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

oldguy said:
The question is, will he pay up?

He was posting over in the O-Live Blazer forum congratulations to me and he's looking forward to going to a game soon. Until he proves otherwise I'm going to believe that he has every intention of paying up. And besides, he may have lost but he still gets to go to a Blazer game. There are worse bets he could have lost.

oldguy · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

SlyPokerDog said:
He was posting over in the O-Live Blazer forum congratulations to me and he's looking forward to going to a game soon. Until he proves otherwise I'm going to believe that he has every intention of paying up. And besides, he may have lost but he still gets to go to a Blazer game. There are worse bets he could have lost.

Yeah, like the $100 bet I offered him, but he wimped out. I could be celebrating today, too, if he wasn't such a puss.

SlyPokerDog · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

oldguy said:
Yeah, like the $100 bet I offered him, but he wimped out. I could be celebrating today, too, if he wasn't such a puss.

Yeah, that was funny. You and I were the only ones who took him up on his bet that KP wasn't going to sign LMA.

STOMP · Oct 21, 2009

noknobs said:
Great news! Aldridge is worth every penny.

From Chad Ford

The Blazers, after some verbal sparring, reached an agreement with Roy on a five-year, $80 million dollar max contract. Aldridge was searching for a similar contract from the Blazers but after several months of negotiation settled on a deal worth roughly $15 million less.

Click to expand...

I recall a candid quote from LA at the start of the summer saying that Brandon deserved the full max and his camp would be satisfied with a bit less.

STOMP

Ed O · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

LittleAlex said:
If LMA plays as well as I hope he does this season, the contract will be a bargin.

Why? Because this next off season is the one teams have been targeting for 3 years. There are going to be teams out there with a metric fuck ton of money under the cap.

If they can't get a LeBron, Wade or Bosh LMA might be a fantastic consolation prize. They could offer him more then he is going to get paid under this deal with Portland.

Not I am not saying that would happen for sure. But it is possible.

What team would make an offer that large to a restricted agent? I don't think there's a very big chance that any team would.

Further, with the cap going down, I doubt there will be enough teams far enough under the cap to make massive offers. The NBA is projecting a cap of $53.6m... assuming that's what it will be (and they gave that as the upper limit of the range), then I see nine teams (maximum) that could offer $10m or so in the first year... and that includes teams like the Clippers, Kings and MN that would have little to no interest in spending that much on Aldridge.

Ed O.

Wheels · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

Erroneous Subterfuge said:
David West was a reserve, voted on by the coaches. I'm pretty sure it had something to do Chris Paul

fixed

Minstrel · Oct 21, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

andalusian said:
True, but Jeffesron also signed for a team clearly rebuilding for many years to come, the Blazers feel like they have an opportunity at greatness for a pretty decent stretch of years - and as such, to miss on Aldridge, one of the pillars of that team - would hurt the team more, it seems, in the grand scheme of things.

This is a fair point. It's not usually possible to pay optimally for extra marginal wins as you go up the scale of wins. It's easy for a 30 win team to add extra wins at bargain dollars...much harder for a 50 win team. The Blazers, at this point, will have to do some amount of inefficient spending to reach their goal of a single championship, let alone a dynasty. Aldridge might be a bit overpaid relative to the contracts of similar players, adjusted for economic climate...but that relatively small premium is probably worth it for cost certainty and talent certainty (removing the risk of losing Aldridge and not finding an equivalent player to pay instead). It might not be worth it for a team that wasn't as close to a championship.

I'm also a little surprised by people saying "They're paying for potential" as though it's an indictment of the deal. Potential has value, both in terms of team building and in monetary terms. Aldridge is a bit of a speculative asset, but such assets are quite common throughout all the business world. Many investments have speculative elements...the speculative part of the investment still has value. Aldridge has a certain amount of concrete value (what he's already shown he can produce) and a certain amount of potential value (the "upside" that the team perceives he has). It's perfectly reasonable to pay for both. They shouldn't pay for the potential at the same "rate" as the concrete, but it's impossible for us to say whether they did. He should certainly make more than would be suggested by what he has already produced, though, because his upside is not valueless by any means.

Overall, I'm satisfied with this deal. I don't think it's a home run, nor is it a bad deal, as far as I'm concerned. I think the team got done what it needed to, and at an acceptable price.

VanillaGorilla · Oct 22, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

David West signed his extension before the 2006-2007 season. During the 2005-2006 season he averaged 17.4 points, 7.4 rebounds in 74 games. That was his third year in the league. Last year, Aldridge averaged 18.1 points, 7.5 rebounds in 81 games. Also his third year in the league.

West: 5 years, 45M
Aldridge: 5 years, 65M

rocketeer · Oct 22, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

STOMP said:
I recall a candid quote from LA at the start of the summer saying that Brandon deserved the full max and his camp would be satisfied with a bit less.

STOMP

a bit less could mean just about anything, so it's really hard to say exactly what they were looking for.

Ed O said:
What team would make an offer that large to a restricted agent? I don't think there's a very big chance that any team would.

Ed O.

would you want to take the chance on a team offering aldridge the max?

VanillaGorilla said:
David West signed his extension before the 2006-2007 season. During the 2005-2006 season he averaged 17.4 points, 7.4 rebounds in 74 games. That was his third year in the league. Last year, Aldridge averaged 18.1 points, 7.5 rebounds in 81 games. Also his third year in the league.

West: 5 years, 45M
Aldridge: 5 years, 65M

they were comparable offensive players. do you think they had similar defensive ability as well?

Fez Hammersticks · Oct 22, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

I'd like to see LMA's pace adjusted numbers. Nate's snail paced system is a factor when you compare numbers. What would West's numbers look like with a Steve Blake level PG?

Entity · Oct 22, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

Ed O said:
What team would make an offer that large to a restricted agent? I don't think there's a very big chance that any team would.

rocketeer said:
would you want to take the chance on a team offering aldridge the max?

Would you want to take a chance on a team offering Aldridge one year?

VanillaGorilla · Oct 22, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

Please don't assign me an opinion. In my post, I stated no opinion; I was just pointing out some facts in case people didn't know. It is my opinion that LaMarcus is a better player than West, offensively and defensively.

bluefrog · Oct 22, 2009

Aldrigde and Blazers reach agreement

Aldridge to get $65M extension

The Portland Trail Blazers have verbally agreed in principle to a contract extension with forward LaMarcus Aldridge, a source close to the process told ESPN.com on Wednesday.

The extension is for five years and $65 milliion and will go into effect next season, the source said.

If Aldridge achieves certain hard-to-reach incentives, his contract could ultimately be worth as much as $70 million.

Fez Hammersticks · Oct 22, 2009

Re: Aldrigde and Blazers reach agreement

Is this a sarcastic post?

You're about 15 hours late on this one, home slice.

MrJayremmie · Oct 22, 2009

Re: ALDRIDGE SIGNED!

I suppose i'm fine if LMA gets 13mil/yr. IDK if I want it any higher than that, so that would be 65 mil.

Look, this kid is already an all star level PF, but his ceiling is phenomenal. I do whatever I can to keep him in Portland. He will probably be our leading scorer within the next couple season.

It does feel good to have Roy and LMA locked in for the next 6 years at least. GO, you are next buddy. Take care of your shit and the money will come.

I also think people have a good point when they say next summer, with many teams being under the cap, that they could have potentially offered him even more than this to try and get LMA. So maybe LMA said its either this or we'll see how things go in RFA?

Mediocre Man · Oct 22, 2009