For this blog post I will fictitiously be the GM of the Charlotte Bobcats. This fictional scenario begins about 4 months before the 2013 season. I won't always bother to delve extremely deeply into all of the financial aspects of keeping and attempting to add players, but obviously those aspects are very important, so I will still attempt to take those factors into consideration in my thought process for this scenario.
In my first move as GM of the Charlotte Bobcats, I recommend changing the name Charlotte Bobcats to Charlotte Hornets. (Since that name happens to be somewhat popular among Charlotte fans.) (Also to clarify, I was writing this around the time when the NBA draft occurred, so I do not think that the Bobcats had yet submitted a proposal to change their name to the NBA, and if they had, then they certainly had not been approved yet.)
As my second move, I resign as GM because the Hornets are hopeless.
Okay.. Just joking about that one.
Next I think about either releasing or trading the entire roster, except for McRoberts and Walker. Seriously.
Here were the FA for Charlotte in 2013 courtesy of ESPN, from here.
| 2013 | |
|---|---|
 Charlotte |
RESTRICTED Gerald Henderson Byron Mullens UNRESTRICTED DeSagana Diop Josh McRoberts Jannero Pargo Reggie Williams |
Decisions for players who are on the team.
Players who were especially looked into for either being released or traded are the following -- Haywood and Gordon. Thomas is amnestied. (Kind of a no-brainer to have Thomas amnestied. [And that is indeed what the the Bobcats did in reality as well.] Maybe if he would improve his work-effort and 'coachability', he could become a decent basketball player, but you can't base keeping a player on unrealistic hopes.)
Un-pursued
I definitely go ahead and let Pargo and Diop go. (And for brevity's sake I will continue to use last names.) Williams is heavily considered, but he is not pursued.
Middle Ground
Mullens is considered and offered a deal in the area of 3-6 million per year for 2 or 3 years, but if he refuses, then he is not pursued. I think Mullens is kind of a dangerous player to offer a considerable contract to since he hasn't proven much of anything in his time in the NBA, but yet he has decent physical gifts, so in this case I am willing to take a risk here.
Pursued
McRoberts I would attempt to sign for a 3 year deal for anywhere from 3-5 million per year.
For Henderson it kind of depends on what kind of deal he would sign, if he is open for the same type of deal, maybe in the range of 3-6 million per year for 2 or 3 years, then I would likely sign him.
Releases and Trades
No trade partners are found for Haywood, (or possibly there is another team, and the Hornets and the other team swap old bench players) so he is released.
As for Ben Gordon (who I'm just going to randomly guess, that in real life he picks up the player option, odd I know..) [and he did], the most realistic and helpful trade candidate I found were the Brooklyn Nets and Kris Humphries. And it's even realistic enough that there was a bleacher report article about it possibly happening earlier this year.. So yeah.. Semi-legit anyways.
I think it tends to help both teams (though a fair amount more of an edge to the Hornets, imho), and the contract structure should work out for both as well, while each player is basically just a one year rental with a bad, expensive contract.
Results of pursuits.
Mullens is signed for 4.5 million per year for 3 years.. (I was partially basing projected salaries off of Hoopsworld, not entirely sure how they were doing their projections or if I properly understand what they were doing with it, but they effectively said 4.5 million dollars for Mullens next contract as I understood it.)
For Henderson, Hoopsworld said the same thing, so he is signed for 2 years on a 4.5 million dollars per year salary.
Hoopsworld doesn't offer any help on McRoberts, so I'll just say he wants to sign for a 2 year, 4 million dollar per year salary.
So in my scenario all three players were willing to sign, which I think is fairly realistic. Especially since McRoberts was the only UFA.
First tentative roster without delving into FA
At this point I believe the roster should look like this:
SF Adrien
PF Biyombo
SG Henderson
PF Humphries
SF Kidd-Gilchrist
PF McRoberts
C Mullens
PG Sessions
SG Taylor
PG Walker
Not exactly a lineup that strikes fear into opponents, but whatever..
By position the Hornets would have 2 PG, 2 SG, 2 SF, 3 PF, and 1 C. And, if you just have McRoberts play C instead of PF, then it becomes perfectly balanced.
I'll quickly go through my likes and dislikes of the roster by position.
PG is only iffy to okay, but I don't really know of a lot of other options where it can be improved.
SG stinks, I don't really know where to grab a good one, but I'll look into it in FA.
SF is very young and a bit weak overall, but could be improving, I might stand pat here.
PF is okay, I don't like Biyombo and don't think he will play much, but Humphries is decentish. The need to improve is partially here and I know of a good player to go after.
C is fair, with the chance to be very decent if Mullens can improve. I'll stay with the status quo here.
FA moves
I am going to hope that the Pelicans do not offer their team option to Jason Smith. And hence, the Hornets will pursue him heavily. Hoopsworld says 2.5 million, but I'll go ahead and say 3.5 million to Smith for 4 years. (I'm not certain now as to whether or not Smith was a semi-free agent, because I can't seem to find a news article on it, but since this is all already down, I'll go ahead and keep it.)
For Martell Webster it says 1.7 for last year, I'll say 3.5 for 4 years.. (Yeah, I kind of keep getting stuck on that.) And I forget if you can even offer 4 year straight up options.. If not, then just assume these are 4th year player options. [In realityville the Wizards signed him to a 4 year 22 million dollar salary.. So, I think the Hornets offer would have needed to be more in the 5.5 to 6 million a year range.]
The two previous players would probably not entirely mind getting paid to join a losing origination, since they have kind of been used to losing in the NBA. (No offense meant to them.) However, here comes a more delicate and less realistic scenario..
Namely, Kyle Korver coming to Charlotte. I wouldn't be surprised if he wants to play on a winner, but for the sake of this scenario I'll just offer him a little more than the average team, and then say he accepts it. His previous contract was 5 million per year for three years, I'll offer 6 million for 3 years with a player option on the 3rd year. [The actual offer that he accepted was effectively a 4 year 6 million dollars per year contract from the Hawks. So the Hornets would have likely had to offer another million dollars or so to convince him to come to Charlotte and if his asking price would be in the 8 million dollar range, then the Hornets would have to pass on him and look elsewhere. And Korver didn't end up going to a high-end winner, but basically just kept the status-quo of semi-winner.]
Two notes
The Bobcats selected Cody Zeller with the 4th pick in the NBA draft, so he will certainly be making a roster spot here as well.
And the other note is that there was a somewhat massive trade in which, among other things, Humphries went over to Boston. But, I still think Gordon for him makes a decent amount of sense for the Celtics, so I'll keep it.
Final roster to begin the 2013 season
PF Biyombo
SG Henderson
PF Humphries
SF Kidd-Gilchrist
SG Korver
PF McRoberts
C Mullens
PG Sessions
PF Smith
SG Taylor
PG Walker
SF Webster
C Zeller
New breakdown.. 2 PG, 3 SG, 3 SF, 4 PF, 2 C.
PG no change.
SG Korver helps considerably, but it's still probably a little below average.
SF I expect Webster to help a fair amount.
PF This position is now very decent.
C Extremely young, could be a little weak, but the ceilings of potential for Zeller and Mullen are fairly high.
Projected starting 5 and average rotation minutes
PG Walker 29 mpg
SG Korver 26
SF Kidd-Gilchrist 27
PF Humphries 18 (Thought about Smith, but I'll stick with Humphries in the starting lineup because of his rebounding.)
C Zeller 27
2nd wave
PG Sessions 22 mpg
SG Henderson 15
SF Webster 24
PF Smith 20
C Mullens 13 (Try Mullens for around half the season, if he never improves then McRoberts gets this spot and more minutes.)
Players to get in for around ten minutes a game
SG Taylor 7
PF McRoberts 12
Deep end bench
Adrien and Biyombo will very rarely get into games, they could possibly be sent down to the D-League. It is not entirely through any fault of their own, and I do think they both certainly have potential. (Which is why they're still on the team.) Also Adrien could have some use as a rebounding SF somewhere. Too early to give up on them, but they just don't make the team right now. They could become quality level starters at some point, but at this point both players need to polish their skills a little.. Okay, a lot.
Comparison to 2013 Bobcats (And this was as of about 4 months ago)
On a neutral court I would favor this new Hornets lineup by around 7 (which is a very healthy margin) over the 2012-13 Bobcats.
Starting 5 comparison
PG and SF Walker and Kidd-Gilchrist get about the same rotation minutes in both scenarios, so no real difference here. PF Biyombo would get beaten fairly badly by Humphries. C Mullens or McRoberts would likely get beaten semi-solidly by Zeller. Korver should beat Henderson by a decent margin as well. My starting 5 should win this matchup fairly easily, with one slight caveat being that the Bobcats play their starters more often than I do.
While my minutes rotation projection is just the average, and as such at various times the starters will get quite a few more or quite a few less minutes, I still never plan on the players in my starting 5 to be getting more than 40 minutes, unless a game goes into OT. Call me silly, but I think fatigue can have a negative effect on players. I'd prefer to have 10 players give fairly intensive effort as opposed to 8 players (Even if the 8 are a lot 'better' than the 2 last players for the 10.) giving average to below average effort.
Bench comparison
This part becomes somewhat laughable, imho. Sessions against Pargo, Sessions dominates. Henderson against Gordon, I'll say basically a push. Webster against Adrien, major win to Webster. Smith against Thomas, semi-comfortable win to Smith. My remaining players, Mullens, Taylor, and McRoberts, vs Taylor close contest, possibly another edge to the Hornets due to McRoberts, but I'm not certain.
I know 7 points is kind of a large number on a neutral court, but still I'm almost tempted to think the line should be higher. I would say that the Hornets are definitely a better team than the Bobcats.
I'll finish this hypothetical GMing in another post.
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