As everyone already knows, the Portland Trailblazers have possibly the most promising, young roster in the NBA. They have a young emerging core of Brandon Roy (going into his 3rd year), LaMarcus Aldridge (3rd year), and Greg Oden (rookie, due to his season-ending injury last year), and have been able to surround them with a surplus of young talent, including rookies Jerryd Bayless, Rudy Fernandez, and Sergio Rodriguez, along with Steve Blake (6th year), Travis Outlaw (6th year), and Martell Webster (4th year). Combine these guys with Ike Diogu, Channing Frye, and Joel Przybilla, and you have the most solid 12-man rotation in all of basketball. However, the most surprising element of this young talent is that the Blazers will have a two year window (2009-10 and 2010-11) where they will have around $54 million in total salary.
As I cited in my last post, the luxury tax level will be a little above $71 million next year. Extrapolating by comparing the increase from last year to this, I can estimate that the salary cap will be somewhere around $72-$73 million come 2009-10. and a little more than $1 million larger in 2010-11. However, as of right now, barring any extensions/new contracts, the Blazers will have about $53 million in total salary in 2009-10 and only $34 million in 2010-2011. This means that they will have about $20 million free to spend next summer, and about $40 million to spend in the all-important summer of 2010, when Lebron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh, among others, all become free agents.
This of course comes with some caveats: the Blazers will extend some old contracts between now and 2009. The team would be stupid to let Steve Blake, their only true proven point guard, walk when he's working for only $4.5 mil this year. Assuming he comes back at less than $6 mil, I would jump if I were the Blazers. Secondly, it would be more than stupid for the Blazers to extend merely qualifying offers to Martell Webster, Channing Frye, and Ike Diogu. When someone becomes a restricted free agent, they get assigned a cap hold by the league, which basically decides how much they count against the salary cap even if they remain unsigned and unwaived. This is especially limiting because the cap hold is generally two to three times that player's current salary.
Assuming in 2009, Portland picks up team options on Roy, Oden, Aldridge, and Sergio Rodriguez, they will still have to decide what to do with Frye, Webster, and Diogu. Say they let Frye and Diogu walk, and resign Webster at 1.5 times his old salary. Thus the cap holds on all three of them which would have been between $26 and $39 million gets reduced to $7.5 million for Webster. Next, let's assume that Portland decides to hold onto one of either Travis Outlaw or Rudy Fernandez (they play similar positions with similar styles involving being excellent slashers and fair jump shooters, while playing little defense). Fernandez would be much cheaper, considering he makes less than $2 mil a year, while Outlaw makes $4 mil a year and will be looking for a lucrative extension.
Thus, we're left with Outlaw, Frye, and Diogu off the books. There's some speculation on Blazer's Edge about the Blazers trading these three for Tayshaun Prince, who would be perfect in their system. If Outlaw, Frye, and Diogu all continue to improve, I can't see how Detroit doesn't make this trade. Detroit is on the verge of dying of old age (most of their core is over 30) and they'll be reloading by the end of 2009. Naturally this trade is a no-brainer for Portland, because their only hole is at SF, where they need someone who defends the perimeter and can make 3's, both of which Prince can do and a whole lot more. This still leaves the Blazers some $20 mil below the luxury tax level in 2009. Let's assume that Brandon Roy signs a contract extension for $15 mil a year (same as Chris Paul), and Lamarcus Aldridge also resigns for $15 mil (a little less than Elton Brand, more than Andrew Bogut), that still leaves the Blazers with about $10 mil to throw at a new free agent, say, Shawn Marion in case the aforementioned Prince trade doesn't work out. Or Lamar Odom. Or Mike Bibby. Or even Allen frickin Iverson. Not saying any of them would take $10 mil a year, but there are lots of possibilities. Imagine if Roy or Aldridge take one for the team and sign a below-value contract. Then there'd be lots of money to go around.
Overall, the key to the Blazers current flexibility are the fact that their players are signed on the cheap as of now, and won't be able to ask for a raise for a couple years. However, hopefully by the time they get around to signing extensions, they'll have earned them.
Monday, September 15, 2008
CapTalk: Portland, An Exercise In Frugality
Friday, September 12, 2008
Comix Zone: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
Since Matt reviewed The Dark Knight, it's only fitting that the first Comix Zone review be of Frank Miller's classic, the book that gave him fame in the comics industry.The book that is considered, along with Watchmen, to be responsible for the more mature comics that followed in the 90's. The book that is considered by most to be the best Batman comic off all time. The story that took Batman out of the cheesy precedent set by the 1960's television series. Hell, there is even an episode of Batman: The Animated Series based on this. I'm talking about the 1986 book, Batman: The Dark Knight Returns.
The book takes place in the near future. Most of the superheroes and supervillains are either retired, dead, or in the case of supervillains, incarcerated. Bruce Wayne, now an old man, has retired from being Batman. Commissioner Gordon, an even older man, is still chief of the Gotham City Police and is aware that Wayne was Batman. Jason Todd, the second Robin is dead. And Alfred is still a butler.....and realllllllly old.
In Batman's long absence, a new generation of young villains has arisen, a gang called the mutants. Calling the mutants a gang is actually putting it lightly; a small army is a better description. The mutants terrorize Gotham City with a level of violence not seen before, and only matched by the most dangerous of the old generation's villains.
As he lives day by day watching crime increase, the urges of becoming Batman continually try to resurface, with Wayne pushing them back because of a promise he made to Jason Todd about never being Batman again. (The circumstances of the promise and why it was made is never stated, although it's probably related to Todd's death.)
However, after being attacked by two mutants in the alley where his parents die, and after the reemergence of Two-Face, Wayne can no longer hold back the impulses. He wears the cape and cowl once again to battle Two-Face and the Mutants. Along the way Batman is saved in a fight against the leader of the mutants by a 13 year old girl named Carrie Kelly, who becomes the new Robin.
Along with Two-Face and the Mutants, Batman and Robin battle other threats. After Gordon is forced to resign, a new commissioner named Ellen Yindel vows to capture Batman. Batman's greatest foe, The Joker returns, and he and Batman face off one more time, this time the final battle between the two. But Batman's last fight in the story will prove to be his greatest, as the government orders an agent to stop Batman. An agent who happens to be the other half of the World's Finest....
I'd have to agree that TDK is the best Batman comic ever made. So many things go into this. First, Miller's artwork fits Batman like no other. His dark, gritty style is the essence of Batman. And the way Gotham City is drawn, makes it different yet familiar. (Not super different though; this isn't Batman Beyond.) The same goes with some of the characters. Miller's Joker looks different, almost effeminate. But it's still The Joker. And when The Joker does his laugh, you know for damn sure it's the same old Joker.
Art only goes so far though. Luckily, the writing doesn't disappoint. Miller uses his noir style writing that was last seen on his run on Daredevil, and that would be later used in Sin City. This fits Batman like a glove, and at the same time is different than anything done before it. But Miller pulls out a few other tricks too. Batman being old is current theme. Although still better fit than most young men, Batman is still old, and it shows in the art and the writing. Batman says many times in the narration that he used to have better reaction time, and there are moments when he is almost killed by actions that his younger self could more easily overcome. The extreme case is Batman's first fight with the Mutant leader, who would have killed Batman if not for the intervention of Robin.
The other thing Miller does in the writing, and what was unique for the time, is that Miller often shows clips from the Gotham news. During these times, the reader gets to see the public opinion on Batman's return. Some responses approve of Batman, others do not. Some responses are smart, some are dumb. But there is a lot of social and political commentary, at one point even about nuclear war and paranoia resulting from it. (Keep in mind, this was written in the 80's, towards the end of the cold war). Public opinion about Batman would be used in later works, most recently the movie, The Dark Knight.
If your a Batman fan, or just a fan of good comics or even a fan of good stories, give this a read. It is influential not just in comics, but in media overall. You can thank The Dark Knight Returns for things like Lost, Heroes, and.......well The Dark Knight.
5 out of 5
Motion Picture Magic: The Dark Knight
O.K. I know this is everyone and his brother's favorite movie of all time. And if you want to find a review of this movie you can google it to find a billion of them from many different angles. This being said I wanted to add my two cents anyway. I may not add anything new, but I've seen it three times now and was completely enthralled each time.
Before I jump into the movie I should add some prefaces. First, I'm a complete geek. This is probably obvious if you've read any of my other posts. Second when it comes to comic book characters Batman has always been my favorite. He was just darker, smarter, and just all around cooler. I watched the 1960's Batman when I was a toddler. When I got a little older I watched Batman: The Animated Series. Batman TAS really got me hooked on the character. The creators, Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, did everything they could to make Batman dark, edgy and cool. Eventually I saw the original movie and it's sequel, which were both decent flicks. The Schumacher directed movies of the 90's were pretty much trash, but they didn't really change my view of Batman. When Batman TAS became Justice League (followed by JLU), the creators went out of the way to make their batman character compelling to watch. His witty cynicism, and the ability to use his detective skills and mind to solve problems made him a superior hero to the others. I could go on with other Batman media, but you get the picture.
Getting back on track with the discussion of The Dark Knight. The batman character in the Dark Knight I think is a close second to the Animated Series (and it's predecessors). Gone is the witty cynicism, but it is replaced by an equally if not deeper character. The Batman of the Dark Knight is not fully sure of himself. This is hinted at in Batman Begins, but reaches fruition in this movie. One of the main plot points of the movie is Batman's quest to help Harvey Dent take over his role as the city's protector. Batman wants Dent because Dent is the district attorney, what he does is legal and doesn't require a mask. The movie makes a point of empathizing with Batman's desire to be Dent, from his ability to work in the open, to his relationship with Rachel Dawns. Christan Bale does a remarkable job expressing these emotions in the character. Interestingly though, it is Bruce Wayne who elicits these expressions. Once he puts on the cape and cowl, he's all business.
The villain of the film is the Joker. The late Heath Ledger did such an amazing job with his portrayal of the Joker. Coupled with the amazing writing of Christopher Nolan, the Joker steals the spotlight from all the other characters. The Joker of the Dark Knight is not really like any other I've seen. Sure he's still dressed like a clown, but gone are the gimmicks. Also missing is the wackiness. He's still insane, but in such a way that as an audience member you find yourself drawn in by him. The Joker represents something that is very rare to find on film. He has a completely different set of values. Most villains twist or break normal codes of good and evil. The Joker doesn't even compare. He doesn't know what he's doing is evil, he knows normal people think it is, but to him it's some great work of classical music or art. His philosophy is chaos or nihilism, he wants to show the world that it's highest values are meaningless, that deep down we are all just like him. And just before Batman inevitably saves the day, you'll wonder whether it's true.
The other notable member of the cast is Gary Oldman playing LT./Commissioner Gordon. Most portrayals of Gordon have either been as him as a victim or a hard nose cop who begrudgingly steps out of Batman's way. Here Gordon is Batman's partner in arms. Ironically while Batman is busy trying to make Harvey Dent into Gotham's White Knight, Gordon is fulfilling just that role. Oldman shows in near perfection Gordon's hard work, tenacity, and fear in a world dominated by forces not fit for your average police officer.
What makes this film great is the underlying philosophical issues that drive the plot and the characters. Batman is vigilante justice, taking the mantle of societies values, which inevitably leads to questioning it's own righteousness, and necessity. The Joker is Nihilism, questioning the very structure of society attempting to shatter it's values. Harvey Dent represents chance. In a world of chaos maybe the only justice is chance. Philosophical discussions of the nature of Justice are as old as Philosophy itself, but this movie paints a picture of these debates that is gripping. You don't even have to appreciate that they're there. The forces at work are so alluring it's almost impossible to not get caught up in it. As the Joker says at the end of the film, "so this is what happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object."
Trailer:
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
CapTalk: The Lakers and The Luxury Tax
In the NBA, it is common knowledge (and common sense) that some markets are just bigger than others. According to Forbes, the LA Lakers are valued at $560 million, ranked 2nd in the NBA in terms of franchise value (behind the ailing NY Knicks) in 2007. "Good for the them, they still didn't win the championship last year," you may say. This is true. However, having such a high market value gives the Lakers a noticeable advantage over other teams: their tolerancy level with regard to the luxury tax. As I explained in my last post, the luxury tax is calculated as such:
Total Team Salary - Luxury Tax Level = Luxury Tax Payment
Thus, for each dollar a team is over the luxury tax level, they pay two dollars, one which is already going to their players and one to the League, which then distributes the money to all the franchises that are under the luxury tax (a great boon for teams such as San Antonio, which classically enjoy running their team as just below salary cap level, thus giving them a several million dollar swing in overall revenue).
During the 2007-08 season, the luxury tax level was set at $67,865,000 (TrueHoop), with the Lakers being over the cap by $5,131,757. One might think that this is a lot of money, but the Lakers payment was almost one-fourth that of the NY Knicks and the Dallas Mavericks (both around $19 million). Looking ahead, the NBA announced that the salary cap for the 2008-09 season will be $71,150,000, with the Lakers salary (assuming they make no roster cuts) will be $82,305,701, giving them a luxury tax payment of around $11 million, a huge increase from last year. This is mostly due to a full-year of Pau Gasol and the new contract received by Sasha Vujacic.
However, there are two large variables that may affect these numbers in the coming years. First is whether the Lakers wish to retain Lamar Odom, who is currently making a cool $14 mil as the Lakers 4th best player, and the second is how large of an extension they give to Andrew Bynum.
Purely from a basketball stand-point, if someone were to ask, "do you want to keep Lamar Odom," I'm pretty sure Lakers GM Mitch Kupchak would say, "hell yeah," or something along those lines (maybe a more business-like line, such as "why yes!") However, with the twin towers of Bynum and Gasol taking up the power forward and center spots in the lineup, Lamar Odom is relegated to either starting at small forward or coming off the bench as either a center or PF.
Both of these propositions come with negatives. If Lamar starts at small forward, his best qualities become nullified: he has excellent speed and ball-handling skills for a guy who's 6'10", and he's an excellent rebounder. Starting at small forward would cause Lamar to be guarded by a smaller player, negating his speed and slashing ability, and take him further away from the basket, where most of the rebounds will be gobbled up by Bynum or Gasol. If Lamar comes off the bench as center or PF (most likely PF), he will have to be focused and ready to come into the game cold and contribute immediately (something which he has had problems with in the past). Plus, Lamar is making far too much money to be on the bench playing only 20-25 minutes a game (which will be all he gets with Bynum and Gasol ahead of him).
I have a tendency to lean towards the second option, with Lamar playing some sort of point forward role. Given that his contract expires this year, and he comes back at a discount (somewhat unlikely, but possible), which let's say will be around $12 mil, it will lessen the blow the Lakers take in terms of luxury tax. However, I do think shedding Lamar's contract in a trade or free agency will be a mistake, considering how well Lamar played last year.
Next is the contract extension of Andrew Bynum. Bynum will be making a little less than $3 mil this year, obviously way below his market value (with last year's averages of 13 pts, 10 rbs, and 2 blocks per game). Given that Elton Brand just signed a new contract that tops at $18 mil a year and Emeka Okafor signed an extension that tops at $14 mil a year, you can expect Bynum to be somewhere between there. Let's assume a round $15 mil per year over 5 years for Bynum as an extension. This will put the Lakers at somewhere around $30-$35 mil over the cap next year. Needless to say, this is a massive amount of money.
Honestly, I do not think the Lakers will be able to keep Odom long-term unless he takes a massive pay-cut. They are just too far over the salary cap, and their only short-term source of relief will be when Odom's contract expires next summer. An interesting point of intrigue comes in the form of Kobe Bryant's player option after next year. Bryant can choose to opt-out of his current contract and sign a new deal after next year. If Bryant were to take a marginal pay-cut (say $5-$8 mil), this would go a long way toward keeping Odom. Yet, there's really no end in sight for the Lakers.
With the contracts of Trevor Ariza, Jordan Farmar, and Chris Mihm expiring in the near future, the Lakers will have to extend deals to these key role players as well, probably pushing them further over the luxury tax level. However, without any financial ramifications, the Lakers are built to win, right now. If they want a championship, though, they may have to hurry. Those luxury tax bills will add up quickly, even for the Lakers.
The main problem children for the Lakers are the contracts of Vladimir Radmanovich (VladRad, as I like to call him) making a cool $6 mil a year to shoot three's, give up lay-ups, and sit on the bench in crunch time, and Luke Walton (or SonofBill, as he is often called on Forum Blue and Gold, the most insightful Lakers blog I've found), who signed a lucrative 6-year, $30 mil deal and promptly decided to start sucking again. The worst part is that both of their contracts are untradeable; they're too long and too costly for such little return in play.
For all their salary cap problems, the Lakers are still possibly the best positioned team in the NBA to be successful for the foreseeable future (the other being the Portland Trailblazers....*sniff*, I smell another blog post coming soon). But, championship teams have been derailed by the salary cap before, and it wouldn't be surprising if the salary cap cut the Lakers contention window a little short.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
CapTalk: My Dream Job
Edit: I've decided to turn this post into a new running column, "Cap Talk," dedicated to the finances of the NBA.
Another Edit: I had to correct some mathematical errors and errors in describing the cap. This was before I had done enough reading to truly understand some nuances of the cap. Please forgive the errors.
For those of you who know me, you know that I have few very strong passions in life. These (in no particular order) are: anime, finance, mathematics, irrational thoughts, high-fructose corn-syrup, racist jokes, and basketball. The past couple weeks have really been a large mish-mash of all of those put together: catching up on my anime, applying to full time jobs, working as a math CA/starting math classes, trying to get one of my friend's laid instead of myself, eating various overly-sweetened snack products, managing to insult four ethnic minorities in the span of ten seconds, and spending a lot of excess time looking at the salaries for various NBA teams as the off-season winds down.
The first few seem pretty reasonable for me in any given week. However, the last one is seemingly a little off; most of the off-season's trading action in the NBA is over, and the regular season isn't starting for a few weeks. That's when I realized that all effort I have exhibited towards getting full-time employment in Financial Company X has been completely misguided. I've thought all along that I wanted to go into finance, into business, the corporate world, thinking that once I got there I would know what I truly wanted. Yet the more I think about it, I realize that even my greatest financial dream (running my own billion dollar hedge fund), does not even come close (both in feasibility and enjoyment) to what I would truly love to do: be an NBA Business Analyst.
"WTF is that?" you may ask. Well an NBA team is the same as any other business, they have compensation and operating costs as well as massive profits. They just happen to do it selling basketball paraphernalia and tickets to sporting events involving (mostly black) men throwing a rubber ball around a hardwood floor. Having interned at Legg Mason last summer where all I did was expense analysis, I find that this would be an amazing outlet for my skills and experience.
Even though I know I would inevitably have to start out analyzing the cost-to-benefit ratio of Kobe Bryant jerseys vs. Kobe Bryant hats, my dream would be to one day be able to focus on what I truly enjoy: analyzing the NBA trade possibilities with respect to the salary cap.
Those of you who don't know the NBA, it has a soft-cap, meaning that any team that spends over a league-set amount on player salaries has to pay the difference between what they are paying their team and the luxury tax level. This is called the luxury tax. In other words, they have to pay:
Player Salaries - Luxury Tax Level = Luxury Tax Payment
The repercussions of this is that they are effectively paying two dollars for every one dollar they are over the cap. Some teams (Lakers, Knicks, Celtics) can afford to do this because of their excessive profit margins. However, teams in smaller markets (ie Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Sonics... er, Thunder) will be unable to pay such a penalty. This naturally gives teams from larger markets an advantage. However, there are several benefits to being below the salary cap: You can sign free agents (those that make you go over the salary cap) without impunity, you can take on extra salary when trading for players, and the most obvious, you save money. But the true skill to manipulating the cap is being able to maximize the amount of talent on your team for the amount of salary you're paying.
Now players are coming and going non-stop, but this isn't half the problem. Most of the problem comes from players demanding pay-raises/contract extensions. The poster-child for this dilemma shall be the Summer of 2010, when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Carmelo Anthony, and a multitude of other superstars will be opting out of their rookie extension contracts and entering the free agent market. This coming season, Lebron James shall make approximately $14 million. However, given his level of talent, he is obviously worth more than that, probably upwards of $20-25 million per year. In case you didn't know, there is a very large difference between $14 million and $25 million. Cleveland's total salary for next season will be somewhere around $85 million, which will be something like $20-$25 million above the projected cap. Their dilemma lies in how much they are willing to pay in luxury taxes in order to keep James.
God, just writing about this stuff makes me cream my pants. All right, not quite, but it's close. Very close. I have a feeling it will be extremely difficult, but if this whole finance thing doesn't pan out/interest me enough, I will most definitely turn toward my new-found passion: using my math/finance knowledge on my favorite sport, basketball.
