(It’s Always) Decision Time, Part 1
By Mike
Anyone who has been paying even a modest amount of attention to the Boston sports scene over the past few months has heard all too much about the ebb and flow of negotiating leverage as rookie contracts approach their expiration date, courtesy of the standoff between the Patriots and wide receiver Deion Branch.
While the smoke was clearing from that crossfire, somewhat happier news of a similar situation involving the Celtics and one of their recent draftees came and went with much less fanfare. Despite concerns over recent (ridiculously expensive) deals given to centers of similar potential, the Celtics were able to sign Kendrick Perkins to a four year contract at very reasonable rates, at least in relation to the stratospheric guaranteed money of today’s NBA.
As with any success on the court, time pushes the Celtics onward to a new set of challenges. The Perk signing is an achievement to be proud of, but the Celtics and their fans are all too aware that the team faces similar contractual challenges with an unusually large number of their young players.
Under the collective bargaining agreement in effect up until this season, all NBA first round picks signed a three year contract with a one year team option. Salaries for each year of these deals are determined by the players’ draft slots. This system creates a ticking clock for every team as they evaluate where their young players fit into the future makeup of the squad.
A Tale of Two Draftees
In 2003 the Celtics acquired Perk and Marcus Banks in a trade of draft picks with Memphis, and the outlook for the two could not have been more different. Banks was a marquee player, a point guard the team sought to solve the team’s woes at the position. Perk arrived as an unheralded and overweight high school draftee with limited offensive skills.
However, through dogged persistence in the weight room and on the court Perk remade himself into an intimidating force over the next two seasons. His reward was the Celtics’ exercise last summer of the team option for his fourth year followed this offseason by his contract extension. Banks on the other hand grew into what the Cs’ front office and coaching staff saw as a frustrating blend of unfulfilled potential and unjustified overconfidence. The Celtics declined to exercise his fourth year option, and after a half a year of injury avoidance and sleepwalking they traded Banks to Minnesota.
Over the course of the coming season the Celtics will face decisions on several of the players that the team’s PR machine has touted as prime assets of the team’s long-awaited resurgence. The skill and timing with which Danny Ainge decides to keep or deal these assets will go a long way to determining how the Paul Pierce era will end in Boston.
The Decisions at Hand
The 2004 draft saw Al Jefferson, Delonte West and Tony Allen enter the league, along with recent acquisition Sebastian Telfair. All of those players signed a three year deal, which will expire after the upcoming season. The team has this season and the next to evaluate (or deal) Jefferson, West and Telfair, all of whom have had their options picked up. By contrast, Tony Allen continues to wonder whether his fourth year option will be exercised by the team by the October 31 deadline.
The Celtics have a similar time window to make a decision on Ryan Gomes. Unlike the first rounders listed above, Gomes entered the league as a second round pick in the 2005 draft, and thus was not subject to the same contract requirements as the first rounders. Instead the Celtics signed him to one year deal with two one year options. Their control of him extends to the end of the 2007-08 season, just as it does for the 2004 first rounders.
A few people might say that all of these players have played well enough to deserve more time in a Celtics uniform. In the NBA, the “soft” salary cap (as opposed to the NFL’s hard cap) would appear to allow a team to re-sign as many of its free agents as it wants. However, the realities of the situation extend past the legalese of the salary cap rules.
The burden of allowing the team’s payroll to exceed the luxury tax threshold and the desire to retain some roster flexibility mean that the decisions to pursue extensions with each of these young players cannot be made in a vacuum. A decision to sign one player to a lucrative extension will necessarily mean that the team has less of an inclination to sign another player at the same position to a similar deal. There are only so many minutes and cap dollars to go around. This dynamic will be seen most clearly at two positions, point guard and power forward.
The Floor Generals
Before Rajon Rondo began announcing his impending stardom to everyone from Walt Frazier to George Lopez, it was thought that Delonte West and Sebastian Telfair would battle this season for the title of Celtics’ point guard of the future. Now that Rondo’s play has earned him significant minutes at the position, the competition between the 2004 draftee guards appears less direct. But the contract decisions on West and Telfair still remain.
Will Telfair’s talents in penetrating and distributing the ball earn him a contract befitting a rising point guard star, or will he be dealt to yet another team to try to make his mark on the league? Will West’s court sense be packaged in a deal to bring back a big man, or will the unique talents he brings to the combo guard role make the Celtics’ second unit into an asset rather than a liability?
The (Somewhat Small) Big Men
The competition is more direct at power forward. Two seasons ago Al Jefferson was a rookie phenom straight out of high school. Last year Ryan Gomes rode a stellar second half of the season to make the All-Rookie second team. Many teams would love to have such young talent to build around. And yet, success for these two players seems far from assured.
Defensive weaknesses and questions about their role in the future make it hard to peg a value for either of these players. Their age seems to cloud matters further. Is Jefferson simply a high school draftee who needs more time to grow into his body and NBA team defense? Is Ryan Gomes a player with a low ceiling who benefited as a rookie from the maturity developed over a four year college career? Paying one might not necessarily preclude paying another, but the team must think hard before it could ever sign two players with similar defensive deficiencies to suck up the bulk of the minutes at such a key position.
The Question Mark
Tony Allen’s unexercised option brings an added dimension to the rookie contract discussion. It is clear that the number of years remaining on a player’s contract creates part of his value, but in a rookie deal context it is not altogether clear how that value is assigned. Some might say that the more control a team has over a young player, the more they will pay for him on the theory that they can take the additional time to evaluate his fit with their system. Others argue that the NBA’s holy grail is the expiring contract, which gives a team salary cap flexibility when the contract is wiped off the books at the end of the year.
While recent quotes from Ainge seem to indicate that Allen’s option is all but picked up, you can bet that the team is not just waiting until the deadline as a formality. While a big part of the delaying tactic may be to monitor Allen’s court case, an equally significant factor may be the hope for an upcoming deal for which the option to end Allen’s contract after this season would prove a valuable asset.
While this column raises more questions than answers, over the coming days three of our Full Court Press contributors will explore different aspects of the decisions described above. On Friday Dylan will provide a profile of Telfair and West and how the Rondo Revolution affects them both. On Monday Rich will analyze the differing games of Jefferson and Gomes, two young power forwards that excite Celtics’ fans for different reasons. And finally on Tuesday Sean will have an examination of Tony Allen’s situation. We hope you’ll stop by.
