This date could determine the future of this franchise more than any day before it (except for maybe Draft Day 2007, it’ll depend really) and after it. Why? Because this is the day where the rubber hits the road, the money is put where your mouth is, and every other cliched saying that is used when it’s time to just lay it all out on the line.
Or to put it more clearly, this is the first day that Kevin Durant can be extended, Jeff Green can be extended (cue all of the commenters revving up to chime in) and ALSO the day that free agents can officially begin contract negotiations with prospective teams.
So in a word, this is a HUGE day.
But how might this day affect the entire future of the franchise for the foreseeable future? Well, it really comes down to another cliche, brass tacks…
If I were Sam Presti—in fact, Mr. Presti, if you’re reading this and you’d like me to do this for you so you don’t have to, I’m on board—I would pretty much pull a Morey and be waiting at Durant’s front door at 12:01 am with a shiny briefcase of cold, hard cash in one hand and a contract and pen held up in the other.
You got to lock that down, ladies and gents. You offer him the max amount of money you can for the max amount of years, toss in some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and an ice cold…Dr. Pepper…and you call it a deal after KD’s mom looks over the paperwork and lets him sign, of course.
I don’t want to hear about the “new CBA” coming out that might save you money if you want until next summer. There might not even be NBA games after next summer for a good little while! And when you have a player of Durant’s caliber, and maybe more importantly a personof Durant’s caliber, you don’t mess around with hypotheticals and the unknown because of what “might” be possible while at the same time showing a serious wavering commitment to your superstar and the leader/co-captain of your team, especially when other franchise pastures will undoubtedly just be waiting for the slightest sliver of space to open up so they can slip in and try to pry Durant away to brighter lights and bigger cities.
Did I mention he’s the face of this franchise and the future of the NBA?
Lock. That. Down.
So now that that’s done, there’s a fella by the name of Jeff Green to talk to. I’m going to keep this pretty short since I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be quite literally forced to discuss this at length in the comments section for the next, oh, two and a half months (if not this post, than every single one following it), about if the Thunder should extend Green and if so, for how much, what’s he really worth, but he’s not a PF, etc, etc.
The answer is pretty simple to me: Green’s value is not that hard to gauge when it comes to on the court production—-OR off the court leadership, camaraderie and intangibles as a glue guy and blue collar teammate that gives everything to the team and cares very little for personal glory.
What’s that figure at to me? Oh, about $7-8 million a year, to be honest. If Etan Thomas can get almost $8 million to practice like a champion and support the team from the bench for a season (and yes, I’m aware that Etan’s contract and production don’t exactly mix, that’s kind of my point) and if Nick Collison can post 5.9 points, 5.1 rebounds and .6 blocks (and force 400,000 charges) a year and be worth $6.25 million, then the co-captain and glue-guy of the squad who posts 15.1 points, 6 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.27 steals, .88 blocks and shoots 45.3% from the field and 74% from the free throw line is unquestionably worth $7-8 million dollars to this team.
“But what if he gets moved to the bench as a Sixth Man?”
So? Have you seen what Sixth Man (Men?) make in the NBA if they can contribute anything significantly? Especially if they are as versatile and selfless as Green? For crying out loud Jason Terry makes over $9 million a year as a sixth man and have you had a look at his shooting% and statistics in comparison to Green? You’re not telling me Green isn’t as much a part of this Thunder’s heartbeat as Terry is to the Mavericks or Odom is to the Lakers as Sixth Men (I’m going with Men).
And please recognize the emphasis on the the THIS team specification. Would it be the case for every team, absolutely not. But for this team, this group of guys (especially Durant, Westbrook and Harden), Green might as well be their brother in arms and, well, Uncle.
Now let the commenting and arguing begin in…
…Wait! I almost forgot about the free agent class of this year! The reason this day is so huge is also more about what it will start instead of just what will actually take place on the day itself. If the Thunder extend Durant and Green AND go after a significant free agent this off-season, it either means that the ownership group is willing to pay some luxury tax and really spend for this franchise—-or it means that one of the core members is probably not staying with the team once their extension/rookie contract runs out.
Yep. It’s that serious of a sign and that big of a day. Of course if they front loaded a contract over the next two years they still might be able to preserve some cap space to not go crazy over the cap, but any free agent who will command more than $11-12 million is going to make keeping all of these players together very hard if the ownership isn’t willing to pay to keep them.
That’s why July 1st, 2010, could literally change this organization for the next 10-15 years. You know, nothing major.
…okay, now you can start the arguing over Green.
@Anonymous
New York would hang up the phone and never speak to Sam Presti again if Green is offered up for Lee..
duff :if we can slip it in i think we should sign hakim warrek
Warrick's game is somewhat similar to White's . . .
translation: we don't need him . . .
i heard that@Thur
if we can slip it in i think we should sign hakim warrek
It's extremely rare for a player to take less than market value. Usually players who do this are already established veterans (Tim Duncan, for example) who have won something already. Or they are someone like Brandon Bass who gave Orlando a discount because he thought he'd have a large role on a winning team. Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook are young players due for their first big NBA contract - they won't take less than market value for their services.
nah... The key is not in green contract but Durant's. The best option would be to give him one of the lowest possible contract. I hope he realize it and agree. Cause if you give him and westbrook less money you may hire more good fellas, and also keep here harden and ibaka for years.
They are all millionaires so whats is the difference for KD 16 mills or 12? He will get much more from contract wiht nike and others. And its not disrespectfull to him. It gives him bigger chance to win championship because of giving him better supporting cast. He would rather won a championship than be the richest player in the nba, i know it. And its champion titles that gives you respect and fame, not money. If they all are good friends and want to play together they should resign from the highest contract. That would give okc HUGE adventage to the rest of the league!
Grolgar (formerly Durantula) :@andrewConsidering KD has already played SG and his game is extremely similar to a SG means that it is a much more real possibility than the one that only exists in your head. He has NEVER played PF, but he has played SG.
I've seen KD spend sometime at the 4, but not much.
I'm with Keith.. why play Kevin Durant at spots where he is uncomfortable because of Jeff Green?
If Green has the value to fill our hole in the front court with a nice player, it's a no brainer.
holdmymartian :@AnonymousI know that’s like saying Nowitzki as a PF….
I thought Mullens was our Nowitzki.
The problem with Green and his contract is this: we already kinda know what his ceiling is, especially on a good team as the starting "4". He's never gonna give a consistent post presence (unless we played Golden State 82 times a year...), he's not gonna be over 7ish boards a game, he's probably not going to morph into a 3-point assassin (which was the part his game that failed the most in the playoffs...). really, he's your typical jack-of-all-trades 6th man. when talking about money, though, the thing that makes this all fuzzy is the potential of Ibaka and Harden. What if either (or both) take a Westbrook-like leap in yr 2 (or 3), and all-of-the-sudden command 10 mil per year once they're eligible? Do we want an albatross of a contract (which would be anything over 7 mil p/yr for Green) when it's time for those guys to re-up? I really hope that cooler minds prevail in this, and we don't see Green pull a Josh Childress, get all butt-hurt, and go overseas or something like that. The NBA economy is different. The days of GMs handing out 70 million dollar "finger's crossed, hoping this works out" kinda deals anymore. Let's hope Jeff Green realizes that, cause he's an important part of this team, at the right price.
So if Calipari goes to Chicago I call LeBron going too. Just wanted to be the first on here.
It's true that Green's responsibilities are different from collison or any of the other pf/c's on the team. The catch, however, is that collison performs his role better than the vast majority of other players with his same responsibilities. The same cannot be said of green.
Putting it into baseball terms, collison is an excellent closer and green is a mediocre starter. You don't overpay the starter because his job is more difficult.
He might be the 2nd most skilled overall basketball player. That is hard to say. Lots of pluses and minuses compared to Westbrook.
But Westbrook has fit better. Maybe Brooks / Presti and their research and consideration will result in improved usage of Green next season. So many things they could try to change and improve.
Would facing a quicker more significant hook help or not? I don't know.
I'd personally say he is the 3rd most skilled overall basketball player but that the results from that skillset when you include defense is less than 3rd best.
It is true that if Green plays less and scores less someone will have to increase their scoring. But Ibaka and Harden and a bit more from Krstic and even Collison and maybe somebody new could do it.
While I do agree that Green is not an ideal PF, I still think he is the 3rd best player on the team. Collison does what he is supposed to do, but he has few responsibilities. NC can score zero points and still have a good game. Krstic is severely limited. He rebounds poorly and shoots sporadically. I think a lot of you are undervaluing Green even if he poses a problem by playing out of position. IHMO.
@Joshau
I believe the prevailing opinion in using Green as a supersub is that A) his primary position to defend will be one he is suited to, or otherwise will be backup players who aren't as good, B) that his offense would improve as defense becomes easier and he is matched exclusively based on which opponent is easier to exploit, and C) that keeping him on long-term has off-court positives to make up for some of his on-court negatives. Keeping a young team happy makes them more likely to buy into coaching and give maximum effort.
Right now I also agree that Green really isn't worth more than Collison, Krstic, or even his current contract (by much at least). I had an idea before about structuring his contract to decrease the same that Durant's increases. It keeps everyone that much more tied together, as well keeps Green's contract from pushing our cap number up on its own.
@Grolgar (formerly Durantula)
That is a good name.
It would be a very different way of using Green but hypothetically you could say we are going to use Green 10 minutes at SF and 10 at PF and more if and as appropriate. It could be a lot more but if it is more I'd hope it is either because he is doing well or the other guy really isn't.
These were the presumed acting PFs of the opponent at the time Durant was presumed at PF.
Based on basketballvalue data it appears that the PFs that Brooks tried him against include
Landry, R Jefferson, T Gibson, Amare, Granger, Blair, Warrick, Nowitski, Radmanovic, Ilyasova, Butler, Gomes, Hickson, Gay, Dudley, Turiaf, Bonner, Odom, Juwan Howard, Maggette, Aldridge, Yi, Biedrins, W Chandler, etc.
@Joshau
or loudly grunting everytime he goes up for a shot.
If they wanted, they could try to trade with Green and his agent- an early extension and a role change as part of the same deal. That would be tricky- or maybe imnpossible- but that is what the best GMs are suppose to handle as best as is possible.
I agree with Keith that is makes more sense to try to adjust Green than Durant.
And while Green can guard SFs better, this season his offense at SF sucked and team results were worse than with him at PF.
He was a bit better at SF personally in 08=09 but the team results weren't any better with him at SF than they were at PF then. And presumably a good amount of this time was against SF subs.
I have considered Green at SG and C a bit too but maybe all this is going too far to try a find the best slot to put him in.
Maybe the philosophy should be use Green as much as you need here and there game by game than to put him always in the exact same spots and minutes.
The real glue to the team beyond Durant, at least according to the +/- numbers, is Collison.
andrew :Carlos Boozer is such a punk. I really dislike him.
He might be the best in the league at shoving his man out of bounds with a push in the back and then grabbing the rebound.
Carlos Boozer is such a punk. I really dislike him.
Jeff Green's PER for last 3 years: 9.93, 13.99, 13.82 (average is 15.0). True shooting percentage: 49.1, 53.6, 53.0. Its not a perfect statistic, but I really don't see how a small market team can remain competitive giving out long term contracts starting at $7-8 million a year for a guy with a below average PER, especially when he struggles to defend at the position where gets most of his minutes. He would need to make a pretty huge improvement to justify that kind of money. I would be ok with a contract starting at $7-8 million only if it was front loaded and declined pretty heavily like Milsap's contract.
Also, just for comparison sake, here are Jason Terry's PER and TS% for the last 3 years, PER: 17.92, 19.35, 16.58. TS%: 57.4, 57.1, 55.2.
@Thur
Your recent experience in competitive basketball gives you a perspective that should be quite useful.
"Chemistry" is a loaded, somewhat controversial subject at the NBA level but I agree with you that if you have good chemistry and good results, you generally want to keep that going- unless you are really confident you can get better on the court and not risk it failing apart too much.
Insiders will have the best opportunity to make an informed decision but whether they make the best decision of not is often up for opinion. Either way the other option is not tried in th enext time period. If you change you can judge before and after but not everything will be exactly the same. If you stay the same, you can't say if change would have been better or worse, at least by real experience and numbers.
@Grolgar (formerly Durantula)
My point is that if we are going to talk about moving someone around, shouldn't it be Green? I mean, what gives him more right to the SF spot than Durant, even in a big lineup? There's almost nothing he doesn't do worse than Durant, and he's even smaller than him.
Even in a big lineup, I'd play Green at SG before Durant, who is perfect where he is.
@holdmymartian
I think the idea of versatility is more of a defensive thing than offensive. And right now, Green really isn't that versatile. The whole reason we want him coming off the bench is because he can't guard PFs, and doesn't score efficiently enough to make up for that.
holdmymartian :@andrew
Maybe if Durant and Green flipped positions next year we could see more production from both That means they would both need to improve on different thing though.
These stats are definitely small sample (about 200 minutes for the season) and I assume they fairly carefully selected when to do it but when Durant was assumed to be at PF by 82games he was better personally on offense and not much different on defense and certainly not noticeably worse. And the team's offense and defense both improved.
Now this was probably all without Green and trying a position swap could easily have different results than this.
But in general I'd try Durant at PF a bit more next season and see how it holds up. As an situational option or perhaps a future direction. Too early to say if / when the latter makes since but the best way to make a good decision about that is to try it, do the research when you can and look at the results- in the stats, on the tape, and in the minds of Durant and Brooks.
Fatality=versatility. I'm off today lol.
@holdmymartian
Anytime*
@Keith
I like the thought of Green coming off the bench but I really doubt it happens at least anything soon.
Keith :
Kevin is a SF. His game is perfectly suited to being a SF. He is a good defender at the SF spot. Why are we even talking about SG or PF when Durant is obviously a SF?
Because it's the offseason and we have to talk about something.
@Keith
Its just nice thinking about moving around players. It shows their fatality.
So again they increased the relative time of a bad lineup and did not get good results.
I would love for Green to decide to take a bench role (like Odom) and become captain of the second team. Durant is the leader, the heart, and the soul of the franchise, but Green could be the never-say-die, outwork everybody, we-have-the-best-bench-in-the-league guy. He could take it upon himself to really put the second unit on the map, turning them into a force whenever opposing starters sit. That would be fantastic, both for the team, and for Green.
If he could perhaps worry less about fitting a square peg into a round hole (demanding to be the starting PF), he could work on being the kind of supersub (Crawford, Odom, Terry, Varejao) that is a matchup nightmare for opposing second units.
Right now, three years in, while I don't want to just dump Green, it has become glaringly obvious that we could do better where he plays.
justin, the percentage of time for Krstic-Ibaka that was Krstic-Ibaka-Green-Harden-Maynor in the regular season was 15 minutes or 15%. It was quite negative.
This lineup was 27% of the small amount of Krstic-Ibaka time in the playoffs and it did better but still bad on a per 48 minute basis.
All of the regular and playoff time appears to have been against units with plenty of bench players.
Kevin is a SF. His game is perfectly suited to being a SF. He is a good defender at the SF spot. Why are we even talking about SG or PF when Durant is obviously a SF?
If this is about fitting in Green, seriously? We should move the best player on the floor around instead of the guy who is always playing out of position already? If we want to go big, why don't we just move Green to the SG spot? He's smaller than Durant anyway and seems a little bit quicker from side to side.
@f5alcon
Okay. So, what PFs would you be comfortable with KD guarding?
@Anonymous
Whoops, that was me.
@Grolgar (formerly Durantula)
He played PF some this year, and he could play it, he is not a SG, his turnovers are bad enough already.
For the whole chemistry thing, unless we bring in a rotten apple, we wont have any issues, for all the broington stuff and westbrook who isnt a broington btw. That still leaves dj white, maynor, weaver, thabo, krstic, collison, ibaka, etan, ollie, mullens. The core gets along, but it isnt like the other players are unhappy. If we bring somebody else in im sure they will have somebody on the team they get along with, we still are a diverse group now.
@Grolgar (formerly Durantula)
http://www.draftexpress.com/profile/Kevin-Durant-390/
@andrew
Considering KD has already played SG and his game is extremely similar to a SG means that it is a much more real possibility than the one that only exists in your head. He has NEVER played PF, but he has played SG.
@Grolgar (formerly Durantula)
Westbrook at PF isn't realistic but I guess you could compare it to Westbrook at SG. That doesn't seem to hard of a stretch.
Anonymous :
Clark Matthews :@Big Stew I think he’d be willing to take $14MM. Of course, that’s also the max he’ll be allowed.A player with less than six years of experience is limited to 25% of the cap as a starting salary. A player with seven or more can get 30% of the cap. That’s why LeBron took a three year extension. He could have become a restricted free agent, or he could have taken a five year extension. The magic number of three was so he could get his seven years of experience before going on the market without caveats.
Clarkdogg – I guess that all the radio talking head idiots throwing around the 5 year $80 million contract has been uninformed babble – I should have expected as much from them.
You get my point though – take less, be the ultimate team guy, etc.
Whatever the numbers are – “220, 221 whatever it takes.”
That was me - forgot to put my name in the field...
@andrew
I agree but I would like to see what it would be like for him and JG.
@holdmymartian
Then why don't we put Westbrook at PF? He would have those same advantages. Durant would take an unnecessary beating guarding PFs for 90* games a year (yeah, that's enough games for at least the 2nd round).
Just for the record I think KD will and should remain as a SF for the rest of his career. However, I do think him moving to PF is a much more real possiblity than SG. It makes way more sense.
@andrew
Lastly, would you really want KD wrestling with PFs all game on the defenseive end. Geeze.