Gilbert and the Max

Chad Ford, previewing the 2008 free agent class, says this about Gilbert Arenas:

Arenas has turned himself into a max player the past few years, and despite recent knee troubles, will likely opt out of his contract to cash in on his newfound celebrity status. While he continues to maintain publicly that his first choice is to re-sign with Washington, it's not inconceivable that, given his eccentricity, he could change his mind. The biggest issue for Arenas is the same that plagues all the other free agents: Who else really has the money to pay him?

I'd like to see Agent Zero stay in Washington, but I hope the team drives a hard bargain. A "max player" is, in my, a player who somebody wants to offer a max deal to. As Ford notes, the only two teams likely to have significant cap space are Philadelphia and Memphis. He reports that "Grizzlies GM Chris Wallace has sent signals that the team might not spend its estimated $12 million in cap room this summer" and that "the Sixers will have around $10 million in cap space." Currently, Arenas makes $12 million. By opting out of the last year of his deal, he's made it clear that he wants a raise, but I don't see how he could get one unless the Wizards make an unforced error and pay him more than he can command on an open market.

If I were Ernie Grunfeld, I'd let Gilbert test the market waters to his heart's content and then unless wildly unexpected happens just beat the best offer he gets. The odds of being able to resign him for what he's making now -- or, indeed, somewhat less -- seem pretty good.

Comments

Just what teams are looking forward to wasting the entirety of their discretionary income on: a black hole for the ball.

Posted by norbizness | February 27, 2008 9:28 AM

I don't see how he could get one unless the Wizards make an unforced error and pay him more than he can command on an open market.

Mistake. As we've seen several times, players can sometimes force their ways off of teams. Or they can sign a short term deal for a couple of years and then leave after signaling to everyone that they can be bought for X dollars.

Does anyone think CLE should have played hardball with LBJ? AFAIK, there's a difference of greater than $1 between the max money any team can offer its own player and the max money any foreign team can offer that player. Should no team ever pay its own player the max money that it can?

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 27, 2008 9:33 AM

Would you rather have Chauncey Billups or Gilbert Arenas? Billups has been a NBA Finals MVP on a championship team and been on 6 straight 50-win teams. Billups just signed a $60M/5 year deal. Arenas is several years younger than Billups but is he better?

Posted by joejoejoe | February 27, 2008 9:33 AM

The weird thing is, Gilbert may be worth the max to Washington, for marketing purposes, but he might not be worth the max to anyone else. After all, a seven year contract probably sticks someone with two or three (or four) years where he's not worth what you're paying him.

Posted by Nicholas Beaudrot | February 27, 2008 9:35 AM

Does anyone think CLE should have played hardball with LBJ?

I'm not sure that supports the point you're making. If anyone in the league is a max player, it's LeBron.

Posted by Haggai | February 27, 2008 9:44 AM

Arenas is simply not a max contract player. His productivity isn't high enough when he plays, and he has missed a lot of time to injuries, and he plays best when feeling a little slighted anyway.

Max contracts should be reserved for the players without whom you fold up shop and go home. Signing Arenas to a max contract would hamper their ability to improve by limiting their flexibility and consign them to years more of mediocrity.

Posted by Curtis | February 27, 2008 9:50 AM

I'm not sure that supports the point you're making. If anyone in the league is a max player, it's LeBron.

MY's not arguing about whether or not Zero's a max player. He's arguing that a player's maximum salary is that which he can extract from a team, and that the amount of such is going to be affected by competitors offering a better wage. On this account, LBJ's worth whatever someone else would have paid him + $1 (or whatever).

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 27, 2008 9:52 AM

On this account, LBJ's worth whatever someone else would have paid him + $1 (or whatever).

Well, lots of teams will be willing to pay LBJ the max, so in that sense he will certainly be "worth" the max. Matthew's just arguing that no other team will be willing to pay Arenas the max. I don't know if that's true. As Orlando showed last year, you only need one team out of 30 to be idiotic.

Posted by Al | February 27, 2008 9:55 AM

Al:

Except that the max from CLE is substantially larger than the max any other team can offer. CLE should therefore offer something between the two.

I really don't think that Yglesias is making a claim about whether Arenas is "worth" max money.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | February 27, 2008 9:59 AM

As I see it, "max player" is actually shorthand for "player whose market value would clearly be far above the max if that was allowed, and therefore who will definitely get the max if he goes on the market." That applies to James, not so much Arenas, who actually happens to have a market value somewhere around the max. And yes, that is in part because he adds entertainment value beyond his actual contributions to winning basketball games, but this is after all an entertainment industry.

Posted by DTM | February 27, 2008 10:28 AM

Billups would not be a good alternative, though he'd probably fit better with Butler. He's actually an example of why the Wizz will end up overpaying for Gil.

There were absolutely no other bidders for Chauncey, and he was completely mediocre in the last two playoff series that the Pistons lost (despite his "Mr. Big Shot" rep.) He was getting killed by superstars like Boobie Gibson last season.

NBA players feel so disrespected if they get less than what comparable players are making (even if no teams have the cap to challenge an offer.) And teams feel a strange loyalty to sacrifice their cap space by overpaying their stars, maybe for the sake of chemistry.

Posted by jerry | February 27, 2008 10:55 AM

MY's not arguing about whether or not Zero's a max player. He's arguing that a player's maximum salary is that which he can extract from a team, and that the amount of such is going to be affected by competitors offering a better wage.

I'm not sure whether or not that's what Matt is saying, but I do know it's not the way "max player" or "max salary" are generally used. Usually when people talk about "max" in the NBA they mean the maximum a player could get based on the arcana of the current CBA, not the maximum the market will bear. That usually results in underpaying players like James relative to their hypothetical market worth and overpaying players like Arenas.

Now, I know you know the NBA well enough to know all this already, so I'm actually not sure what you're trying to say. In fact I find this whole thread confusing.

Posted by Antid Oto | February 27, 2008 11:37 AM

Yeah, I'm kind of confused about the thread too. I was going to respond to SCMT, but realized that I wasn't sure if we disagreed or not, so just shut up.

But, in general, I doubt anyone would disagree with the proposition that you shouldn't pay a player more than the market will bear. That said, I also think that Jerry makes a good point that these are human beings we are talking about, not commodities, and therefore the may be some irrationality involved. It's fine for SCMT to say that CLE should only offer LBJ $1 more than the highest amount another team can pay (which, as he points out, is an amount less than the maximum CLE itself can pay, under the CBA), but I would think that LBJ would be insulted by that offer and would go to a different team regardless of the fact that he could make more with CLE. (Of course, in that case, what would we say LBJ is "worth"? The lower amount paid by the other team, I suppose!)

Posted by Al | February 27, 2008 11:47 AM

This claim of equivalency between LeBron and Zero is just not reasonable. Here is the difference:

Everyone in the league is paying attention to whether James is happy in Cleveland. If he's not happy, everyone in the league will be falling over themselves to demonstrate how they could make him happy. It's about more than tomorrow's contract. It's about demonstrating that they're going to pay him as much as possible for as long as possible. As such, James is an a completely different sort of negotiation. Paying him +1$ than the best offer any other team can offer him this year is stupid from a long term perspective. You don't want to lose James for at least 10 years.

But for most players, +1$ is not a bad strategy. They only have a peak shelf life of 3-5 years, so there is a sharp limit to the degree that they can adopt a long term view. If they are looking at competing 3-5 year long term contracts, they'll take the best one. If you lose the guy after that deal expires, well, he's not a max player anymore so you're not really losing that much. If Wash plays this game with Zero, it'll probably work to their benefit. If Cle does it with James, not so much.

Posted by mpowell | February 27, 2008 11:57 AM

There is actually a game theory result that seems somewhat relevant to this discussion. I think it is fairly famous but don't have the time to look it up.

Basically, the game is thus: There is $100 on the table. Player A suggests a split between himself and Player B. Player B can then accept the split, at which point they split the money as agreed, or he refuses, at which point they get nothing.

In theory, player A should offer player B a minimal amount, a penny, since B taking the penny is better than him getting nothing.

But the game when played never works out that way because if B gets offered too little and feels slighted, then he turns the deal down and though his pocketbook is lighter, it is made up for with greater dignity. Or something.

So when the game is actually played in experiments, the results seem to break down far closer to 50-50 than one might expect.

Posted by Curtis | February 27, 2008 12:02 PM

The Grizz will(should) have no interest in Arenas. As their roster currently stands, the PG, SG, and SF positions are stocked with good to great young talent....i.e., Mike Conley, Rudy Gay, and Mike Miller.

The Grizzlies' main problem, as it has been since they've arrived in Memphis, is the PF position. While Pau could play that role before the trade if he needed to, he was more comfortable as the Amare Stoudemire in our Phoenix influenced system. Wallace and Heisley(if he really cares) must be praying for one of two things.....(a)We get the number 1 pick and Michael Beasley, and/or (b)Shawn Marion opts out of his contract with the Heat after the season and wants to come back to his home state(Marion is from Clarksville, TN).

If (b) doesn't happen, our cap space will be held until next offseason.

Posted by Patrick | February 27, 2008 12:45 PM

It's always possible that the Knicks will trade for some more big contracts, freeing up more cap room a potential Gilbert signer. That way Matt's hometown team and his adopted town team can both be screwed.

Posted by Njorl | February 27, 2008 1:21 PM

Matt, can you please make a prediction that he stays in Washington? I like Gilbert but I like winning more. This is Caron's team now.

Posted by eriks | February 27, 2008 2:14 PM

I think you can't also take winning out of the equation. While Arenas seems like the type who likes to think he is under-appreciated, I am not sure if he wouldn't happily take less money to go to a team that he felt was more of a contender. I am sure there are more contemporary examples than Karl Malone and Gary Payton going to Lakers awhile back, but they are celebrated instances where the hopes of winning a title trumped getting +$1 more for their services.

Posted by Ricky | February 27, 2008 3:57 PM

our my favorite basketball player because u r the best

Posted by jalon mcclellan | February 29, 2008 11:17 AM