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Durant will be star of this team!

Even for a 3rd point guard who isn't intend to play except in emergency this is weak.

Ivey had an usually strong steals rate in his 90 minutes last season. Hope that wasn't a factor.

Ivey is a weak signing by individual measures. Career PER under 9. Playoff PERs of 7 and 5. Poor Adjusted +/- too.

"some of it is what is the union looking for, are they looking to get as many players paid..."

I'd think that would be fairly high on the priority of most players. Not as high on the list for top players who tend to make more noise and have more pull.

"or the valuable ones paid more..."

see above

"maybe have players who dont meet performance goals money redistributed to players that did, so good players make more then their contract and underperformers make less..."

Might be had to get a clear majority for that. Players seem to prefer rank based on past performance and certainty. Agents would be less valuable and less well paid if it was more on future player performance not negotiations. Their power would start to erode if it was, so they are unlikely to back it and they have exercised considerable independent power in deal-making discussions before.

The key to understanding the meaning of the Ivey deal would be is it fully or partially guaranteed, one year or multi-year.

@Keith

"Has anyone (besides the owners themselves) ever claimed it not to be the fault of dumb behavior?"

Maybe not among the press and fans but Stern / the owners clearly say the players have too much, expect too much. They usually leave out got too much in deals Stern was principal designer of and agreed to.

Another thing they could do to address performance vs salary gap late in contracts which is one of the most glaring issues would be to restrict raises after say 30 years old. Probably would have to do it carefully and word it in a manner like; "any increase in salary for a player [insert 7 to 9] years after their initial draft eligibility (or potentially draft eligibility based on age) will be assigned to the first year of the contract (or split across the contract in a fixed and more heavily front-weighted manner)."

I guess texass is the new face of the thunder... Booooo, Too much bevo in OKC. 2 jayhawks and 2 shorthorns. At this point, id settle for an OSwho alum to balance out the ratio.

Bye bye weaver or vaden.

What does this mean for Weaver and others?

What the???

http://twitter.com/okcthunder/status/19113060182

NEWS: Thunder signs free agent guard Royal Ivey.

@Keith

You are correct that the luxury tax line is more real but doesn't look like the luxury tax kicked in until 2002-3.

@f5alcon

Yep. Thunder from Down Under. Sort of.

@Jax Raging Bile Duct
thunder from down under?

@Crow
Has anyone (besides the owners themselves) ever claimed it not to be the fault of dumb behavior? I mean, Isaiah ruined the Knicks, and no one batted an eye. Chris Wallace hasn't made a smart basketball decision in years. The Clippers have screwed themselves over for decades. The whole salary structure is broken not because of the economy or the players, it's because each bad GM is ready to make a super high risk move just to prove they are smart (which almost invariably fails). Is a player unproven but full of potential? Better grab him at 3 times his actual value in case he pans out.

GMs are more worried about missing out on potential than grabbing proven talent. Thus, salaries are broken. No system is going to change behavior, so no system is going to "get it right."

Have they made progress toward making the cap "real" in 11 years? 28 teams are still over and 19 by more than 15% (comparable to the $5 million over in 1998-9). So I'd say no. So if the owners are unhappy it is because Stern's system did not change their cost or their behavior that created the cost. And that is their own fault.

@Keith
yeah that would work

@Crow
yeah some of it is what is the union looking for, are they looking to get as many players paid, or the valuable ones paid more, maybe have players who dont meet performance goals money redistributed to players that did, so good players make more then their contract and underperformers make less. maybe 10-25% of a players salary is performance based then. and redistribution can add maybe 25% to another players salary and the owners can save the rest, so for us last year maybe etan doesnt meet goal and loses 10% of his salary(800,000) serge out performs his goal and earns a 10% bonus and gets 100,000 extra, ownership then saves the 700,000 difference.

@Crow
Well the 58 million cap right now isn't any more "real" than the 30 million in 98. Using the cap number in general probably isn't a good comparison point since it is so meaningless. As it is, contracts in 98 would be almost twice as expensive (from a pure soft cap number comparison) as they are now. I don't remember exactly how the money over the cap worked in 98. Is there a better reference point than the soft cap? Perhaps the luxury tax level or hard cap (I believe there is one, it's just so high it never matters).

Holy Crap! Did you guys see the Thunder article on the couple from Australia who are planning their honeymoon around Thunder games this fall?

http://www.nba.com/thunder/news/thunderland_2010_0...

That is a dedicated set of fans right there.

The salary cap for 1998-99 was $30 million but it was basically a phony cap as 27 teams were over, 15 by more than $5 million and only one team was more than $500,000 under it.

@Keith

% of the cap would provide another perspective. The revenues did change a lot. That would make what Stern did more forgivable... but also also tougher to undo.

I believe they had a hard cap until certain big market owners wanted to break it and Stern made the Bird exception happen and it went on from there.

@f5alcon
I think forcing kids to play in the D-league as a minor affiliate won't work for the NBA. The college game is too prevalent and important of a commodity to create a true minor league. What should be done though is what hockey and baseball do with college. A player can be drafted out of high school, and he can immediately join the team (or likely a minor league affiliate). But, he can also choose to be drafted and go to college, locking him into a specific number of years, and then returning to the team that originally drafted him at a locked in pay-scale (probably taken from the pay scale of that year, not the year drafted).

@Crow
18 and 45 are a big difference, but not quite as big when accounting for inflation. 11 million is about 1/5th of the cap right now. A better comparison would be how many players were making 1/5th or more of the cap pre 1999.

Under the newer CBAs the number of guys paid much over $11 million in 1998 went from 7 to 26 over a similar when inflation adjusted $14.5 million. Most teams gave in to having a max or near max guy because it was allowed in Stern's system and others were doing it.

@f5alcon

Performance clauses tied to level of guarantee is done in some contracts and that would be a useful further enhancement that might sell the players on accepting it, not fearing it as much.

Before the 1999 agreement 18 players made over $9 million. After Stern's big 1999 and 2005 CBAs 45 guys make over $11.7 million (which is what $9 million in 1998 is roughly worth today according to the inflation calculator I used.) If you want to go back to a hard or harder cap you are reversing what Stern designed, agreed to give.

Stern admitting mistake sounds highly unlikely to me..

@Crow
yeah thats true, maybe if they had all contracts have a performance clause with games/mins played in order to get paid beyond 3 years.

Almost everything the owners want back is stuff Stern gave away in the first place.

@f5alcon

"3 years guaranteed money, all additional years are not" might be too extreme for the players to accept short of a lockout longer than a year in my opinion but 3 years guaranteed money, 4th year 75-85% guaranteed, 5th year 50-65% might fly.

If the 3 years guaranteed money was only for max deals that might be somewhat more possible than in general but it still seems like a long way to move and Stern had to settle for modest changes before. I doubt he goes all in and utterly ruthless this time unless the owners tell him emphatically that he must. But that would essentially require them to admit he did a poor job with previous CBAs.

@Greg
yeah, probably not this time around, but maybe in 10 years or so as the dleague expands

@f5alcon
That sounds like a good idea in theory. We'll see if anything like that ever happens. Obviously every team would need to have a D-League affiliate.

@PNT
thats true, on the surface it saves them a little, but more players will just go overseas or go into dleague draft and play there. In a way for young players it would be nice if it was like baseball and they can sign a minor league deal with the team and play but not have a latavious williams thing where he plays in tulsa and then gets drafted somewhere else and we have to trade to get him back.

@PNT
There are still countless guys who looked really good in college and did nothing in the pros. I see the idea in that seasoning could help these kids, but in most cases the top players (players who leave is freshman or high school) are guys who no longer find individual challenge at the college level anyway. Good scouts and decision makers will still get better players than everyone else.

@f5alcon
More college may mean 1 less year in the pros for some players. They also may get a better (and a little more mature)player for the same money.

@Crow
they might get something like 3 years guaranteed money, all additional years are not.

not sure why the owners want more college for players, it doesnt save them money.

From Derrick Rose Q&A, I really like his last line:

Q: Let's set the record straight now: Did you talk to LeBron at all over the course of the last couple months?

DR: I texted him. I texted him a little bit, but didn't really do any recruiting. I really didn't know what was going on. I think he didn't know what was going on until the end. [James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh] were just having fun being recruited and they're the type of people that like it.

3 year max deals- If owners really want this they will regret it. But they won't get it. They might get 4 free agent / 5 own team.

Hard cap- I discussed this a week or so ago.

Give backs on existing contracts- No chance. NHL was in a far worse condition.

Age limit to 20 so 2 years in college hoops- They might get that. The vets by and large don't really care about the next generation that much. Slightly less competition for a year or two if they agree.

David Lee out 4-6 weeks. Pretty big blow for team USA.

From Russilo's chat:

Ryen, can you offer any insight into what the NBA owners want for the new CBA? In your opinion, should the NBA have a hard cap and leave it at that?

Ryen Russillo (4:14 PM)
They will propose 3 year max deals, hard cap, give backs on existing contracts, the NHL got back 24% of existing contracts. Age limit to 20 so 2 years in college hoops. That's a rough guess.

I'd think that they would use Durant at 4 a fair amount but it will be interesting to see if they "try" to do it against finesse guys or bruisers or both and how the other coach tries to match-up and how the results vary on each end of the court for the types of match-ups.

@heatcheck13
I think that's a re-run from yesterday but I loved it! I'd never seen NBA players go through a practice before and I thought it was pretty darn cool.

Will Durant pass the ball? Of course he will. On the Thunder he is THE go-to (and at times ONLY) scorer on the floor. That's never going to be the case with the USA squad. If he's open, he'll shoot. If he's not, he won't (at least, not very often).

let us know what KD says!

@heatcheck13

KD is a great shooter w/ a green-light. He'll adjust accordingly to whatever the situation is. I trust his game. Go Thunder!!

@justin
I agree with James a bit that Durant isn't looking to hog the ball, just get the best shot for his team. Unfortunately, a tough shot for Durant is often a better shot than a wide open Green/Thabo/Westbrook from the perimeter. I think Team USA will show a lot about whether he is that selfless, or whether he's just been trained to shoot all the time. He'll have better teammates around him on Team USA, and if he wants to win he'll take advantage of that.

If anyone has the NBA Network, they are showing Team USA in training camp right now. I think they said they are going to interview Durant shortly

Team USA is similar with Thunder,the two teams dont have big men but have many good Guards and SFs.KD would be PF sometimes,it is a difficult job for him.

@justin

I think he passes if he thinks a guy is in a better position to score than himself just as he should (for the most part). The thing he's struggled with in my opinion is as much a team thing as it is a KD thing. We don't get good looks at the end of games for the most part. You have a much better chance of making a shot if you get an open look. We don't get very many open looks at the end of games. This would be a great topic for off season analysis in my opinion. It would definitely take some research but I'd be interested to see who was shooting what percentage at the very end of games and what percentage of good looks we got in those situations. It was definitely not a strong point (which is somewhat to be expected with a younger team).

I wonder if we go small with Durant at the 4 a lot. It'd make a lot of sense with this roster, and even more so given the competition.

It might help him learn to pass more and trust his teammates. One of his shortcomings is taking tough shorts and not passing enough.