Daily Thunder.com

Chris Kaman just became one of my favorite NBA players.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au008ZqKbyc&sns...

Sammy :Hypothetical question:Jeff Green is signed to the Thunder for a 5 yr / $44m dollar deal (either now or next summer, it’s irrelevant). What level of production would you want to see out of Green this next year to make you feel comfortable with that contract?

I'm not knowledgeable about what the standard production for that kinda contract. Personally, I would like 18+ pts, 7+ rebounds, .800+ free throws, and .380+ 3pt. I want Green to use his speed to spend more time attacking the rim, drawing fouls and converting. Essentially, I'd be happy if he could convert 5 pts nightly from the charity stripe and rebound a few more. Like Green said, "more assertive” and "more consistent.”

@Sammy

Andro? He kinda looks like a young Dwight.

Yes, there are not a lot of star PF aroung worth trading Green+Ibaka. Per 35 minutes, Ibaka stat is similar to Horford... not saying they are on the same level. I think Green+Ibaka is too much for Horford.
We had a chance to get Bosh last offseason, but somehow Presti/Bosh did not want it to happen.
Gasol? He is 30 years old and his salary is around 18M for 4 years. We may win championship with him, but we lost our cap flexibility. And he may start to decline in 2-3 years.
Brook Lopez is fine. But I want to see how Ibaka progress this season.
Lopez is fine.

@Keith
I actually think Lopez could play PF just fine.

Ha, Green and Ibaka, not Horford, though I wish.

@Gavin
Sorry I'm so late, but it's not a specific guy. And for that matter, most every start PF isn't going to be on the market. But if you want the names of some players for whom I'd trade Green and Horford, here goes:

Al Horford
Chris Bosh
Pau Gasol

There aren't a lot of star PFs to begin with, and Pau only makes the list because he plays next to a true center. Though I would trade for a star center just as easily (Lopez, Howard, maybe Bogut or Gasol).

@Gavin
Horford or Lopez would work for me.

This is a question to Keith

I would trade Green AND Ibaka for a star PF right now.

Which star PF do you want?

Hypothetical question:
Jeff Green is signed to the Thunder for a 5 yr / $44m dollar deal (either now or next summer, it's irrelevant). What level of production would you want to see out of Green this next year to make you feel comfortable with that contract?

Yikes. Hassan Whiteside's put on 25 lbs since Summer League and it shows.

That means he's now 260 lbs, up from his combine weigh in of 235. And it means he's committed to working out, which might mean he's more committed to improving himself than was suspected at the draft. Kings certainly know how to draft.

@DizzyDai
I don't ever expect Green to make that kind of leap rebounding-wise. Something like 22pt/8.5reb/3.5ast on good shooting percentages would be his tippy top ceiling and even then he'd be much better suited to be play SF (not that I would mind if he were turning in those numbers for us at PF). The chance he hits that ceiling is minute enough to make the conversation irrelevant for me.

I think if a lot of things go right, Green could be the third best player on a title team at SF. At PF a lot of his skills are wasted.

@James

Not a whole lot of minutes to back it up, but 82games says that

Westbrook-Sefolosha-Durant-Green-Ibaka had a +/- of -31 in 104.9 minutes
Westbrook-Harden-Durant-Green-Ibaka had a +/- of -7 in 77.8 minutes

Both units had a better defensive rating than our starting lineup, and the Harden one had a better offensive rating than our starting lineup.

Not a huge sample size, so take it with a grain of salt. Still worth noting.

@James

I don't think it's realistic to expect Green will become a "superstar" in the first place, but that was the context of Shoals article. Hence the unrealistic question :)

cpt :Why cant jeff green and ibaka play together? ibaka could play center as kristic. we dont have a real 30 minute a game type center on the roster we basically have a bunch of different types of power forwards and kristic.

I've been saying this for awhile. I think right now that is our best combo.

DizzyDai :What would be an “superstar” average for Green? 20 pts, 10 rebounds, .400 3pt%?

That is not very realistic. I would be happy with one of those. More happy with 10 rebounds or 40% on 3's. Either one of those would improve his value to the team tremendously.

@Anonymous

Not many players average 20/10. If more did, then 20/10 wouldn't be a very good indicator of a "superstar" which was what the discussion was about. It was not about what Green needs to do to merely be more useful to the team.

@DizzyDai

I dunno about PPG and RPG, but for Green to be recognized as a "superstar" on our team, he'd need to get his TS% above 0.580 and his DRR above 20.5

That probably results in less than 20 PPG but close to 10 RPG depending on his playing time and usage.

Why cant jeff green and ibaka play together? ibaka could play center as kristic. we dont have a real 30 minute a game type center on the roster we basically have a bunch of different types of power forwards and kristic.

What would be an "superstar" average for Green? 20 pts, 10 rebounds, .400 3pt%?

Sorry for all of the spelling errors I'm in a hurry.

Keith :@JamesI think everyone here would love to see Jeff Green elevate his game, even those who throw around biting criticism of him. No one hates Jeff as a person, it’s just hard to say a lot of nice things about him when he hasn’t found that niche you are talking about.

I think for the most part it is true. There are a few on here I think would not like him no matter what he did. He is close that what most give him credit for to being a solid player. If he was an above average shooter he would be solid, or if he was an above average rebounder, defender etc... Those are things that you can improve on. It's likely that he'll improve on all of them but if he got pretty good at any of them it would go a long way. I would really like to see him be successful and be here for a long time.

Keith :@James

I think everyone here would love to see Jeff Green elevate his game, even those who throw around biting criticism of him. No one hates Jeff as a person, it’s just hard to say a lot of nice things about him when he hasn’t found that niche you are talking about.

This.

You should follow Barkley on Twitter

http://twitter.com/#!/charlesbarkley

@James
I think everyone here would love to see Jeff Green elevate his game, even those who throw around biting criticism of him. No one hates Jeff as a person, it's just hard to say a lot of nice things about him when he hasn't found that niche you are talking about.

I think the thing with Green is, he's going to have to find his niche (and pretty quick). In this league you are either an elite athlete (Dwight Howard, Josh Smith, Westbrook to some extent) or you develop a patented move/skill set (David West, Tim Duncan, Nick Collison). While Green is a very good athlete, he's not a good enough athlete to get by on athleticism alone. He is every bit athletic enough to focus on one or two aspects of his game and be an above average player. I'm not saying that is an easy thing to do but if he wants to reach that next level he's going to have to pick one or two things that he wants to excel at (rebounding and mid range jumper would make the most sense) and get much better at those.

I'm sick of seeing the negative Jeff Green comments. I would love to see him elevate his game this year. He's not that far away.

@Dan2
The issue with depth is that it loses value when the games matter (the playoffs). Your best players play more minutes which significantly limits the impact of your bench. The primary goal for teams is finding which players are their best. In our case, we built leads in the 2nd quarter because Westbrook and Durant played most of both quarters, and Harden-Ibaka-Collison were generally better as a team than Thabo-Green-Krstic.

The Spurs consistently win because they know Duncan-Parker-Ginobli are the best players on the team, and get them in the game as much as is reasonable. Being deep is more important to them in the regular season because age and injuries have to be monitored. In the playoffs, they are still putting their best foot forward as much as possible.

Westbrook is about to be on espn 2... If Anyone is interested

Its always good to hear optimism from training camp but I think every team/report is optimistic at every training camp, besides injuries. Everyone looks stronger, or shooting better, or has lost/gained weight/muscle. Until we start seeing preseason games I would hold my optimism.

As far as Green goes, I think we find a spot for him here if he really improves that much, if he just has a good defensive and rebounding center then he isn't that bad of a PF, it all depends on how much he thinks he should be paid. You don't need super players at every position, Boston took LA to 7 games without a superstar, but with 4 star players. I wonder if having players that would normally start come off your bench allows you to have less quality in your starters. Look at San Antonio, they put deep teams around Duncan and Robinson, and Duncan and Parker and Ginobili. Especially with teams like the Heat that aren't very deep, you can really take advantage when the other team's bench players are in. We did this a little last year, creating big deficient in the 2nd quarter due to superior bench play. Problem is, all these guys cost money so there is a limit on the number of good guys coming off the bench. But clearly roster flexibility is a huge priority for Presti.

@f5alcon
If I was a GM, I would write that incentive into every contract I gave out (assuming I didn't need the minute cap hold it creates at the time). I mean, who wouldn't feel good about having their GM say "maybe you could be the MVP one day."

nick collison has a bonus for getting mvp,lol

@Keith
@Mark!
Thanks for the explanations guys, it helps.

@Sas

As with everything related to salaries, it's complicated :)

Here's a pretty good explanation with a bent towards how incentives affect cap space: http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q64

@Mark!
Completely agree. If Jeff becomes a star PF (and the PF part is most important), there is absolutely no reason not to give him a fair contract. If we have a star PF, Ibaka's future isn't nearly as important to the team (though again he is unlikely to be cost-prohibitive). I would trade Green AND Ibaka for a star PF right now.

@Sas
Contractual bonuses are allowed in the current CBA, up to 25% of player's yearly salary. They can be based on player statistics, player awards, and team success. We could sign Green to a lower contract filled with bonuses, but I doubt Green's agent would be all that interested. If Green, in fact, moves to a 6th man role or begins reducing his playing time, performance bonuses are more and more unlikely to be achieved.

@Mark!
I agree with you on that. I think Harden would be more likely to be the one who'd want more money than Ibaka come resigning time, too.

Just curious, but does the NBA allow contractual bonuses? As in, "if the team gets to X round of the playoffs, you get $Y Bonus?" And the second, follow-up question to that is, of course, would Presti push Green to sign for a lower amount but give him a lot of said production related bonuses. Of course, if those are par for the course for every contract, then just ignore my query.

Shoals's piece is interesting, but I disagree on the same basis I disagreed with people unwilling to trade Ibaka for someone proven.

Ibaka could be a really good player and I love watching him. But something proven is better -- in my mind -- to a possibility. I'm not suggesting that Ibaka is somehow expendable or that I think we should sell on him... far from it. But if a decision came down to retaining Ibaka or getting someone proven, I'm taking the proven talent in most cases.

If Green becomes a "superstar" this year, I'd be hard pressed to think of a reason why I'd want to save money I might have to pay for Ibaka that I could pay for a superstar that wants to be here.

Incidentally, just how much do these people (those who write about paying Westbrook and Ibaka) think Ibaka is going to demand in two years? Unless something major happens, I don't see how Ibaka is going to be cost prohibitive. Kind of a moot point since we'll know much more about Ibaka after this season, but it's always made me scratch my head. I guess the expectation is for Ibaka to blow up and become a superstar himself? Is everyone on our roster destined for stardom? Talk about unrealistic optimism...

I'll vouch for you Mustafa! Good luck!

The McDonald's Bowl!!!!!!

@Big Cheese
Cheevo unlocked!

First!