Welcome to Layup Lines, our basketball newsletter where we’re now knee-deep into the NBA offseason and right in the swing of things with the WNBA. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every afternoon. This is Mike Sykes.
We’re now officially in the dog days of the summer when it comes to the NBA. The draft is far behind in the rearview mirror. NBA Summer League has come and gone.
All we’re left with now is waiting on the Damian Lillard trade and whatever free agency deals might come down the pipeline over the next couple of months or so. Now is a good time to look back on the summer and talk about the things that we got right, wrong and everything else in between.
And one of the things I feel like I personally got wrong was my reaction to some of the deals that we saw out there.
We saw some big money getting dished out this summer. Just to name a few examples here, Jerami Grant got a 5-year, $160 million deal from the Trail Blazers. There was also Fred Van Fleet who got a 3-year, $130 million deal from the Rockets. And Dillon Brooks got a four-year, $80 million deal from Houston, too.
Obviously, more power to them. They deserve every dollar because that’s what the market dictates. But, man. I can’t lie, y’all. That’s a lot of money for three players who have combined for one career All-Star appearance. At least, that was my initial reaction, anyway. And it was the same reaction a lot of others out there had, too.
But here’s the thing. Everyone else and I who had that reaction to those deals were completely wrong. Maybe they do end up being bad deals in the end — we don’t know yet. But just because the dollar amount is massive doesn’t mean the deal isn’t worth it.
We’re simply looking at these figures wrong. Instead of looking at the raw number there, the proper way to view these deals is within the context of the league’s salary cap.
Take Grant’s deal, for example. He’s going to make $27 million for the Trail Blazers next season in the first year of his deal. Sounds like a lot, right? But the NBA’s salary cap is set at just over $136 million. Relative to that, Grant’s salary number is only about 19 percent of the Blazers’ entire salary cap. Still big, sure. But not as big as you think.
Let’s add a bit more context to that. The salary cap 10 years ago back in 2013 was set at $58 million. Back in 2013, that $27 million figure would only be about $11 million. Not as bad, right? Right.
Plus, who would you rather see get all of this money? The players that you love to watch play or the owners? It’s not like it’ll be money going into your pocket.
I say all of this to say the salaries of the NBA aren’t what they used to be. They’re closer to baseball numbers than old-school basketball numbers these days. The league is making money hand over fist and has a new television deal right on the horizon. Those numbers will jump again very soon.
So when we see the first $50 million deal for a non-All-Star player in a few years here, remember: Don’t jump to conclusions. The percentage matters — not the dollar figure. Then you can go from there.
The Tip-Off
Some NBA goodness from around the USA TODAY Sports network.
Draymond Green and Chris Paul are teammates now, but — surprise, surprise — Green still doesn’t like his new teammate.
Shocking, I know. The Warriors forward confirmed as much earlier this week on the Patrick Beverley podcast. He talked about how the Warriors trading for Paul doesn’t change the history he’s had with the Hall of Fame point guard. Our Cory Woodruff has more here.
“I’ve publicly said I didn’t like Chris [Paul] before, I’m just not going to be like, ‘Oh man that changed now he my teammate,’ No, I look forward to talking amongst men,” Green told Beverley on the show, via ESPN.
Looks like the Warriors may have potentially swapped one chemistry issue for Green in Jordan Poole with another in Chris Paul. We’ll see how it works once they get on the court.
This has some messy potential, though. Good luck to the Warriors.
Shootaround
— Cory Woodruff has you covered on the list of players invited to this year’s FIBA World Cup training camp.
— Steph Curry is dishing out AppleTV+ trial subscriptions like he is no-look passes. Hopefully, they don’t fly out of bounds.
— I ranked LeBron James’ signature shoes. Yup. That’s how deep we are into summer content.
— This weird clause in the NBA’s collective bargaining agreement is destroying James Harden’s trade leverage.