knickstorrents wrote:TMS wrote:it makes every bit of sense... supply & demand, it's a fundamental concept that determines value... there will be several teams looking to upgrade their rosters this summer... the less supply of good players that are available means that every team will be focusing in on the remaining talent pool & will inevitably be offering up assets to trade for them... to think we can just sit tight & Melo will sign here by default is foolishness... unless we're willing to pony up & be a player in possible trade scenarios, then you can't simply assume & expect to be able to land him.
The NBA does not strictly follow the laws of supply and demand. There are too few market participants.
There are numerous examples in the NBA where demand was not established (see Rudy Gay, Mike Conley, Joe Johnson, Allan Houston, etc) and yet teams decided to re-sign those players at exorbitant contracts. These players were vastly overpaid, which shouldn't happen in a normal market.
The salary cap also creates a market of very few, select players who are undervalued (Lebron James, Dwayne Wade, Kobe, Dwight Howard). The cap makes these players good value because they are worth more than the max to a teams performance in relation to the cap. The cap also means that even though there are players paid the max, not all of those players are worth the max.
Other free agents being signed does not affect the price for max players. All you need is 1 team to be willing to pay the max to a player, for that player to be 'worth' the max. All you need is 1 team to want that player for that player's supply curve to be met.
The NBA is an extreme example of an imperfect market actually. There are relatively few participants on both sides of the supply and demand curve. There's a cap that suppresses the value of a certain very few deserving players. On the flip side, there's far more players that aren't worth the money they are paid because of the lack of talent vs. the number of teams. The net result of this is lots of bad contracts. I'd argue that one of the main goals of the new CBA is to normalize the NBA marketplace so that these types of bad contracts are prevented. Right now, there's a high propensity to overpay for players, and once a team commits to that player, they can be stuck for 5-6 years. The Knicks were stuck in cap hell for what, 10-15 years?
And yes I'm not a fan of Melo, but I don't think free agents being signed affects the Melo situation in any way. Melo has a preferred destination and he only has leverage so long as he does not sign an extension. This limits where Denver can 'sell' Melo to. The Knicks can pay Melo as much money as any other market participant. So the only varying factor for Melo is the strength of the team he goes to, as the amount of money he'll receive is going to be the same.
The only way Denver can have leverage is if Melo signs an extension. Melo won't sign an extension because he wants to control his own destiny. That means Denver will get shafted. We just have to wait and make sure our team is stronger than any other team he's thinking about.
contract values is not what i'm referring to when i bring up supply & demand... a max contract is a max contract regardless if it's signed w/NY or w/Memphis... i am fully aware of what the salary cap rules entail... that wasn't the point... the fact is the less top notch FA's there are this summer, the more likely it will become that other teams are going to be focusing in on trying to acquire the ones that remain... if Melo is the only top name left this summer, then every team with cap space & assets to trade are going to be making Denver offers at the deadline... to think that he's already decided to sign w/the Knicks this summer regardless of what happens is based on nothing but blind optimism at this point... unless he comes out & says it that that's his plan, i'm not willing to put my eggs into that basket... if the trade deadline comes & goes & nothing has changed, then i will obviously change my stance, but i don't want to take that risk... IMO we need to be aggressive in trying to get him in a trade this year IMO, because there is a decent chance we'll lose out if we sit on our hands & do nothing... there are inevitably going to be teams out there that will offer Melo a better surrounding cast than ours
just to address the examples of players you gave above, guys like Rudy Gay, Mike Conley, Joe Johnson, etc. were extended to above market prices by their teams because in each case, they didn't want to risk losing those guys & then crapping out in the free agency market... smaller market franchises know they're less likely to attract the big names so they might pay out more to retain their own relative to their actual value... in the case of Allan Houston, it was just good ol' fashioned stupidity for us to bid against ourselves on that contract... guys like Lebron, Wade, Kobe, Dwight, etc. can write their own ticket anywhere they like, & so can Melo... i understand this... we crapped out on Lebron & Wade this past summer thinking they'd wanna come play in NY... i don't wanna risk crapping out on Melo because we were too afraid to include guys like Gallo, AR or Wilson in a trade for him... those guys' production can be replaced... it's much more important to acquire the stud go to scorer that can anchor your offense in our situation... we are no longer in rebuilding mode after we signed Amare... now the focus should be shifted completely to getting another star player to play at his side & build a team that can contend now... no more waiting for luck to fall in our laps... we need to take our own destiny in our hands & make a move.
After 7 years & 40K+ posts, banned by martin for calling Nalod a 'moron'. Awesome.
