BRIGGS wrote:.... His rebounding % n that limited 66 minutes was the best in college basketball. .... He’s quickly expanded perimeter skills make him even more alluring. Small ball match up. Fock that. I’ll put my monster in the middle and see what happens. The guy is gonna an an nba force
Basic resource management consideration
The Knicks could be in a position to draft James Wiseman. Projecting his likely draft slot, that would represent a 120 percent cap hold against the Rookie Scale Exception for slot. So that means Wiseman's AAV would be 7-10 million for an unproven player without the traditional benefit of the combine/interview process and for a guy with character questions. That cap hold turns into a tax on your free agency options.
OR
The Knicks could draft a wing ( highest positional value), where the AAV is more in line with actual/current market forces, then scour the Tier 4 and Tier 5 FA ranks for what they hope is a replacement level pivot
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/ufa/center/
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/free-agents/ufa/power-forward/
The benefit would be getting a battle tested NBA veteran, offering some type of cost certainty, in line with actual market trends. Essentially you are reaping the benefit of some other team previously drafting a big man, suffering through his growing pains, eating the opportunity cost of that roster spot and minutes and allot your resources elsewhere. It's like buying a used car, letting some other guy eat the massive depreciation when he drove off the lot when he bought it brand new. In effect, from the resource management side, drafting a traditional pivot in the Tier 1 range very likely makes you a farm team by proxy for the rest of the NBA.
The other issue is traditional pivots are phased out late game and in the playoffs. These are critical opportunities for said traditional pivots to develop their games/skill sets to combat the small ball pivot. Which only creates a circular system that further devalues the traditional pivot. Then you factor in dumb ****s like LeBron James deciding to pay Danny Green 15 million a year, creating a spike in wing valuation outside of actual market baselines, that RESETS the market and further devalues the traditional pivot.
Drafting Wiseman shapes out to be a bad resource management decision. He could break out. But he would have to break out in a historic way to offset the direction the rest of the league is going towards. When in Rome, do as the Romans do. The market will reshift at some point, but only likely when you get some kind of George Mikan type pivot who impacts the game on all levels. This is no longer unicorn territory, but bi-corn territory. And Wiseman just isn't that kind of prospect.
Rebounding has become an increasingly devalued skill. ( It's not to say it's unimportant, but the trade offs you have to sacrifice to drive up what amounts to raw counting stats hurts you in so many other places in game management)
If you don't get the money right, the cap right, the resource management right, your team loses before it even steps on the court.
Your monster in the middle looks painfully like an anchor around this team's neck.
8/6/2020 11:15 AM