The G(m) Spot: Do You Like It In The Front?

I want to sell you a cable TV package.

At first it's going to be decently priced, and have all of the channels that you want.

Then the subscription price is going to get a little higher every year, but it is ok at first since you still have all of your favorite channels.

After a few years though I am going to take away some of your favorite channels, charge you much more than I did at first, and offer the old channels in an expensive premium package.

You will only have enough money left over to buy a TV Guide and read about your favorite shows.

So, are you interested?

Evidently NBA General Managers are interested in such a deal, as it is the type that they make all of the time. NBA contracts are almost uniformily backloaded, as yearly salaries for players jump up from a few hundred thousand each year to a few million each year. Now, in a league such as the NFL where the only money a player is sure to get is in signing bonuses and gaurantees, these type of backloaded contracts are not that big of a problem. The Redskins and others in the NFL make outrageously backloaded deals every offseason, with no intention of ever letting those contracts reach their overly expensive base salary peaks. In the NBA however, a team is stuck with the contract in full after it is signed. This creates some very NBA specific player phenomena, such as teams often having their highest paid players sitting on the end of their bench by the end of their contracts and the ever-present discussions of "expiring contracts" in NBA trade talk. Just take a look around the NBA landscape. You have Grant Hill being paid $16.9 million this year. Jamal Mashburn was paid $10.8 million. Alan Houston got $20.7 million. All three of these examples are players that arguably were worth that kind of money at the front end of their contracts, but have over time had their skills and playing time decrease to a point where their current level of compensation is laughable. Going hand in hand with this is the fact that these ever increasing salaries cause their teams to have less and less cap space to bring in complimentary players as their aging star sees their skills decline.

So why don't NBA teams frontload contracts? In a league where the money is is coming to a player whether he produces or not (See: Jerome James, Jalen Rose, Derek Anderson,...) why would a player care if he was getting $16 million as oppsosed to $13 million in the first year of his contract, as long as he was still getting the same money in the end? Well, there are a couple of reasons why this may be, first being the cultural reality of the United States where people across the nation are crippled by credit card debt. "We want to pay later. Gimme gimme now, consequences be damned." The other factor is that NBA GMs know that according to the collective bargaining agreement the salary cap is going to be tied to league revenue, meaning that for the foreseeable future the cap is going to rise a bit every season and provide teams with that extra room to compensate for their star's incrementaly rising salary.

Now this is all heading towards the potential benefits of front loading contracts. First off, it will prevent teams (See: Knicks) from being saddled with albatross contracts for players that are not even playing. They will still be bad contracts, but not so bad that it will prevent the team from bringing in a player to help. This is where the true benefit lies: with the salary cap looking to continue increasing, a lower contract number for a star in the future, combined with a larger cap, will make for an even greater ability for that team to sign a player that could make said team playoff or championship caliber. In other words, players should desire this type of deal since it would help them be able to pursue a championship later in their careers.

Looking across the NBA landscape, it is hard to find examples of how this would manifest itself. Mainly, this is because there are very few frontloaded contracts in the NBA. In fact, there are only four players in the entire league that are signed to long term contracts that are front loaded, Speedy Claxton of the Hawks, David West of the Hornets, and Ben Wallace and Kirk Hinrich of the Bulls. Now, lets look to how the case of the Bulls would be different depending on how Wallace and Hinrich had their contracts constructed. Hinrich and Wallace are slated to make a combined $26.5 million next season, as opposed to $23.5 million in the final year of Wallace's contract three seasons from now. The NBA cap has been rising steadily lately, so assuming that the cap goes up $5 million in the next three years (to be conservative), the backloading of Wallace and Hinrich's contracts will provide the Bulls with about $8 million of space against the cap to bring in help.

While it would take a collosal change in philosophy for the frontloading of contracts in the NBA to ever become commonplace, the ability of the Bulls to continue building their squad in the upcoming years could serve as a test case for the wisdom of such a practice. I know I'll be watching. As long as I still have ESPN on my cable package by then.

The Cost of the Golden Fiddle

"And if you win you get this shiny fiddle made of gold
But if you lose the devil gets your soul"
-Charlie Daniel's Band, The Devil Went Down to Georgia

Oh how sweet the allure of a golden ring can be. So sweet, that some sports franchises have in recent years ignored all salary implications in pursuit of that one elusive championship ring. See the Lakers at the end of Shaq's tenure, bringing in Karl Malone and Gary Payton. See the Colorado Avalanche in the past three years or so. See the Patriots this upcoming year. As Isaiah Thomas can surely tell you, such high priced pursuits do not always end in success. Sometimes however, they do, as was the case with the Heat last season, when bolstered by contributions from the aging and overpaid quartet of Alonzo Mourning, Gary Payton, Antoine Walker, and Jason Williams the Heat were able to win the championship that Shaq had promised the city of Miami when he had arrived. While this victory still lingers in the air however, a different strain is beginning to be heard on South Beach, and it is starting to become clear that it is now time for the Heat to pay the piper for the roster choices that won them the championship.

If you saw any of the Heat's first round series against the Bulls, what I am about to say should be obvious. The Heat are a flawed team in their present incarnation. They are slow. They are old. They are completely reliant on Dwayne Wade. Now, the scary part is that these three problems do not look to be remedied anytime soon, and in fact look to get worse. For the reasoning behind that, take a look at what Sam Smith wrote today in the Chicago Tribune:


"Riley may not return despite previous comments to the contrary. Jones, Gary Payton and Alonzo Mourning are expected to retire. The Heat likely won't sign Jason Kapono or James Posey, perhaps both. It will try to deal Jason Williams, entering his final contract season, and Antoine Walker."

If Smith's analysis is correct, it would seem that the Heat would barely be able to field a full team, much less improve on this season's lackluster result. To whit, this is what the Heat look like going into the off season, as far as players under contract for next season:

Shaquille O'Neal
Udonis Haslem
Dwayne Wade
Michael Doleac
Dorell Wright
Wayne Simien
Jason Williams
Antoine Walker
Alonzo Mourning

Yup, that is the long and short of it. 9 players, and if Smith's analysis is correct, only 6 will actually still be on the roster if Mourning retires and Williams and Walker are dealt. If that holds true, the Heat would be looking at fielding a starting lineup of Shaq, Udonis, Wright, Simien, and Wade. Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

The roster noted above will certainly be expanded, but to what extent will be interesting to observe. The Heat will likely keep one or both of Jason Kapono or James Posey, but the price to re-sign Kapono will be significantly higher than his current deal. The Heat will be drafting at #20 in the first round, and even with the depth of this season's draft it is hard to believe they will be able to get a player that has more than a marginal impact next season. (Currently projected in that area of the draft are players like Alando Tucker, Aaron Afflalo, Aaron Gray, and Josh McRoberts) In terms of the salary cap, the 9 contracts the Heat already have for next season come in at roughly $64.5 million, already well over any projected cap for next year. The scariest thing for the Heat though, is that they are at risk of being left off of the next wave in the NBA. Teams are now moving to smaller and quicker teams that have the depth and versatility to throw out a variety of looks any given night. See Shawn Marion and Boris Diaw playing in the frontcourt for Phoenix. See Mikael Pietrus playing center for the Warriors. See the versatility the Raptors and Mavs have on their benches. And you don't even have to tell Miami about the Bulls. They saw first hand how the Bulls were able to use fast three guard lineups and combinations of Chris Duhon, Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, and Luol Deng to entirely out pace the Jurassic Park style Miami team.

So the Heat are already headed into next season over the cap, with a very significant number of holes to fill. It would seem that their best options would be to convince some veterans looking for a championship to take a pay cut, thinking that teaming with Shaq and D-Wade would be their best option to get a ring. We have already seen how that can play out though...

If you want a prediction for how the Heat are going to be next year, here it is. Shaq is going to have to show up for the entire season if this team is going to have a chance, but now that the big man is showing his age there is no guarantee that he will be able to lift the team even if the desire is there. They will desperately need D-Wade to come back at full strength from his off-season shoulder surgery, or they will be sunk. And they also need to get much younger and much faster in the summer, or they are going to be left in the dust as the ever maturing speed teams in the East (Toronto, Chicago, Washington, etc.) pass them by. Worst of all, I believe the Heat are probably going to be left behind by their own coach, as Riley seems very unlikely to stick around with a team that could look to fall from fourth in the East to something more along the lines of sixth or seventh next season. At least the Heat have a ring though. But at what cost is the question.