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Guys I'd rather have than Wesley Matthews

sirkickyass

sirkickyass

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Initial premise: Wesley Matthews is "ok" but, at 23, has little room for improvement and his statistics are hardly world-beating. I see very little to differentiate the contributions of Matthews from a player like Luther head, but Matthews is presently looking to swallow 3X the cap room.

Any team that pays $5 million a year for Matthews is inevitably going to suffer the "winner's curse" and I tend to shy away from anything that can be construed as a curse.

These guys are on the open market and make contributions at a level similar to or superior to Matthews and can likely be had for less money:

Tony Allen: Superior to Matthews in nearly every way. Unrestricted. Seems to have attracted little interest outside of Boston and Boston's cap situation is pretty dire after resigning Allen and Pierce. I think he could be had for a similar salary level to Matthews.

Ronnie Brewer: We already know about him, and he's been discussed ad nauseum. At this stage, he's unlikely to command $5 million/yr after ending the previous season injured.

Quentin Richardson: Dude's available, had something of a bounceback season, and can shoot from range. Also, he'll be cheap.

Josh Howard: Anyone realize he's unrestricted and attracting no interest? He's a potential bounceback guy after he tore his ACL and might be a midseason replacement. It's a risk, but he might be worth a flier if he can be had cheaply. He's also not in a position to demand a long-term deal so it's possible he could be a classic low-risk value pick-up.

Anthony Morrow: He's something of a one-trick pony and he's restricted, but given the way the Warriors are presently constituted it might be worth a shot.

Tracy McGrady: Why the **** not? He might cost $5 million but he could end up being worth significantly more than that. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to suppose his poor statistics last season were the result of injury and that he might be willing to accept a secondary role behind Deron.
 
I'm fine with Brewer at 2-3 million for a couple years over Matthews at 5/34.

Everyone else I'm fine with at 5 million a year, except maybe Tony Allen, who I'd want at only 4-4.5 Mil a year.
 
Sirkickyass said:
Initial premise: Wesley Matthews is "ok" but, at 23, has little room for improvement and his statistics are hardly world-beating. I see very little to differentiate the contributions of Matthews from a player like Luther head, but Matthews is presently looking to swallow 3X the cap room.

Any team that pays $5 million a year for Matthews is inevitably going to suffer the "winner's curse" and I tend to shy away from anything that can be construed as a curse.

These guys are on the open market and make contributions at a level similar to or superior to Matthews and can likely be had for less money:

Tony Allen: Superior to Matthews in nearly every way. Unrestricted. Seems to have attracted little interest outside of Boston and Boston's cap situation is pretty dire after resigning Allen and Pierce. I think he could be had for a similar salary level to Matthews.

Ronnie Brewer: We already know about him, and he's been discussed ad nauseum. At this stage, he's unlikely to command $5 million/yr after ending the previous season injured.

Quentin Richardson: Dude's available, had something of a bounceback season, and can shoot from range. Also, he'll be cheap.

Josh Howard: Anyone realize he's unrestricted and attracting no interest? He's a potential bounceback guy after he tore his ACL and might be a midseason replacement. It's a risk, but he might be worth a flier if he can be had cheaply. He's also not in a position to demand a long-term deal so it's possible he could be a classic low-risk value pick-up.

Anthony Morrow: He's something of a one-trick pony and he's restricted, but given the way the Warriors are presently constituted it might be worth a shot.

Tracy McGrady: Why the **** not? He might cost $5 million but he could end up being worth significantly more than that. I don't think it's unreasonable at all to suppose his poor statistics last season were the result of injury and that he might be willing to accept a secondary role behind Deron.
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QRichardson? Josh Howard? Tracy McGrady? Not only no, but hell no. I don't want those guys or their Karma around the Jazz.
 
+1 rep. Didn't realize he'd already received a $12 million offer sheet from the Nets. Eminently reasonable.

I made this error because he still appears on free agency lists due to not technically being under contract yet. We can scratch him off the list.
 
Geez some of you guys have the same mentality of the Jazz organization. The only guy I would consider is Tony Allen and I doubt he leaves Boston. Besides Tony Allen is not as good of an outside shooter as Wes. Why not bring back Harping? We paid him six and half million to sit on the bench. Yet the Jazz won't pay Matthews 5.6 million. Sirkickyass, how do you know Matthews has reached his potential? You make 23 years old sound old. I have no doubt that Wes can improve his game at his ripe old age because he is a hard worker and has the attitude to do it. How do you know RB will accept 2-3 million or if he wants to return? Why not go to Miami for that amount?
 
Even if there wasn't players on the market more valuable than Wes at that deal, I'd just wait. This is a crazy offseason so far, fueled by teams that built their futures on cutting salary. And the new CBA promises to be more restrictive, or at best roughly the same. The irony is KOC is being lambasted for not being more proactive. My guess is the best GM's during this process will wait out the bargains. Wes' salary is insane. Wait out the market and we'll get either a stopgap or a comparable player at half the price.
 
I woul agree that Tony Allen might be a decent replacement, although he's even shorter than Matthews.
It'd be nice sentimentally and defensively to have Brewer back, but we know he can't shoot.
Josh Howard would be a great risk IMHO but doesn't help us at SG.
I don't think that Lazy Eye would come to Utah.
Q-Rich? Dude's 30ish, but he'd be a good vet, especially if Utah can get him and Brew. If I were QR, though, I'd just re-sign with Miami for the min and pick up a ring or two.
 
Brewer? He can't shoot. His defensive abilities were way overblown. Matthews guarded Bryant equally as well and in fact I'd argue did a better job. Matthews drives to the hoop better. Handles the ball better. Shoots better. Plays equally good defense. The only thing that Brewer excels in over Matthews is spectacular reverse layups. There is a reason that Utah gave away Brewer for nothing and Memphis released him.

Josh Howard by all accounts is a locker room cancer and a head case. There's a reason he's flying under the radar. He has a reputation and nobody wants him.

Morrow is off the market.

McGrady. I seriously doubt that he'd even talk to a team only offering 5 mil per year. He's not going to make what he's used to but I'd imagine he'll still get 7-8 mil per year. Plus, he's a historic loser. That might be different on a team where he's not relied on to "be the man" but is he willing to play second fiddle? Plus, does he even know what the word defense means?

Paying Matthews 5 mil per year is not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. I'm stymied as to why people are so against hanging onto him at that price. He a nice player that does a good job and can be relied on on a consistent basis. And this whole "he's reached his ceiling" crap? How does anyone know this? He hasn't even hit his prime. Look at players that get drafted after their freshman or sophomore seasons. They typically don't start to hit their stride until they reach the end of their rookie contract and then teams hope they will be playing as well as Matthews did this past season as a rookie.

And for those that point out his lackluster scoring, he's not getting plays called for him. He's getting his points on playing within the offense and taking the ball to the rack when it opens up and put backs. I suspect that if Sloan actually ran some plays for him he could double his point production. That's just not how Sloan rolls however. Hell, even Horny didn't get plays called for him. He too took what he could within the offense. I'd be curious to know what his PPG were after Brewer left and got more playing time. I recall several 20+ point games.

I suspect that Matthews 3 point shooting % will go up this following year and that his defense will be even better. He's got a year of NBA experience under his belt now and knows that he has a future. He'll relax and play better. Letting Matthews go will be something that people bitch about in coming years. We'll wish we had him back.
 
cowhide said:
Why not bring back Harping?
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He's retired. Comparing Harpring to Matthews is silly.

Sirkickyass, how do you know Matthews has reached his potential? You make 23 years old sound old. I have no doubt that Wes can improve his game at his ripe old age because he is a hard worker and has the attitude to do it.
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Well nobody knows for sure, but we can make predictions based upon the career paths of similar players. Guys who played all four years of college (like Matthews) tend to experience less explosive growth than those who leave earlier. They emerge as something much closer to a finished product. Similarly guys with average-for-the-NBA athleticism like Matthews tend to make less spectacular gains as they're leveraging fewer natural advantages in their favor. Finally, Matthews' skill-set does not indicate that the things he needs to improve upon are the types of skills that NBA players get much better at over time.

As a result, it is a reasonable assumption that, at 23, Matthews is significantly closer to his ceiling than other second-year players. As a point of comparison, C.J. Miles is the same age and I think we know at this point what it is we're going to get out of him. There's no reason to accord Matthews the potential of significant growth when we know that's not reasonable for Miles.

How do you know RB will accept 2-3 million or if he wants to return? Why not go to Miami for that amount?
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Miami can't offer that amount. They can only offer him < $1 million because that's the minimum for his number of year's of service and they will shortly be officially over the cap.
 
It's not 5 million per year, Marcus. It's essentially 7 million per year with almost 10 million paid up front.

The Jazz should have confidence that they can find and to some extents create another Wesley Matthews.
 
Marcus said:
I suspect that Matthews 3 point shooting % will go up this following year and that his defense will be even better.
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I suspect Matthews' defense will be the same or slightly improved. He's a good defender, limited physically, and anyone who really remembers last year knows that he struggles against bigger, more athletic players.

One thing that bugs me is the shooting. When you look at Matthews college numbers, he was a poor shooter his first 3 years, a pretty good shooter in his senior year at Marquette. His pro numbers in his first year were slightly better than his college numbers. You could reasonably conclude that he became a better shooter, and will continue to get better. Or you could also conclude that his shooting numbers are harder to predict because he was a poor/average shooter for the 3 years prior to his senior season. That's the point. The league is littered with guys who shot well one year and didn't in other years. There's no basis to assume Wes will shoot like he did last year, and his college numbers only make it tougher to predict what he'll do. Did he just suddenly learn to shoot? When you spend MLE money, you want to know that a guy can definitely shoot in the NBA. Kyle Korver can definitely shoot in the NBA. There's no way of knowing at this point if Wes can.
 
Marcus said:
I'd be curious to know what his PPG were after Brewer left and got more playing time. I recall several 20+ point games.
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You recall wrongly. After the Brewer trade in mid-February, Matthews scored 20+ only twice the rest of the season. By contrast, he had five games where he scored six or less points.

As a starter Matthews averaged 10.9 ppg.
 
How bout a guy like Shannon Brown of the Lakers? We can work DWill @ the SG position, with Brown at PG in Sloan's 2PG system as he is a big PG also.And with the lakers signing Steve Blake and trying to sign Fish this will hamper their ability to resign him @ a rate like 3/$12M or 4/$15M, wouldn't it?
 
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slc said:
So what guards at summer league looked good enough to replace Matthews?
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I liked what I saw of Jody Meeks. But the point is not what guys we can get who would "replace" Matthews. It's not overpaying for Matthews. We just can't overpay for him.
 
In my hood I has a lotta trouble findin suckers to play my 3-card monte scam on the corner. If I had known NBA owners were such chumps, I woulda been a player's agent.
 
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