Minnesota Sports Forum

I am obviously in the minority here. I am actually stunned that things like "max and near-max" is being thrown around as something people are OK with. There are IMO, 3 PG worth max money from an impact standpoint - Paul, Westbrook, Curry...then there is the next tier. There is a MASSIVE difference between the 3 guys above and guys like Rubio, Lawson, Wall, etc. Many like to compare Rubio's salary requirements to guys like Holiday, Curry, etc, but we also need to understand that Rubio IS NO WHERE NEAR AS VALUABLE as those first three names I pointed out. If he was, our team would be in a much different place today. Max deals should be handed out for franchise changing players, not simply to the player that happens to be the best option on your team. When you start signing "max" guys, you have to be absolutely sure that they will change the trajectory of your franchise. What Rubio has proven is that, while a good teammate, this team won't achieve success unless we get 3-4 all-star types around him to enable his skillset. He is the perfect complimentary player that folks on here are willing to pay to be the main cog. This is not a smart way to start a rebuild, IMO.

On the flipside, I also understand that there is more than "court performance" for a team to think about (i.e. ticket sales, merchandise, etc...), and that Ricky certainly is a net positive in this area. But again, performance needs to be the #1 objective when resigning a player with all the periferal stuff coming as a secondary benefit. I may feel different here if we were already an established team and were looking for a guy to draw new fans.

mrhockey89 wrote:
BT, while I agree with your statement about centers being generally overpaid in the NBA, imagine you're Flip at the negotiating table and Ricky's agent (let's face it, Ricky may be an unselfish guy, but he won't be in the middle of the negotiations until there's a sticking point) says to you, "You pay Pekovic, a player who plays 75% of the games each year, a player who my client (Ricky) makes a much more effective player than he would be on most teams, $12 mil/yr. My client is probably the most important player on the team, has a generally clean injury history, and is what you're trying to build your team around as evidenced by your draft this year, is not good but elite in stealing, rebounding, assists, help defense, court vision, and is your leader. The only thing my client doesn't excel in is scoring, and his best scoring games came without Love in the lineup, something that's about to happen permanently. What do you think my client is worth?" Would you really respond with a number that's near 75% of what Pekovic makes on a contract that Pekovic signed in the past while knowing the salary cap is increasing?

I won't be surprised if it takes a max contract to keep Ricky, or something very close to it. The difference with him on the court vs off the court is night and day, and you've got teams like the Knicks who would easily pull the trigger on Rubio in free agency (especially when you consider they just had to go through the Raymond Felton year that they did), and if you're Rubio and your options are to be paid less by the Wolves or more by the Knicks, you're going to the Knicks. After all, everyone has been telling you that you should be on the big stage since day one and they'd be better able to hype him as a player to build around when bringing in other free agents.

Yeah I get what you are saying, but I'm sure his agent will be doing what Rubio wants. I just don't see him as the type of guy who tells his agent to push for every dime possible knowing he has the team over a barrel. In that scenario however I'd counter with the big man argument and point to other PGs and what contracts they get/got. Like Lowry for example who the Raptors are rumored to have offered 4 yrs 44 mill.

Besides if Rubio is as smart as I think he is, taking a slightly smaller payday on your first big contract allows a team to establish a nice core and you can cash out big in the 2nd contract.

Hicks123 wrote:I am obviously in the minority here. I am actually stunned that things like "max and near-max" is being thrown around as something people are OK with. There are IMO, 3 PG worth max money from an impact standpoint - Paul, Westbrook, Curry...then there is the next tier. There is a MASSIVE difference between the 3 guys above and guys like Rubio, Lawson, Wall, etc. Many like to compare Rubio's salary requirements to guys like Holiday, Curry, etc, but we also need to understand that Rubio IS NO WHERE NEAR AS VALUABLE as those first three names I pointed out. If he was, our team would be in a much different place today. Max deals should be handed out for franchise changing players, not simply to the player that happens to be the best option on your team. When you start signing "max" guys, you have to be absolutely sure that they will change the trajectory of your franchise. What Rubio has proven is that, while a good teammate, this team won't achieve success unless we get 3-4 all-star types around him to enable his skillset. He is the perfect complimentary player that folks on here are willing to pay to be the main cog. This is not a smart way to start a rebuild, IMO.

On the flipside, I also understand that there is more than "court performance" for a team to think about (i.e. ticket sales, merchandise, etc...), and that Ricky certainly is a net positive in this area. But again, performance needs to be the #1 objective when resigning a player with all the periferal stuff coming as a secondary benefit. I may feel different here if we were already an established team and were looking for a guy to draw new fans.

I was with you until you said he needs 3-4 all-stars around him and can't be a main cog. He doesn't need to be the 1st or 2nd scoring option, because he's a great facilitator. He just needs to improve his shooting a bit to keep teams honest. What he's been missing is healthy shooters around him, but they don't need to be all-stars.

Getting a SG/wing who can create their own shot, get to the line a bit and play solid D would be huge for the team & Ricky. Of course this is speaking in terms of the current roster with Love.

Hicks, although I don't totally disagree with you that there's only "x" number of guys who should be max guys in this league, the fact of the matter is that unless you have those guys, then it doesn't matter because if you're not keeping your own star players (say what you want about Rubio, but he's our one guy outside of Love that could be considered a star) then you're regressing. Do you want to have a top 5 pick every year until we end up with the next LeBron? Teams that are centered soley around value contracts don't get anywhere in this league. The Spurs have stars like Duncan who took far less and had an absolutely ideal situation that they created, and it's one that no other team in the NBA has been able to recreate, so that can't be our model.

If we don't offer Rubio what it takes and he goes to the Knicks (or elsewhere), then what are you left with? A boring team that lacks leadership, is without direction, and your hopes lie on a player who didn't start on his college team last year (I don't mean that as a slight to LaVine, just calling it as it is). Oh...and the team isn't even an exciting young team anymore because our new starting PG is JJ Barea or similar.

BT I disagree about Ricky taking less to add more pieces because we're not drawing a top 10 type player here even if you have max money...and anyone less expensive we can always shuffle around players for just like other teams do.

And then if you add to the fact Rubio hasn't once complained about being in Minnesota (cough Love) there's a bit of extra value to him there. Plus, unlike shoot first ball handlers, you can surround Ricky with players who can work off of him because he's creating for them and not for himself. They can have more specialized skill sets to work with a PG like that.

I'm a huge Rubio fan so from the standpoint of wanting to keep to watch him play I'd pay him what we need to in order to keep him. However, from the standpoint of paying him what he deserves there is no way he has earned a 4 year $50 million contract. As far as the market goes, Parker makes that much per year and Rubio just isn't the player Parker is.

They have to make a push to resign him WELL before RFA ever gets close. That way it won't matter what the Knicks may or may not have paid him.

I'm honestly tired of the whole "no one will come to MN BS" quite frankly. It has less to do with weather and more to do with the roster & front office. Sure some players are all about star power & market size, but not all of them. Hypothetically had the Wolves made the playoffs last year, had a good 15+ mill in space and Rubio had really picked it up last year consistently hitting shots with lines near 15p-6b-12a the Wolves would be in the hunt for some of the big name players on the market right now. Guaranteed. An inside scoring force in Pek, top 5-10 player in Love, and a stud facilitating PG. Who wouldn't want to play with that? Problem is a lot of the star players want shit easy by pairing with 2 or 3 other stars which I find pathetic. The players now have too much power in where they play and can funnel toward select markets/teams.

lol TRM Parker had JUST come to my mind. He's making 12.5. Lets look at his hardware:

4× NBA champion (2003, 2005, 2007, 2014)
NBA Finals MVP (2007)
6× NBA All-Star (2006-2007, 2009, 2012-2014)
3× All-NBA Second Team (2012-2014)
All-NBA Third Team (2009)

As for taking less on the first big contract I was speaking in general. It was something I saw during a discussion on one of the sports shows (forget where, but wasn't about Rubio). It's more about him not taking advantage of the team/situation and forcing them to max him out. He wouldn't get a max deal if he was in a better situation where the team wasn't desperate like the Wolves might be if Love leaves. Like the Spurs for example, he wouldn't be getting close to that max deal. He'd be closer to 10.

This debate on paying Rubio is very similar to the debate about whether or not to pay a QB in the NFL. Is Rubio worth some of these max numbers? Probably not, but if you lose him what do we have left? Like, seriously we put our heart and soul into getting Rubio over here and waiting, at this point there is nothing wrong with overpaying a player to stay here for another half decade.

Also, the NBA is on the verge of negotiating a brand new TV deal, and that is going to increase the salary cap significantly over the next few years. Think of that increase in the salary cap as a little extra gravy that we can give to Rubio. Because like I said, without him we are essentially a cold slate with zero future.

The Rage Monster wrote:I'm a huge Rubio fan so from the standpoint of wanting to keep to watch him play I'd pay him what we need to in order to keep him. However, from the standpoint of paying him what he deserves there is no way he has earned a 4 year $50 million contract. As far as the market goes, Parker makes that much per year and Rubio just isn't the player Parker is.

Why doesn't a 23 year old Rubio deserve to make as much as a 32 year old Parker? Rubio is heading into the prime of his career and Parker's heading into the downside of his. We are paying for projected future production not the past.

Ok Rage. So what do we do if Ricky signs elsewhere for that amount (or perhaps slightly less in a bigger market or for a better team)? Then we're left with a bottom feeding lottery team without any existing players who could help attract free agents, trade targets or fans.

This talk about whether Rubio has "earned" a certain contract seems misplaced. Contracts in the NBA, like in any other industry, are market-based. Compensation is based on what others are willing to pay AND how important a particular employee/player is to your organization. If there's another team willing to pay Ricky anything close to 4 years $50 million, then the Wolves would make a big mistake not paying him that amount to keep him.

Unless we plan on bottoming out, we need to keep Ricky even if that means a 4 year/$50 million deal -- which is significantly less than the max deal and significantly less than we gave Pekovic, a one-way player who plays about 75% of the season at best. In conjunction with keeping Ricky, we need to either keep Love and hope he ultimately decides to stay here, or trade him for current players who can help the team over the next few years - players like Klay Thompson and David Lee or Chandler Parsons and Terrence Jones or Taj Gibson and Jimmy Butler.

Otherwise, we need to bottom out sooner rather than later. That means the following: First, it means dealing Love for a package centered entirely on future picks and perhaps some young high-upside talent. Second, it means trading Pekovic for the best draft-centric/young talent package we can get. Third, it means dealing Budinger, Brewer and Martin for shorter contracts that we can clear from our roster sooner rather than later. As for Rubio? We could trade him now for the best draft-centric package we can get. Or we could keep him and, if he improves significantly as I think he will, we can trade him next year and get a better return. So even under a total rebuild scenario, it may make sense to extend Ricky now even if it means giving him a 4-year/$50 million deal.

Bottom line is this. First, the market will determine what the Wolves should give Ricky. Second, the Wolves are not in a position be stingy and ultimately penny-wise/pound foolish.

One thing I need to state. I agree that the Wolves need to keep Rubio regardless of the price, but shouldn't just accept whatever number his agent throws out. It's their job to try to get him for less than the max. I'm still hoping for 10-12 annually.