Re: Baker return is a long shot

["Berry, Mark S" <berrym@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This killed me, Kestas. You're right, this is yet another reason to be glad
that Bird and Belkin lost out on the Charlotte franchise. If it leads to
Larry eventually taking over the Celts, all the better.

The other story of interest in the papers today was the typically shallow
evaluation of the financial implications of the Baker deal by Steve Bulpett.
In typical PR mouthpiece form, he spouts the company line that Baker's
contract doesn't hurt the team this year or next. He says they still could
use the $4.5 mill exception if they wanted (true), but they choose not to do
so because that amounts to a $25 mill expense (Fuzzy math, but I'll get to
that in a second).  

The point he misses is if they had done nothing, they'd be over the cap, but
about $6 million under the luxury tax threshold. That's the restrictive
number here, not the cap. So they'd have plenty of room to sign a free agent
to the full exception without incurring the luxury tax. And there will be
some decent free agents out there-certainly much better than Baker-available
for that exception. 

Now, about that $25 million figure. You pay a dollar-for-dollar tax, so a
$4.5 mill player would cost you $9 mill. That's legitimate. The fuzzy part
is when they start counting the payout you lose if you're over the tax
threshold. First, if you're under the threshold, that's like free money.
You're not "losing" it if you don't get it in the first place. But, more
importantly, Grousbeck seems to indicate in this article that the team will
be taxpayers because they're committed to "keeping this team together." If
they're paying the tax anyway, then the $4.5 mill exception would only cost
them $9 mill. It would have no impact on the payout that goes to
non-tax-paying teams. They will have "lost" that anyway.

It's just typical of the way these guys operate. It's the same way major
league baseball can claim billions of dollars in losses while the players
union can present numbers showing millions in profits. These guys spin the
numbers to suit their means. For what it's worth, I'm so far unimpressed
with the new ownership group. Time will tell, but they're off to a so-so
start at best.

Mark

--- --- ---

Kestas wrote:


Ah, that's the team that would offer Wallace a job as GM! A match made in
heaven. Tapscott and Wallace could trade stories about their shrewd drafting
for the Knicks and the Celtics,  respectively, and share hare-brained ideas
about uncovering more gems like Weis and Kedrick. I think it would be
fantastic
if he got that job. We'd be rid of him (maybe we could demand a 1st round
pick
for Wallace from Tapscott? Surely his value has appreciated since we got him
from Miami for a 2nd rounder, given the fine job he's done?), and then, once
Wallace became Charlotte's GM, we could trade Baker to Charlotte for
expiring
salaries, a decent player or two, and more 1st round picks. It would be like
Denver under Issel, except in the East - another weak sister you can beat up
and exploit shamelessly in trades. If I were Grousbeck, I'd be chartering a
plane for Wallace to fly to NC right now. And tell him to take Papile along
as
his muscle. I'm so glad Belkin and Bird lost out to Johnson on the Charlotte
franchise.