Dazed and confused

[Kim Malo]

At 08:33 AM 2/2/2007, Ryan, Patrick S Maj RES USAFR 439 MSG wrote:
>Kim,
>
>Who are the three max deals? Pierce is one. Baker is two? (Wasn't part of
>the Baker contract buyout deal a cap reduction clause???) Who is #3? Wally?
>Ratliff? Both?

Yes. And Antoine while he was here.  Grant for 
that matter, albeit briefly. I can't recall who 
else. I spoke sloppily in saying max when they 
may not have all been actual max vs very large, 
although I've also certainly read enough news 
reports about our situation putting it that way. 
I just know that whenever I was checking our cap 
situation there were usually three eight digit 
salaries out there or close enough to it to be 
negligible. That''s 75% of your entire cap on 3 
bodies. Add in another 3 middle class salaries and you're at the cap.

>I could've been the ultimate wise-ass and said I was only going to talk
>about 70s hairstyles here,

If you thought that was clever, as apparently you 
do, whatever floats your boat.

>  but I am curious as to the specifics because
>contrary to the usual cliché, I actually want facts to get in the way of my
>really good (at least in my own mind) argument.

But that's not the key fact that makes your 
argument wrong. The fact is that we were over the 
cap regardless of the individual numbers that 
made it up, so we still couldn't sign FA without 
exemptions. As I said, I think you were confusing 
luxury cap, which is more about how the owners 
are willing to spend, with salary cap, which is about how they can spend.

Maybe the problem is that I still have never 
bought into the shoe shopping is the cure all to 
everything mentality that dominates sports boards 
(god how I hate the fact that it's only trade and 
draft talk that drums up any noticeable traffic 
here and does it ever). Once you're not in the 
category of actively squeezing every penny you 
can out of the team and keeping your team's 
payroll artificially low for the sake of that, 
it's never been about how much you spend per se 
(see the Knicks for example #1 about how wrong 
that perception is) it's about how you spend. 
They are spending money. A lot of it's been spent 
stupidly just as we've had a lot of stupid/bad 
management here since the glory days of the 80s. 
I'm not going to the other extreme either and 
insisting they've been showering the team with 
all the money they can or averse to making money 
off it. Just that I think the views on spending 
you were laying out (and you're hardly the first) 
are more about perception than reality.
Kim