Great Prize, Great Cause; A Win-Win
October 7, 2008Bullet Points: Buckeyes Week Seven
October 7, 2008By now we all know the story of Anderson Varejao last offseason. He was a restricted free agent, he held out and made ridiculous demands and thought he was worth way more than anyone would actually pay him, his holdout got ugly and personal between himself, his agent Dan Fegan, and Cavaliers GM Danny Ferry, and then he signed an offer sheet with the Charlotte Bobcats on December 4th 2007 (18 games into the season), which the Cavaliers quickly matched, and then Andy proceeded to limp through the season, riddled with injuries, fatigue, and relative ineffectiveness.
It was pretty much a safe assumption that this would be the last season with AV in the Wine and Gold as his ability to opt out of his contract after this season, combined with the lingering residual hard feelings presumably harbored by AV, would mean he would be free to go elsewhere after the season….an opportunity he won’t pass up.
Or so we thought.
As it turns out, Varejao actually doesn’t mind being here in Cleveland and would actually like to stay in Cleveland. At least that’s what his agent wants everyone to think. Bob Finnan has the story in the News-Herald. He writes,
“Varejao is angling for a multi-year contract, and he would like to stay in Cleveland.
When the Cavs matched the offer sheet last December, word spread like wildfire that Varejao would leave town as soon as humanly possible.
There was so much bad blood between the two sides that many thought he’d put Cleveland in his rearview mirror when given the opportunity.
That’s no longer the case.
“In retrospect, both parties made the right business decision,” Fegan said. “His qualifying offer was $1.2 million. Based on that, they played their hand to sign him to a longer deal at a lower number. If I had it to do over again, I would have taken the emotion out of the process and tried to conclude it a lot faster.”
The Cavs say they are open to signing Varejao this summer assuming he opts out.”
While none of us who follow the Cavaliers will ever forget the turmoil Varejao and Fegan put the Cavaliers through last season (some would even argue that Varejao’s absence derailed the season from the beginning), it’s tough to ignore the fact that this is a nice development for the Cavaliers if true.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas and Ben Wallace are in the twilight of their careers, and Lorenzen Wright is, well, not a very good basketball player at all. Which leaves the only young big men on the Cavaliers as AV, JJ Hickson, and Darnell Jackson. Hickson and Jackson are rookies this year and are thus an uncertain factor. That means AV is the only low post backup with both youth and experience.
While Varejao’s health is a legit concern (AV is already out of the Cavs’ preseason opener tonight with a strained quad), he’s still a key part of the Cavs rotation and his solid defensive abilities have always made him a staple of Mike Brown’s late-game lineups. It would be a shame for the Cavs to have to lose that aspect of their team dynamic, but this is still a business, and no matter how much lip service is paid about water under the bridge, business is still almost always personal….and it’s definitely always about money.
Danny Ferry is at least optimistic. As Finnan writes,
“The Cavs say they are open to signing Varejao this summer assuming he opts out.
They had all the leverage in the summer of 2007 when the Brazilian was a restricted free agent.
Now, Varejao and Fegan will have the leverage.
“He’s a guy we’d like with the organization going forward,” Ferry said. “I like Andy.”
Ferry said he doesn’t get the sense Varejao will bolt out of Cleveland.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “We have 10 months. It’s a long time.””
Varejao’s efficiency has gone down in every season he has played in the NBA, but with a return to health and a full camp to get in shape, that trend figures to reverse this year. The question will be if it will be enough to entice the Cavaliers to pony up the kind of money Fegan is sure to ask for. If not, and if his efficiency continues to decline, one has to wonder what will become of negotiations in that scenario.
It’s still a long way down the road, but it will be something worth watching this season. Will Anderson Varejao see this as a “walk year” and play out of his mind to get the contract he wants? Will both AV and the Cavaliers be able to truly leave the past behind and negotiate in good faith towards the shared goal of keeping Andy in Cleveland? Or will this just be the beginning of the end of AV’s time with the Cavaliers? Time will tell, and we’ll get our first glimpse of answers when the Cavaliers kick off the season in Boston on October 28th.
18 Comments
Rock,
What do you think Varejao is worth?
Contract years make certain people do crazy things. I would love an Erick Dampier-contrac year-type season out of AV…
I’d like to see the hockey stat of +/- for Andy, as I bet it’s probably decent… I know a few NBA teams and sites keep that, but I am not familiar with ones that do… I know Cuban was the first owner to have their teams track that a few years ago… Anybody?
That’s really an excellent question Brandon. How do you weigh the value of a guy who gives good energy, is a superb rebounder, and plays pretty solid defense, but has no offensive skills at all and is a bit of a turnover liability? Who are his comps in the NBA? Hollinger says, ironically enough, that he’s most similar to Lorenzen Wright at age 26. When Wright was 26 he made $5.5 million. So, I would say AV is worth at least the MLE, but I would hate to see the Cavaliers go much over that to sign him. I would say $6.5-$7 million average would be about the ceiling where I would want to go with a guy who has AV’s limited skill set. Now, if he develops an offensive game this season, then the formula changes significantly.
NBA.com has the stat for each game, but I don’t remember if they keep the stat over the course of a season…you can go and look
@bridgecrosser: you’re looking for info that 82games.com keeps. You can check out the Cavs’ +/- report for last season here: http://www.82games.com/0708/0708CLE.HTM
I heard the +/- isn’t nearly as relevant in basketball as hockey. Can’t back that up with facts though.
I would like to see him be able to jump this year, that was lacking. He’ll never have great offensive ability with the ball in the post.
If Varejo can accept being a roll player off the bench and will take a contract like Gibson/West I would be fine. If he’s looking for a lot more still, then meh.
It all depends on how you use them, to be honest. Frankly, if you play a lot of minutes because you’re a great player, but the rest of your teammates are horrible, that means you’re going to log a ton of minutes on a losing team and your +/- will be way lower than your skill set would lead you to believe. If you’re a really, really bad player, and thus play only a few minutes, but you play on a good team, you can rack up a bloated net +/- figure.
That’s why I prefer 82games’ Net +/- figure over NBA.com’s raw +/- data. 82games takes the team’s net +/- when you’re on the court and subtracts it by the team’s net +/- when you’re off the court, and that gives you your Net +/-.
The bottom line is, you have to always keep perspective when using any kind of statistical analysis. There really is no such thing as the universal system to tell us which players are better than others. It’s more about gathering as much data as possible, and then coming up with your conclusions based on what you know.
Rock.
I don’t think Varejao is worth a penny more than the midlevel. He and his agent were out of their minds last season.
I couldn’t find a YouTube video to back me up, but I swear I remember Varejao shooting the ball over the backboard once.
Not that he should be judged by that one play, but who shoots the ball over the backboard? Seriously?
Haha, totally sounds like something AV would do.
I dunno, the thing is, the Cavs play better when he’s on the court than they do without him, which is why I would go slightly above the MLE to sign him.
You and I are on the same page on this, I just can’t separate myself from the emotional side of having seen the Cavs play better with him than without him time and time again. So I would go the extra mile to sign him.
$7 million a year tops. If he wants more, he can try (again) to find it on the open market.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RKVmVmRKQ8
Until I read this I’ve been assuming that, depending on how Hickson looks early, the would try to move Andy in a trade before the deadline. I thought they would not want to risk him boosting up bad shots to up his scoring average in his walk year. But he really brings something to the team they are always looking for: rebounds, loose balls, obnoxious defense, all the dirty work with high energy. My concerns to tying him up here are: 1) If he hasn’t developed a single scoring move yet, and this is his 4th(?) year, it probably won’t happen; 2) Will he still bring his same energy game afer he gets some money? Danny will consult the boss (LeBron) before figuring out how to approach this.
Maybe the reason Fegan is playing nice is because he realizes Varejao won’t get more than the midlevel on the open market, so he wants to try to get the Cavs to re-sign Andy for more than that. They were trying to get him Nene (6 years, $60 million) money, but only the Nuggets were dumb enough to give Nene that kind of money. I still think chances are that Varejao won’t be back next year, especially if the Cavs can use Wally’s contract to get a scoring big.
Rock, good point in #8. I like what 82games does a lot (in general).
There is no chance Andy is back next year, none. They’re going to go for the biggest paycheck possible and one team will always reach and overpay. Some team (like the bobcats) will offer him at least $40 mill for 5 years.
He was such a douche last year I don’t even care, although it will leave our front court a little thin.
Looked into it a bit more:
http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm
How few teams have even 5 players making over $5 million. VJ is unlikely to be a starter (unless he magically develops soft hands and an offensive game) so I don’t consider him worth $6mill a year. No way he’s happy with that.
The most depressing thing on the 82games player rating there are only 4 players on the cavs in +ve Roland rating.
Joe smith is the fourth. I was definitely sad to see him go. He got the playing time at the end of the game when it mattered last playoffs.
Great work as always, Rock. With Andy’s value, it’s really all about what you see, not the numbers. That’s what makes it so tough to place a value on him. Bad cliche warning: It’s about what he does that doesn’t show up in the box score that makes him valuable. It’s when he’s trying to put up numbers that he becomes so frustrating.
I actually posted this before I read through the comments here (I read the post, obviously, since I linked to it), but I think it’s relevant to this discussion: http://blog.cleveland.com/cavaliers_corner/2008/10/the_value_of_anderson_varejao.html
THANKS FOR THE LINK! I agree it’s just a tool to use w/ other info – but am I the only one to notice we purged all the guys w/ lowest +/1 (except Sasha who previously had a contract re-done)? Good to see that on Z.
Quality big men are hard to develop and harder to find. Over $7m is too much for Andy but I think you resign him and retain him as an asset if anything if that’s possible.