What does $57 million buy you?
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I am wondering how George Hill will be worth $57 million to the Kings. He’s played less than 50 games in 2 of the last 3 seasons. Is a veteran presence, specifically his veteran presence on this young, non-contending team, really worth $57 million? They’re in no position to hire free agents at this point, so it seems Hill would strictly be there to provide stability while the young guys grow.
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@approxinfinity There are many signings I don’t get. The salary rules mystify me, too. Perhaps my lack of understanding of the rules has something to do with not understanding why these teams keep paying huge salaries to seemingly unproductive veterans?
I would love to see the salary rules and free agent rules simplified to just a hard floor and a hard cap. Let the teams suffer their own mistakes. Brilliant and careful planning could be rewarded. Players might go to a highest bidder, but might be giving up any chance for a ring.
No set salary figures for 1st yr players. Or, if teams don’t want to have to pay guaranteed contracts, let them forfeit their 1st rd draft pick for this and next year.
To avoid owners just trying to accumulate tax write-offs before selling a loser (as Loria is alleged to be doing in MLB), come up with a system where a 2-years-in-a-row bottom team moves to the G league or something.
Dreaming, dreaming, dreaming…
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I think they have to average a certain percentage of the salary cap being spent over the last 5 years, I think. That keeps players salaries rising and teams from not trying to compete.
I do think George Hill is a good person to have signed though. So is Randolph. Veteran presence that can show young guys how to compete in the league. Its good for Frank and Fox and the 5 young big men they have. I think it is probably the best move the Kings have made in a long time. They sign two standup vets and still should end up with a high draft pick.
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Hill is a very solid NBA starter. The Kings aren’t going anywhere right now, so they have to overpay a bit to get a player like Hill that could get a solid offer from a contender. The Hill contract is frontloaded, so as their younger guys improve they will have a chance to spend some of that money on those guys while Hill’s salary number drops.
The NBA has a salary floor that a team like the Kings needed some help to hit. Of the 17 guys the Kings have under contract, 8 are still on their rookie deals (not including Frank Mason, who will be added to the roster, likely in place of one of the other veterans, giving the Kings 9 guys on rookie deals). The Kings won’t be good right now, but they are giving themselves a chance to build something if they can develop their young guys.
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The major question I have in this George Hill deal is how motivated is he going to be if he’s here to groom Fox and to some extent Mason?
This looks like a classic take the big money, play some basketball and be on the lookout for your next destination because I think both sides know the Kings are not paying Hill to be their star player of the future.
This is a bad deal for Sacremento and a great deal for Hill.
The Kings are not going to be good but they have invested heavy in young talent (Cauley-Stein, Labissiere, Giles, Malachi Richardson and established College Players like Hield, Jackson and Frank.
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@BeddieKU23 think Giles will ever pan out?
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Crimsonorblue22 said:
@BeddieKU23 think Giles will ever pan out?
Tough call. For the hype he had out of HS pre-injury he wasn’t very good at Duke and for him to land as highly as he did was a risk/reward situation.
Scouts seemed to be pleased with him during the draft process and his knee’s were not red flagged during medical so that helps him. If he is able to continue to get over the injuries mentally and physically there is reason to think he can carve out a solid career. I always have concerns when an injury is the elephant in the room (like Embiid).
Probably a few years away from knowing where his career is headed. He didn’t land in a good spot for developing talent…
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George Hill? 57 million? Never thought I’d read those two in the same sentence. I barely pay attention to the NBA, but know enough I thought to be aware of the decent players. I’ve never heard of George Hill. I should have worked on my jumper…
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It’s crazy the big bucks average NBA guys are getting nowadays, while my wife and I work 3 between the 2 of us just to live indoors. This is the main reason I’m starting to dislike pro sports so much, the average player making more money than half the counties in the world. While they tax the living daylights outta the working man some of which goes to build fancy new stadiums so business owners can make even more. Kinda got of topic I guess, lol I think Hill is a decent player nothing more but he does have some young guys he could help on Kings roster.
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You should probably hate the owners, then. They are the one’s getting the tax breaks and such to build their stadiums/arenas and not move their teams to other places.
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@kjayhawks If you have any skills that would enable you to be one of the 400-800 most talented people in your profession, AND IF AND ONLY IF your profession is a field in which the general public is willing to pay double (or even triple) digit dollars to see you work, you could make huge amounts of money, too.
I am not bothered by the salaries of athletes or actors because their performances and successes/fails are visible to everybody. It is the hundred million salaries paid to corporate execs with millions more paid to get rid of them that bother me, as do the millions in greasing-each-others’-palms paid for corporate board memberships where they do nothing to control a company’s lavish self-indulgences. All those pretty offices with great commissioned sculptures and artwork? Deducted to a substantial extent, so taxpayers are subsidizing those things, too.
Unfortunately, the normal middle class earner toils in some job where thousands or millions of people could do the same thing. We couldn’t, however, hit MLB pitching at a .300 clip, nor could we consistently drive past Lebron or block out AD for a rebound or put a step-back move on Stefan for 3, or crash through 3 280 to 330 pound linemen for a TD. Most of us couldn’t even successfully act innocent getting caught grabbing an extra donut from the box, let alone be a convincing Jason Bourne or Forrest Gump. Guys who can do that maybe do not have unique abilities, but those are still special abilities.
An idea, though: Your thoughts are unique. Have you thought about writing to earn something extra? There is still a market for heartfelt memoirs, and a blog or even novelized account of your own journey in this topsy-turvy economy could be a grabber.
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@mayjay I’ve done some writing for sports in the past. Its just crazy to me the how much the cost of living has gone up and how much these guys make. I think that some day it will have to level out at some point. @justanotherfan I don’t hate anyone just crazy to me how much some people can make in the long run by playing a game or acting. It almost makes me laugh seeing some of the celebs weight in on stuff, them not know they are part of the problem not the solution and half of them owe on taxes lol.
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@kjayhawks " I think that some day it will have to level out at some point."
Uh, oh, that there is subversive talk! Ain’t no Commie, are you boy, beleeevin’ in them soshalist ideowlagies??
Just funnin’ ya! Gotta be careful mentioning anything about the top 10% reverting to the mean (they are listening–shhhhh!!!)…
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Haha I’m some where in between the democrat talk of socialism and the republican talk of lowering taxes. I agree with the Dems the cost of living is too high but realistically if everything is free in terms of healthcare and college, I will be homeless with the amount of tax dollars that will take. Doctors and teachers ain’t gonna work for free and they are businesses so that money needs to come in from somewhere. The republicans don’t think there is a problem outside of taxation, which taxation is a problem but its far from the only one. I’m just a simple working class american that wishes on of these politicians that claims to stop the war on the working folk actually does it one of these days. All I know is my taxes and my healthcare have gone up every year since I’ve been an adult (I’m 30) along with everything else while my pay has increased very little.
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@kjayhawks I am twice your age. In my adult life I have seen many things, but two things I have not seen are a good plan to provide everyone with a big tax cut while providing the same level of services, or any national long-term economic or environmental plan.
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@mayjay So the key is, what services can we cut? What things do we spend money on that we probably could go without doing?
Things like giving money to foreign countries? Paying farmer to NOT grow crops? Giving money to researchers for things that nobody ever needs to know? Giving out large loans to students while not regulating the cost of tuition at federally funded schools and seeing the number of defaults and write offs grow? Billions in salaries for government employees on administrative leave? Attempt to build large walls? Lower our debt so we don’t pay billions in interest on our trillions of dollars of debt? Spend $601 billion on our military even though we could easily just blow anyone who bothers us to smithereens, send in 10 highly trained men to assassinate almost anyone, have a draft if we absolutely HAD to and would solve any issues with another major power diplomatically? The $80 Billion we spend to imprison 1% of our people, half of whom are in for drug related crimes? The sad part is, the list goes on…
Really we never get to the necessities of what our government should provide with our tax dollars because of all of the stupid things we currently do spend them on.
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@Kcmatt7 Ah, there’s the rub. Good questions. I have no answer. This, young Jedi, is your task in the future, to ponder the paradox, and to fix the unfixable.
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@Kcmatt7 I agree a 100% Here’s some more food for thought, before 1913 americans paid no income but some how we still had schools and roads.The big difference to me is politicians like the Clinton and Bush families didn’t have net worths of 200 million dollars back then. I’m okay with paying a small percent of taxes to help but how much of it goes to politicians that work 25% of the year and are guaranteed hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from then til death? How much goes to guys like the one that lives across the road from me, that can ride 4 wheelers, fish and hunt on the days he not laying around playing X box but has some bogus disability that pays him obviously gods plenty to survive on, hell he just bought a $2000 smoker. Mean while I have clearanced 4 year old gas grill that I paid $80 for. To me its crazy they put the luxury tax on stuff like beer and tobacco so people will be less tempted to buy it or so they say. I think they are to doing to middle class working families, taxing them to the point where its better to not have a job.
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Keep in mind that over the las 3 seasons, Hill has played 43, 74 and 49 games. He s getting close to the end of his career and durability is a big concern. I think he is being way overpaid.
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JayHawkFanToo said:
Keep in mind that over the las 3 seasons, Hill has played 43, 74 and 49 games. He s getting close to the end of his career and durability is a big concern. I think he is being way overpaid.
Definitely, not that I wish injury upon anyone but if he does miss extended time then that bodes well for Mason getting experience during the season.
He is perhaps going to be the most overpaid player in the league but honestly would anyone really expect anything less from the Kings?
Putting aside all feelings about how they handled both T-Rob and B-Mac this has been one of the worst franchises in all of sports and while there does seem to be some positive change coming to SAC, giving Hill that kind of money is crazy.
Given all the inexperienced talent on the squad they had to pay some vets to groom these young fella’s. Vince Carter is 40, Hill has been on the decline for yrs, Zach Randolph is at the end of his career. These guys are padding retirement money.
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When Babe Ruth was asked if it was right that he made more money than the president he said “I had a better year than he did”.
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@kjayhawks Hell I’d be willing to pay even more in taxes if I knew it was money well spent and it would come back to me in one way or another. Things like education, better roads, more fuel efficient cars, clean air, truly free healthcare, etc.
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$57 million could buy you LeVeon Bell, one of the best running backs in the NFL, for 3 seasons. And that would be a ton more money than any other running back is making. Thats insane when you think about the punishment running backs take. George Hill made a sound financial choice of sports.
