To close off this piece I want to be honest. If you were against Asik all together and wanted a new big man or a better option, I was just like you. I was in the camp that wanted a big name center like Greg Monroe or Deandre Jordan, but after thinking about Asik's new contract and going deeper than just the headlines, I found that Asik is better than I could've ever known. It just takes a little digging and you'll find what you need. Asik is one of the best rebounders on this team, one of the best defenders, and I'm glad I know that now. I'm happy I'm not unfairly criticizing someone for things I don't actually understand. I hope now that you have a change of heart about Asik, his game, and his fit on this team. That's what my goal is...to give the fans a reason to support the man because the fact remains that Asik's going to be here for the long run, so it's best to accept him now instead of down the line. Hopefully this turns out best for everyone. Asik might become one of the best centers we've had in our short history and hey, maybe we might just capture some nice hardware down the line too.
HE'S THE CENTER NEW ORLEANS DESERVES, BUT NOT THE ONE IT WANTS RIGHT NOW. SO WE'LL BLAME HIM, BECAUSE HE CAN TAKE IT. BECAUSE HE'S NOT OUR HERO. HE'S A SILENT PLAYER. A WATCHFUL RIM PROTECTOR. THE TURKISH HAMMER.
He may not be able to hit a layup, but he can defend and rebound. Those are qualities we need and more importantly, things that got us into the playoffs last season.
Before I jump right in I'll inform you that there are two very important parts to this. The first part consists mainly of why this was the smartest business decision and the second explains why this was the best basketball decision.
Right now, to best of knowledge, I'm the minority in thinking Asik's deal was a good decision, but unlike some, I understand why he received the deal he did and why he deserved it. I'm hoping that by the time you finish this article you will have changed your mind or at the very least have a different feeling about Asik and his large contract, so I'll ask you one thing before going on this venture with me....read with an open mind. Read without bias and maybe you'll understand where I'm coming from.
So without further ado, let's get this train rolling!
Most fans of this team and the NBA have a very vague understanding of how the business side of the NBA works, so that is why the the business side is the most important place to start. By reading this portion first, you'll have a better understanding of why the Pelicans were quick to give Asik a offer like this and how this effected the the team as a whole. There's a lot more interwebbing beyond just the contract itself. I don't even have the best grasp myself onhe vast and ever changing NBA and its contracts, but after some thorough research, I can give you a good explanation of the contract and the many things it effects in the long run.
If you don't have a great understanding of the NBA salary cap and would like to learn more, I'll supply a link to that at the bottom of the page.
Let's go ahead and look at the contract itself. This is a 5 year, 60 million dollar contract with the fifth and final year unguaranteed.
Yeah maybe we did bet against ourselves on this one, and yeah 12 million is a little too much, but you'll see how it all makes sense.
The most common word being thrown out there right now on Omer Asik and his contract is "overpaid". Now, I can see why you might say that. A guy who averaged 7.3 PPG should by no stretch of the imagination should get 12 million per year, but you see it's deeper than that. We'll get to the basketball side of this in a bit. The most important thing about all of this is that when we signed Omer Asik we guaranteed ourselves our flexibility for the rest of free agency. When we acquired Asik last offseason we also acquired Asik's bird rights. By acquiring someone's bird rights, we have the ability to go over the cap to sign someone. Another part of the "overpaid" assumption that doesn't make sense to me is that Omer's salary ranks 18th among starting centers. Once 2016 free agency comes around, he probably won't even be in the top 20 anymore. Yeah you heard it right, that 12 million dollar contract you called an overpay won't even rank among the top 20 in 2016. 12 million a year will look like a bargain as long as Asik produces the same as or better next year.
Another phrase that's getting put out there is "there were better options". Ok so let me explain how much money we would have to sign someone else. We would've had about 8 million to sign another center had we let Asik walk. Since I have the luxury of showing you how much these "other options" were paid, let's take a look. The two most talked about among fans were Kosta Koufos and Brandan Wright. I'm not including Deandre Jordan because we didn't have a chance with him to begin with. I won't include Robin Lopez (another center we were attached to) either because he signed for 13 million with New York and we wouldn't have been able to afford him at that price.
Brandan Wright- 3 yrs, 17 million
Kosta Koufos- 4 yrs, 32 million
We would've been able to afford one of them, but I'll explain why Asik is better than Wright later. Right now I'll explain why it would've been a horrible team decision to sign Koufos. Had we given him that 8 million and he accepted, we would've lost our mid-level exception, our bi-annual exception, and our ability to resign Alexis Ajinca and Luke Babbitt. All we would have left is our room exception. Last year we were able to sign John Salmons with room exception, and we all saw how he turned out. That's all we would've had to fill out our roster had we given Koufos our 8 million in cap room. Imagine a bench full of John Salmons quality players. I don't want to imagine that either.
Another important aspect of the contract is that the fifth year is unguaranteed. And opposing GMs LOVE unguaranteed deals, which makes Asik a pretty valuable trade chip in the future of everything doesn't turn out to be so rosy later on.
Even with us giving Asik 12 million a year, we will still have has much flexibility next year as any other team and will still be able to give a player a max contract in 2016 free agency.
The signing of Asik was the best business decision overall. You see with the signing of Asik, we were able to keep the flexibility of filling out our roster. Would you rather have Asik, Perkins, Gee, Ajinca, Babbitt, and most likely Cole, or Kosta Koufos and a bunch of John Salmons'. That's not a hard decision.
Hopefully now you see how the contract worked out best for everyone involved. Even if your still iffy on Asik, just wait till the season starts because I have a good feeling about him. I have a hunch he'll really succeed under Gentry. So let's hope this contract turns out to look like a real bargain in the future.
In the last part, I'm sure you saw how I put off some questions, and now is the time for those to be answered.
I want you to REALLY appreciate Asik, and to do that I'm going to have to take you on a little field trip first. To truly understand Asik's impact on this team, we're going to have to take a few steps back into the past. Not that I want to look back on the most painful season I ever had as a basketball fan, but it's integral to seeing how big Asik's impact really was. That season is the 2013-2014 season, the Pelicans inaugural season, a time when Greg Stiemsma and Jason Smith manned the paint. Tough times. That season the team averaged 30.3 defensive rebounds and ranked 25th in the league. When Omer was around, we bumped up to 32 rebounds per game and jumped to 19th in the league. That's a vast improvement in my book. In 2013 Anthony Davis averaged a little over 10 rebounds, and the next best rebounder was Ryan Anderson with 6.5. The next season, Anthony Davis still led the team with a little over 10, but Asik was close behind with 9.8 defensive rebounds per game. Another nice stat about Asik's rebounding is that he was seventh in the whole league for rebounding with 9.8.
Omer Asik's real value to the team comes in no other form than defense. In 2013 this team finished 26th in the league with a 107.3 Defensive rating, and the next season we jumped to 22nd. This is, however, not seen as an improvement by fans overall and is often used as a reason why Asik didn't add anything to this team defensively, but if you dig deeper into the stats, you will see that Omer's numbers only improve the deeper you dig. In the first half of this season New Orleans had a 105.5 defensive rating, and in the second half, that number went to 101.2. That's a obvious improvement. Another thing to look at is his on/off percentages. While Asik was on the floor the Pelicans averaged a 103.3 defensive rating and when he was off the floor the Pelicans defensive rating got worse and went up to 106.2. Another stat that probably led management to keeping Asik was the teams defensive rating when he and Anthony Davis were on the floor. That rating was a 100.5, which would be sixth in the league. That leads us to one conclusion. Every player beyond Davis, Asik, and arguably Pondexter is bad at defense. These defensive rating aren't just compiled from Omer Asik's stats, their compiled from the teams stats. Fans just don't seem to get that. Another thing they don't seem to understand is that Omer can only do so much. He's one player, it's not like he could've magically brought up our defense to 1st in the league just like that. In my opinion, Asik did everything he could with such a defensive mess around him.The real blame shouldn't be on Asik for only bringing the rating up 4 spots. If you want to see real improvement, we're going to have to hope the other players beyond Asik and Davis get better defensively.
I said I would bring up this player later and now is that time. That player is Brandan Wright. He was popular among sports writers and fans alike, but I'm just going to have to kill him statistically. People wanted Wright because of his athleticism and offensive capabilities, but if you look deeper you will see Wright is no better than Asik on offense. He actually averaged less points! 7.0 compared to Asik's 7.3. Wright can't even rebound for a 7 footer and has never averaged more than 3 rebounds per game. Even though he played less minutes, only about 4 to be exact, he still probably wouldn't have mustered better numbers. And just one more thing on this dilemma, what better to truly complicate things more than another player begging for the ball on offense. We already have Jrue, Gordon, Evans, and Davis. That's another small but very important reason why Asik is perfect. HE DOESNT ASK FOR THE BALL. On a team full of ball hungry guards and Anthony Davis, why would we need a offensively gifted center. This is also why we wouldn't have needed Deandre Jordan. He would've created an offensive mess.
Another popular idea among fans was starting Anthony Davis at Center and Ryan Anderson at Power Foward. Yes, that is a amazingly offensively powered front line, but just like the faults in Brandan Wright, the faults with this lineup begin and end with defense. Ryan Anderson is just not good at defense, especially in the post. There's other problems with that lineup beyond defense and that is the bench. If the starting lineup consists of Holiday, Gordon, Evans, Anderson, and Davis....who's leading off the bench? Please don't tell me our main scoring spark off the bench would be Dante Cunningham. Ugh. The other problem is Anthony Davis himself. He doesn't want to start at center, and he's said that himself and to be completely honest, I don't think he would be able to put up the numbers he usually does if he gets put at center. Davis is a beast and the beast needs to be unleashed, not locked away in the deep dark depths of Marc Gasol's brick wall-like defense. I hope that gave a good idea of why Davis won't be starting at center any time soon.
One last proposal among fans was the idea of Alexis Ajinca starting at center next season and to be completely honest I was behind that at first....until I dug deeper. Unfortunately what I found was....ALEXIS AJINCA IS TERRIBLE AT BEING 7 FEET TALL. What I found was that Ajinca has never averaged more than 5 rebounds per game and thats a problem because at 7'2, he shouldn't have much trouble putting his hands up and catching a ball. Ajinca is not good at defense either and even though he is a good offensive player, we can't afford to have his defensive liabilities as a starter. I like Ajinca and I'm glad he'll be back next season, but I'm happier he'll be back on the bench.
Asik's defensive capabilities are limitless and he's a smart and efficient defender who's abilities make this team leaps and bounds better on that end of the floor. I'm happy with what he's brought to this team and I'm even more excited for what he can bring in the future.
BY HUNTER HELMS
More information on the NBA salary cap: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NBA_salary_cap