Restricted, unrestricted, qualifying offers, matching, what does it all actually mean? Is there something bigger in play?

There had been discussion around the Kings community for some time about the possibly acquisition of the Knick’s Nate Robinson, discussion that most remember began before the trade deadline last February. The appeal of Robinson is obvious: he’s a brass scorer who never backs down and a former dunk champion who talks trash and catches fire despite his short stature. Robinson is the type of crowd igniter that Arco lives for, and the thought of him becoming Bobby Jackson with a windmill probably sounds pretty enticing to Kings fans. Yet the Kings have passed so far and have no indication of signing him. Without divulging into that decision too much (done well by Zach a few days ago), his contractual situation brings to light another trend that has defined this off season: restricted free agency. This off-season has seen some interesting plays by teams both retaining RFAs and making moves for them, ranging from huge pay raises (Marin Gortat staying in Orlando), over paying for someone else’s players (Jarrett Jack moving to the Raptors) and ongoing sagas (the Knicks Robinson, and David Lee). Whereas almost all the unrestricted free agents were picked up in the beginning of free agency, almost all the restricted ones sat by quite phones, and some still do. Bucks PG Ramon Sessions had a breakout year in 2008-09 and hasn’t even entered his prime yet, isn’t that the type of player worth spending’ long-term money on? Is it more drama with team’s finances? How can a promising player like Lee whose proven to be productive remain unsigned while guys like Rasheed Wallace and Brandon Bass are getting their name called by championship contenders and the Kings are signing undersized, injury ridden former college stars?

Free agency is pretty easy to understand, but a player with “restricted” status has a little wrinkle that complicates his situation. Restricted free agency is granted to players following the fourth year of their rookie contract and free agents who have been in the league three of fewer seasons. The one caveat of having your free agent restricted though is you must offer him a “qualifying offer” i.e. a one year contract at 125% of the previous one. Rookie contracts are based on draft position, which explains why some qualifying offers are so low, like David Lee’s. If a team chooses not to extend the qualifying offer that player becomes an unrestricted free agent. This happened with the Buck’s a Charlie Villenueva, allowing him to go to Detroit without any interference from Milwaukee, something Joe Dumars thought was a good thing.

Once a team extends this qualifying offer they have the right to “match” any offer given to the RFA over the course of free agency by other teams. If a RFA signs with a new team, its not a contract initially but called a “offer sheet”, and the original team has 7 days to agree to pay the player the contract the other team stipulated and he has subsequently agreed to. There is no back and forth negotiation between the teams, so if a player signs an offer sheet and it’s matched, that is his new contract. Teams don’t need the RFA’s permission to match, and this can lead to tough situations, as with Marcin Gortat who probably would prefer to start for Dallas than backup Dwight Howard in Orlando.

Because of this system restricted free agency becomes sort of a poker game, because teams have limited opportunities to obtain these players, most of whom are very young. Players can sign extensions before becoming restricted free agents (like LeBron and D-Wade) or teams can offer restricted free agents maximum qualifying offers (a max contract) that essentially guarantees they keep their player, which is what Brandon Roy wants Portland to do before next off-season. Strategy is crucial to this process, because teams are incurring risk when offering a contract or matching an offer sheet, due to the nature of RFA market value. It’s difficult to know what offer a team would match, and what offer they wouldn’t. This is complicated by the fact that teams looking to steal RFAs have effectively one chance to do it. Thus deciphering the right amount for an RFA is difficult, and two fold. Underpay, and you’ve just opened the door for the original team to retain their player at a discount price while also ruining your chance at getting a player you wanted. Overpay, and you’ve essentially outbid yourself out of fear for being matched. The market value of a player is what someone is willing to pay them, not necessarily what they sign for. Just because A-Rod is getting paid $275 million doesn’t mean that’s his market value, it just means it’s what the Yankee’s value him at. If a couple other teams offered him that same contract, it is his market value. This is what makes restricted free agency so important for original teams, they already have the player under contract and if they match on offer they can assume they have a built in market evaluation of the player’s worth. This doesn’t mean they have to sign him, but they’ve effectively just seen the river of the RFA poker hand, it’s then their choice if they’re in or not.

Bringing baseball into the discussion is interesting because a similar strategic situation unfolds with the posting system for international players. Red Sox’s fans will remember (now with some pain) their braintrust paying $51.11 million just for the exclusive right to negotiate with Daisuke Matsuzaka. We will never know what teams were willing to bid for the Japanese star, but its safe to assume that the Red Sox were bidding against themselves, especially in regards to the extra $1.11 million. Although their strategy is evident and they undoubtedly knew what they were doing, auctions do this to prices for scarce resources. In this case Dice-K was scare, and an auction for his value inflated the price. In essence restricted free agency can do the same thing. Team’s effectively bidding against themselves in auction-like situations like this is a constant issue in sports labor negotiations, usually inflating the value for players and promoting lavish spending (examples are A-Rod’s infamous contract with the Rangers and maybe the Kings extensions of Beno and Cisco). If teams are submitting offers to players in hopes of outbidding the RFA’s original team, and this offer is matched, bidding has still occurred and the market value has been raised. This contract is viewed by other players, and affects their decisions with regards to their own contract. Last year Ben Gordon chose to take a qualifying offer because he felt he should have been paid like the other top RFAs of his class. Did this decision pay off?

Restricted free agency is a great evaluation of a team’s decision making, and exposes their player evaluation. Just because the Pacers wouldn’t match Jack’s contract doesn’t mean that he can’t justify it for the Raptors. Kings fans will remember Petrie stealing John Salmons away from the 76ers for a very reasonable salary, and considering his production for us and his role in our trade, it seems that was a wise RFA move for the Kings. Traditionally teams fear losing out on RFAs, and so more times than not retain them to save face and protect themselves. Sure, its nice for the Magic to have Gortat as a backup center, but some would argue that matching Dallas’ offer was as much about safeguarding a potential asset from other teams. Gortat has become a very expensive insurance policy, and in signing him to this contract the Magic have raised the contractual expectations of backup centers all over the NBA. Dallas and Orlando have changed the market. Was it worth doing this and signing Brandon Bass instead of retaining Hedo?

Most GMs are constantly worried about their jobs and rightfully so. One could sight many examples of decision making aimed at short term stability and marginal success to protect their position. Matching a team’s offer gives a GM a couple outs, to continue our poker analogy, because there is a precedent for the contract, and it ensures that he isn’t exploited by another team. But this kind of behavior raises the price of players. In this off season most teams have refused to do this, and the risk of signing a player and losing him scares teams off. An offer sheet counts against a team’s cap for a week, effectively halting their signing of other free agents. Teams aren’t wiling to play in this risky poker match with small stacks and a lot on the line.

Another huge reason that teams aren’t going after RFAs is because outside of a qualifying offer they must be signed to a multi year deal. The Kings are being smart in not tying up their 2010 cap space for a player like Robinson or even Lee. Sure it would be nice to grab one of them, or even someone like Marvin Williams, but it would also mean sacrificing next summer’s options. Additionally if they let RFAs sign qualifying offers, they will become free agents next year anyways. It’s never reassuring to fans for their team to have the potential to make moves to get better and not do them. The Kings have demonstrated throughout this off season, that it’s not about making a jump to a lower draft pick, it’s about creating a foundation to sustain success. Their restraint to not jump and try to simply save face and drum up some local support shows that the team has a plan and they are sticking too it. Would I have enjoyed little Nate dunking in his green jersey next season? Absolutely. But not at the cost of delaying our next trip to the playoffs. Over the next year almost every team will be preparing for this free agent bonanza (amidst economic hardship), and its going to give teams like the Kings many options, because these resources won’t be as scarce as before. Sure, it would be ideal to build around LeBron, but there are a bunch of guys that I would love to add to our current mix. The Kings will have the opportunity to go out and make a splash next year. The hope all Kings fans have is that they will bring their chips to the table.

When I was at the Blogs With Balls Conference in June, I met a lot of great people and fantastic, young writers. Some were established with legitimate writing/journalism jobs and some were just as established as yours truly. One of the people I finally got to meet was Jessica Camerato of WEEI in Boston. She covers the Boston Celtics on a daily basis for them and does an amazing job doing so.

Well, she just wrote a fantastic piece talking about Rajon Rondo’s progress and journey as a young point guard trying to figure out how to be successful in the NBA. Why does a piece on a Celtics player matter to Kings fans? Well, she spoke to Tyreke Evans about it and asked for his take on Rondo being an example for young point guards.

“He just goes out there and plays hard every game,” Sacramento guard Tyreke Evans told WEEI.com. “He goes out there, plays with his teammates, plays defense, gets to the basket. He does everything that his team needs him to do.”

And doesn’t that really just scream of what Kings fans want Tyreke Evans to do at the NBA level? Everybody wants him to be a team player and not just worry about his personal offense. He needs to be a more traditional point guard in many fans’ eyes, especially after the Kings passed on Ricky Rubio, someone who is assumed to be a potential star by excelling at the traditional point guard role. His defense has the potential to be consistently disruptive. He should be able to use pterodactyl wingspan to take lazy passes, high crossover dribbles and tip pull-up jumpers. And getting to the basket? We all know since his jumper is still a work in progress that he’ll be attacking the basket like Eddy Curry attacks the Hometown Buffet.

Rondo is a perfect example for someone like Evans. They share the same strengths and weaknesses heading into their rookie years. Except, Evans is a better scorer and a much bigger, stronger player. He won’t struggle the same way Rondo did his rookie year but at the same time, he’ll be able to use Rondo’s progress and example to learn how to play smarter, more controlled basketball. And if the Kings decide down the road to trade young assets for veterans that are able to win more games, he can similarly feed off of those veterans while maximizing what he does best on the court.

It took Rondo just two years to accomplish what iconic guards Jason Kidd and Steve Nash have yet to achieve. Now entering his fourth season, he already is looking to win title number two. Rondo’s near-instant success serves as an example for hungry guards looking to taste victory in the NBA.

“That’s big,” said Evans. “Going out there at an age like that, going out there and playing with KG, Ray Allen, those type of guys, and winning a championship, that’s pretty good.”

One thing I firmly believe is that you won’t find a hungrier, more determined guard in this draft class than Tyreke Evans. He has more to prove than anybody until Ricky Rubio comes over. And even then, he’ll still be having to prove himself as he develops and finds the balance between a scoring point guard and a more traditional point guard.

This video via Kings Connect of Tyreke Evans giving us a tour of his hotel room at the Palms when he was in Vegas for the Summer League.

Two things:

1) It’s really cool to see how his face lit up when he showed the camera his NBA contract. You could see the elation and how much that meant to him. Kind of gives you chills.

2) No offense to the Imperial Palace but you would never confuse my room in Vegas with the room Reke stayed in.

“Nate Robinson is signing with the Knicks for one year $5 million. That’s it. They get away with having him for a year at next to no real cost and nothing against their long-term plans of grabbing LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, and Wilt Chamberlain at age 23 thanks to a Bill and Ted type of occurrence. Why didn’t the Kings grab this guy? He’d be perfect for us!!! – Disgruntled Dave

I received this email over the weekend from a reader (and apparently, a disgruntled one at that) and felt like I immediately needed to talk Dave off of the ledge.

My favorite line in the movie Super Troopers is “desperation is a stinky cologne.”

It’s a great line to drop at many different instances in life and you can even replace desperation with virtually ANY other word and it still works at a high level (much like Denver running backs under Mike Shanahan or shooters in a Mike D’Antoni offense). And desperation gets NBA franchises in trouble when it comes to signing players because you fear your team isn’t good enough. You feel like you need someone because your roster either feels incomplete or lacking a certain “umph” to make games in January entertaining.

And perhaps that’s where Dave was with the Nate Robinson signing. Trust me, Kings fans; you DON’T want Nate Robinson on this team. Not that he isn’t a nice guy or a good basketball player but I’m not sure he would fill in the need off the bench that we assume he would. Signing Nate Robinson means that you’re probably hoping for best-case scenario, a poor version of Ben Gordon, and worst-case scenario, a wealthy Eddie House. But I don’t think you’re getting either player.

His scoring and made three-point field goals have risen in each of his four seasons. In fact, he enjoyed such a fantastic scoring season in the 2008-09 campaign (17.2 per) that he finished third in Sixth Man of the Year voting and was the third leading scorer amongst those receiving votes for the award. He also won the NBA’s first WWE style of All-Star Weekend Slam Dunk Contest when he was scriptedly (made it up) given the dunk title. So his value couldn’t be higher right now.

But I have no idea how he’d fit into the Kings and complement the other guards on the roster. One of the reasons he played so well is that he fits in nicely with D’Antoni’s chaotic schemes. He was asked to catch the defense off-guard on most possessions, which is shown by 57% of his shots coming in the first 10 seconds of the shot clock last season. He was easily set up by Chris Duhon’s distributor role and became one of more than a dozen players (Quentin Richardson, James Jones, Raja Bell) to have a career year in their first season under Mike D. He was allowed to jack a ton of three-point shots and in turn made over 100 for the first time in career.

Now, if you throw him out of D’Antoni’s system (and it’s easy to because he’s small and shaped perfectly for tossing) can he still be as effective? Before his season in a Pringles canister, he never had a PER over 15.3. Sure, he was only three years into his career at that point and still learning how to play the game at the NBA level but he still played with the same reckless abandon that he does now.

If you put him on the Kings roster and give him the reigns of instant offense off the bench, it severely cuts into your rotation and what you’re trying to build. As we’ve heard and I’ve mentioned roughly a thousand times, Tyreke Evans isn’t your traditional point guard. He’ll be a scoring style point guard, looking to get the free throw line and find guys when the defense collapses. He isn’t exactly going to create like Steve Nash did for D’Antoni and will look more like what Kevin Johnson did for the Suns. I don’t think that necessarily benefits a guy like Nate who will make his living on the perimeter.

Then you throw in the fact that Sergio Rodriguez’s minutes will have to be slashed, Cisco will then be playing almost exclusively at shooting guard when he’s on the floor and either Donte Greene, Omri Casspi, or Jon Brockman get shafted on minutes throughout the season because there’s a new guy getting 25-30 minutes every night and you have yourself too many players you’re trying to develop without any minutes.

Nate Robinson is a player you pick up if you’re the Kings on the verge of challenging for a playoff spot. Aside from the Kings making a huge acquisition of a veteran coupled with an explosion from Evans in his rookie season that puts him on that Kevin Durant list of players who are soon to take over this league at a young age, the Kings aren’t in position to gamble with giving a contract to a player like Nate Robinson. The Kings are following a plan here and roster patience like passing up on Nate Robinson will pay off down the road.

Rest easy, Disgruntled Dave.

Meet your 2009-2010 Sacramento Kings Dance Team via Kings Connect.

Pleasure to have you aboard for next season.

Tom Ziller weighs the options of Kings bringing in another center.

Sean May is not a center, and the Kings were thought to be bent on adding another center, therefore it stands to reason that the Kings may be looking to add a center in free agency. Even assuming Jon Brockman earns a roster spot (a virtual lock), the Kings could reasonably add one more guaranteed contract to bring the roster to 14. You wouldn’t be surprised if the team stayed at 13, but again the team has been rumored to be concerned with center depth.

Barring trades — and thus barring Kyrylo Fesenko, who to be quite honest has been a spectre of one Salt Lake City newspaper, which has only tied Fes to Sac by virtue of Fes’s relationship with Jason Levien — who can be had?

I’m inventing some parameters for this investigation.

* Age. Fabricio Oberto rumors aside, you assume the team would rather add a younger player than an older player.

* Reputation. No bad seeds needed, thankyouverymuch.

* Price. I urge you to have faith in my hunch the Kings will not be spending big for a back-up center.

All that said, here are the guys I’d place atop my heap.

I am all for joining Tom on the “Bring Rod Benson to Sacramento”campaign.

Photo from NBA.com and then horribly edited by me

This video from the good folks at Sactown Royalty.

And this one I found on Youtube.

Don’t make him tell you again!

UPDATE: I’m an idiot. I didn’t even see that StR linked to the second video on the post. Nice work, eyes.

He could have been doing this for Metro PCS if the Kings had kept him.

The Sacramento Kings continue to be at the forefront of media content and finding a way to feed the obsession and passion of their fans.

They’ve been ahead of the curve as far as all forms of team media. They have interviews by Andrew Nicholson at a very impressive rate. They have an impressive presence with YouTube videos. They have the Kings Connect website that gives you perspectives and voices from all types of people involved with the team and organization.

And now, they have a site dedicated to aggregating every single bit of Kings content from the web into one central hub.

Check out the Around the Net section of the Kings Connect site and be prepared to bookmark and drool. Your Kings information has been centralized.

And don’t forget to follow the some of the people responsible for it on Twitter. Mitch Germann and Andrew Nicholson.

While you’re at it, follow me too.

NBA comparisons are always a tricky thing.

We always assume that players want to be the next [insert NBA great here].

Michael Jordan was the next Julius Erving. LeBron James was supposed to be the next Jordan then the next Magic Johnson and then the next Oscar Robertson. Carmelo Anthony was going to be the next Bernard King. Kobe Bryant was obviously going to be the next Anti-Christ.

Whatever the comparison has been, it’s always been the next someone. We never assume that anybody wants to be the first Dwyane Wade, Dwight Howard, or Vernon Maxwell. So we immediately try to find a comparison for Tyreke Evans. I, myself, have compared him to a mixture of Gerald Wallace and Ron Artest. Others have compared him to LeBron James and Derek Rose. But none of those comparisons are completely accurate.

With Tyreke Evans, the closest player we’ve seen with his size trying to come into this league and play point guard is Boris Diaw. When Boris came stateside, he was a 6’8”, 200 lbs point guard trying to find a place for his (at times) awkward game. However, Evans is about three inches shorter, 20 lbs heavier and a much more aggressive player than Diaw has ever been.

People really want to compare him to LeBron James because of the size comparisons and because both guys can be bulls at Pamplona when attacking the paint. Unfortunately, the two things that greatly set LeBron James from Reke are James’ athleticism and passing ability. You simply can’t compare Tyreke to LeBron because Tyreke is not a gifted passer. He’s barely a marginal passer who just happens to have the ball in his hands so much that people have dubbed him an oversized point guard. We forget that when LBJ entered the league, he had been consumed with highlight dunks, Hummers, magazine covers, and making plays for his teammates. He was unselfish to a fault until he finally adjusted his game to be selfish and yet still be a playmaker.

That isn’t to say that Evans is selfish by any means. He’s just never been asked to distribute to his teammates as much. He doesn’t really have that internal reminder ticking constantly, showing him the passing lane to find the shooter on the perimeter or the cutter on the weak side. In high school, he was bigger, tougher, more athletic, and better than everybody on the court, every game. He averaged 29 points and six assists per game in his senior year at American Christian High School. He was a scoring point guard then and went to Memphis to continue that style.

He even stated when he made his decision to attend Memphis that the reason he chose the Tigers over Villanova was because of John Calipari’s offense. What is John Calipari’s offense, you ask? It’s everything that you saw Evans do this summer. Memphis employed the “Dribble-Drive” offense under Calipari and it proved to work wonders for Derek Rose and Evans. Evans was never asked to run a motion offense or play off of backdoor picks. His job was attack the basket, get by his man, and get to the hoop. Sounds simple enough but you have to remember that this kind of play creates a one-on-one war and rarely manufactures pure point guard.

Now what’s the point of all this? I think the point is the comparisons to guys like LeBron James and Ron Artest are a little unfounded and lazy (yes, I just called myself lazy). In all actuality, we’ve never seen a guy like Evans. After watching him over the course of 151 minutes this summer, it’s safe to say that he’s not the next anything; he’s the first Tyreke Evans.

Overall, his play as a point guard was a mixed bag of emotions. There were times when he attacked the basket, sucked the help defenders in and did a wonderful job of keeping a dump-down pass to Jason Thompson high so he could go straight to the basket with it for the score. But there were also plenty of basic passes to players on the wing that were too low for a clean catch, which resulted in unforced turnovers. We all reveled in his ability to get to the basket and either finish or find his way to the free throw line. But we also cringed when he took enough outside jumpers that it dropped his overall field goal percentage for the Las Vegas Summer League to 40.3% on 13.4 field goal attempts per game.

His ability to score and score at the NBA level was proved, even though it was never really questioned. But for a team with a promising and proven shooting guard, the question with Evans was “why take him if you need a point guard and everyone thinks he isn’t a point guard?”  The answer? He was presumably the best player available and when you have a 17-win roster, you should be trying to get the best players and figure out positions later. Evans finished 10^th in the VSL in scoring at 19.2 points per but was clearly less aggressive on offense in the final two games of the summer.

His rebounding numbers and performance were a pleasant surprise for a team that prays to be tougher inside as they rebuild. Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson are solid rebounders at their respective positions and Andres Nocioni and Donte Greene have the potential to be respectable in that aspect of the game as well. But adding a point guard to the mix who can crash the defensive boards, turn around, and begin the fast break makes every part of the Kings attack that much more dangerous.

As for his defense, it was very encouraging, especially for this Kings team who hasn’t had a decent defensive point guard in more than a decade. They’ve been constantly trying to hide guys like Jason Williams and Mike Bibby with the Doug Christie’s of the world as the only means to stopping ball penetration from the top of the key. However, with Evans that doesn’t look to be an issue anymore. Despite his giant stature for the point guard position, he’s quick enough and a smart enough defender to cut off angles of his opponent heading to the basket. When his opponent does start to beat him to the spot with foot speed, he knows how to reposition his body to cut off penetration. This is something that Kings fans will fall in love with.

The only real criticism of his defense that I can come up with is that he doesn’t do a great job of closing out on shooters. He isn’t bad at it; he just isn’t lightening quick either. There were times when you definitely wanted him to force guys like Brandon Jennings to shoot long-range jumpers but he needs to be a bit better at baiting those guys into the shots, while at the same time making them a little more contested.

Overall, we know what the Kings have with Tyreke Evans. He’s a dynamic scorer who will create loads of matchup problems for opposing teams. He’s simply too big for small guards to defend (especially when they put him in the post, which I know we’ll see more of) and he’s too quick for many of the bigger guards to stay in front of. He’s a solid defender who could be one of the best in the NBA and he’ll always be a threat for triple-doubles with his rebounding ability and the amount of scorers he’ll be surrounded with.

But will he mesh well with guys like Kevin Martin?

Will he have to curb his game and comfortable style in order to make sure that Spencer Hawes and Jason Thompson get enough touches in the post to keep them happy and motivated?

Will he ever be a great point guard or will he just be a great guard (sounds to be nitpicking but it will matter in his maturation process with Kevin Martin by his side)?

Those are questions we have to wait for the regular season to answer. But we know now what the Kings have with the fourth selection in the 2009 NBA Draft.

They don’t need the next anybody; they have the first Tyreke Evans.