A Cautionary Tale

It was a fairly nonsensical position even at the time, but one that became downright laughable last July when the NBA released figures for the 2009-10 NBA salary cap, which came down by $1 million from the previous year, while simultaneously issuing an ominous warning that the cap number for 2010-11 would plummet much more dramatically.

The Pistons had just days earlier come to agreements in principle with Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, which struck some Pistons fans with visions of LeBron James and Chris Bosh donning Pistons blue as deflating news.

Now that Gordon and Villanueva are bumping along at numbers not only well off their career norms, but in many cases approaching or undercutting career lows, the view that Dumars should have sat on his money last July is gaining steam.

On NBA TV’s telecast of the Pistons-Celtics game on Tuesday, Kevin McHale – who could write the book on cap mismanagement – apparently jumped on the pile: “A cautionary tale of all GMs that have a few bucks in their pocket,” McHale is reported to have said. “Sometimes it’s better not to spend it. They spent it on Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva, two nice players but not players who are going to be able to carry your team. They are nice complementary players.”

We’ll analyze the merits of Gordon and Villanueva’s signings in a moment, but let’s get this out of the way first: Hoarding the money would not – N-O-T – have resulted in the Pistons getting in on the LeBron sweepstakes this summer.

Not unless Dumars spent the rest of last summer and all of this season up to the February trade deadline doing what the Knicks, Nets, Heat, Bulls and others did – looking for avenues to further dump contracts and pare down to the bone.

Let’s pretend Dumars did just that last summer, after trading Billups and sending away Amir Johnson, Walter Sharpe and Arron Afflalo to create further cap room. Let’s pretend he signed no one – not Gordon, not Villanueva, not Chris Wilcox, not even Ben Wallace.

The Pistons still would be on the hook for roughly $35 million in contracts to seven players for next season: Rip Hamilton ($12.7 million), Tayshaun Prince ($11.1 million), Jason Maxiell ($5 million), Rodney Stuckey ($2.7 million), Austin Daye ($1.8 million) and Jonas Jerebko and DaJuan Summers (about $1.5 million combined). Now let’s project the Pistons to be picking somewhere in the middle of the lottery and give them a cap hold of $2 million for their first-round pick. Add another $2 million for the four minimum-salary slots needed to bring the roster to the minimum of 12 for computing the cap space they would have.

We’re up to $39 million – and that’s assuming the Pistons renounce their rights to Will Bynum, which they surely do not intend to do.

So no Gordon, no Villanueva, no Bynum and the Pistons would have about $14 million under the projected 2010-11 cap of $53 million. You need more than $16 million to be able to offer a max contract to the premier free agents.

We can all agree that LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh are the three no-brainers who’ll command max dollars – though I’ll allow for some sentiment that if Bosh is going to take up one-third of a team’s salary-cap allotment, you’d better have a bunch of players outperforming their contracts in order to be a serious contender.

The next wave of free agents includes Joe Johnson, Amare Stoudemire and Carlos Boozer. With as many as seven teams with the space to offer max contracts, two of them likely having the wherewithal for two such deals, there are nine potential max contract offers lurking this summer. That would have put the Pistons in position to secure no better than the No. 10 free agent available.

Read Part II of 'A Cautionary Tale'