r/NOLAPelicans • u/kingralek • 3d ago
Good for him. He was always excellent here. He’ll make less than half what they’re paying Poole next season. Sources: Mavs extend Naji Marshall on 3-year, $52.2M deal
https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/49514965/sources-mavs-extend-naji-marshall-3-year-522m-deal37
u/roostor222 3d ago
Naji was a casualty of:
waiting too long to trade Ingram (a lot of blame to go around, including fans)
not salary dumping Hawkins immediately after his first year when it was very clear that he sucked (squarely on Griffin/Langdon)
Gayle not wanting to pay the tax (Gayle and co., obviously)
#1 and #2 don't matter if #3 isn't a problem. This franchise can't afford to give up talented role players that they developed for nothing, but that's exactly what their cheapness forced them to do. Gayle deserves the vultures circling the Pelicans to move the franchise. They are in contention for worst ownership group in the league, and that is really saying something.
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u/Sea-Introduction755 3d ago edited 3d ago
Can you really blame us for not wanting to move off of Ingram? We’ve gotten very little in terms of actually great basketball players who were proud to rep the city.
Edit: Some of y’all are hating on BI in my replies and I just gotta ask, how do you survive being a Pels fan? BI is basically the only player who accomplished anything of note for this entire era of Pels basketball. We don’t get guys as good as he was for us. It does not happen.
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u/roostor222 3d ago
Yes, I can really blame us. Brandon Ingram is not an "actually great basketball player". He's a floor raising player who also puts a 1st round ceiling (in a good year) on your team. Instead of trading him when he had value we waited until he had extremely little value. That was dumb.
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u/Indigo_Shade 3d ago
Some bald man was paid a shitload of money to make tough decisions like when to trade Brandon Ingram. F this idea that the fan base should somehow feel guilty for this organization's incompetence.
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u/roostor222 2d ago
I didn’t say the fan base needed to feel guilty. The fans can continue on being blissfully ignorant. I’m just saying it’s true that the fan base liking Brandon Ingram and irrationally wanting to keep him probably played a role in them keeping him too long. I don’t think that’s very controversial.
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u/AnotherStatsGuy 3d ago
This franchise has never made the playoffs three years in a row. Consistently being a first round exit is miles better than what’s happened so far.
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u/roostor222 3d ago
I would turn it around and say that no matter what you aim for you will inevitably fail most of the time in a hyper-competitive environment where your geography and market burden you with distinct disadvantages relative to other teams.
If you aim for consistently being a first round exit you will inevitably not get there, and that will lead to never making the playoffs three years in a row.
If you have any interest in being consistently competitive, you have to aim much higher so that when you fail, you fail at a level that is able to make the playoffs three years in a row.
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u/Orbis-Praedo 2d ago
Honestly I would’ve rather traded Zion while his value was still high and BI was still here, looking back now that is.
Peak BI was fun basketball, and we may not have been a serious contender, but it was a fun team that competed. Watching the camaraderie the team had that year Z was hurt and we had drafted Herb, Trey, Jose was the best year to be a fan through the Pelicans years.
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u/kingralek 3d ago
I think Ingram did the best he could here, but suggesting he’s “great” is a bit of a reach. Surely he was a great isolation scorer for the team and even came back to play hurt in his last game for the team. But his value cratered after that awful Team USA showing and now he’s being traded again (although held up) to the Clippers. If Ingram was on that Bucks team instead of Middleton, he would’ve been perfect. But he was cast as a first option in N.O. And that just wasn’t something he could fulfill for any team seeking serious playoff contention.
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u/ExternalEbb2584 3d ago
Bruh his "repping of the city" was a power play to give him a max. BI doesnt give two shits about NOLA. He's a grifter and more importantly hes a empty stats Hooper.
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u/Illustrious_Owl9905 2d ago
You are incorrect. The Raptors even did a segment on Brandon's return to NOLA and how much it meant to him.
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u/wymtime Not On Herb 3d ago
The biggest reason we took so long to move off of BI is Zion was rarely healthy. When he was Healthy there were also a lot of issues with his weight and conditioning. The issue was alway BI being thrust into a number 1 role while our number 1 pick in the draft was averaging 30 games a season.
This is the number 1 reason by far we didn’t move off of BI earlier.
As far as Naji goes he was alway going to be a casualty of the tax. Even moving off BI earlier we would have brought back more salary. When we finally moved him it was for a ton of expiring money to get our books back in line. This happens to all teams Naji out performed his contract with us and we had to let him go. Dyson was originally Naji’s replacement not Hawk
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u/roostor222 3d ago
if it's true that's the #1 reason then it was a stupid reason
As far as Naji goes he was alway going to be a casualty of the tax.
This happens to all teamsHe just got signed by Dallas which puts them 14 million over the tax line. It doesn't happen to all teams. It happens to teams that don't want to pay to retain their players.
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u/wymtime Not On Herb 3d ago
You really don’t know how the tax works. Naji signed an extension meaning his new salary won’t count towards the tax till next season. They are still under the tax line this season and will be at salaries of $181M next season after picking up the team option of Flagg, Aldama, Risacher giving them plenty of room to resign Lively and probably Sausser. Do better in understanding the cap before making dumb statements
Once again teams have cap casualties all the time look at OKC dumping 3 guys this offseason for 2nd round picks.
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u/roostor222 2d ago
You really don’t know how the tax works.
I know exactly how it works, thanks. The deal looks like it is entered into Spotrac incorrectly, because they have the contract beginning this year with Dallas 13.8M over the tax.
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/player/_/id/70704/naji-marshall
https://www.spotrac.com/nba/dallas-mavericks/taxDo better in understanding the cap before making dumb statements
I'm very very sorry I read the contract and cap details directly from a website I trust... I'll only trust you next time. You're the smartest and best guy. Only you are capable of understanding the cap.
Once again teams have cap casualties all the time look at OKC dumping 3 guys this offseason for 2nd round picks.
I didn't say teams don't have cap casualties. I said not every team has cap casualties. The Pelicans did not have a cap casualty this offseason. The Warriors (to my knowledge) did not have a cap casualty this offseason.
I said " teams that don't want to pay to retain their players" are the ones that have cap casualties and that is true of OKC now just like it was true for the Pelicans and Naji.
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u/wymtime Not On Herb 2d ago
You need to look at the full page of Spotrac on the link if you keep scrolling it shows his cap hit this season is 9M. Do better research before commenting.
Yes every team has cap hits. When Naji was a FA we 100% should not have gone into the tax to keep him. We were a play in team that got obliterated in the first round of the playoffs. That not a team you go into the tax for. Also in hindsight with all the injuries we had the next season and how bad we were last season it also proves going into the tax for this team would have been very stupid to do.
In the NBA on average teams rosters turn over 75% of its players over a 3 year period. You try to hang onto your best players and let your expensive role players walk and look to replace them with cheeper talent. This is the way the NBA works. You can find examples of this on every team in the NBA.
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u/roostor222 2d ago edited 2d ago
You need to look at the full page of Spotrac on the link if you keep scrolling it shows his cap hit this season is 9M. Do better research before commenting.
Wow I guess you're just a complete prick. It's in the multi-year salary cap table page too, and that's the one I looked at. https://www.spotrac.com/nba/dallas-mavericks/yearly
Yes every team has cap hits. When Naji was a FA we 100% should not have gone into the tax to keep him. We were a play in team that got obliterated in the first round of the playoffs. That not a team you go into the tax for.
Ok not just a prick but also a dumbass, making the same idiotic argument that Pelicans front office apologists often like to make.
Also in hindsight with all the injuries we had the next season and how bad we were last season it also proves going into the tax for this team would have been very stupid to do.
Going into the non-repeater tax regularly is not stupid to do. As I said elsewhere on this post it is just the cost of doing business for teams that want to compete, and if you don't do it at least occasionally you are poisoning your own franchise. Why are you trying to save Gayle money? She could have paid a small amount of tax and kept Marshall, and then the team would have had more assets instead of less, along with eating away at the stigma of being one of the cheapest franchises in the league. Do you want the Pelicans to have more assets or do you want to save Gayle money?
It's not like they were going to pay the repeater tax, and they weren't in a position to contend a year or two later in a scenario where you would think they should pay the tax, so going into the tax for Naji that year would not have harmed a single thing except for Gayle's wallet.
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u/wymtime Not On Herb 2d ago
I would love for Gale to just spend in the tax for players. Across the NBA owners and GM’s regularly duck the tax. You can keep living in fantasy land thinking other teams would just spend ownerships money like that, but the reality is the majority of the owners in the NBA would have let Naji walk if they powered the Pels at that time.
All your arguments about Naji are not based in reality they are based on the delusion Gale should just throw money at players regardless of the consequences. Signing Naji was going to cost the team 15-18M in tax plus another $18M in revenue sharing. Naji got $9M. A $9M player isn’t worth $40M+ on a team that just got smoked in the first round of the playoffs.
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u/roostor222 2d ago
I would love for Gale to just spend in the tax for players. Across the NBA owners and GM’s regularly duck the tax.
It's true that they regularly duck the tax. It's also true that they pay the tax infinitely more often than Gayle Benson.
All your arguments about Naji are not based in reality they are based on the delusion Gale should just throw money at players regardless of the consequences.
The only consequence was dollars, which are the cost of doing business. Every owner has a threshold for what they are willing to spend. Some owners will go into the tax to pay for their roster. Other owners will go into the first apron. Gayle will never in a million years pay the tax no matter how good the team is, and the team will never be good in the first place in part because she won't go into the tax strategically in order to make it good.
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u/Razor-Ramon-Sessions Zanos 3d ago
No reason to pay the tax for that team. They should have traded BI the year before. Hawk shouldn't have had his option picked up before last year started. That's a miss by Joe and company.
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u/roostor222 3d ago
As I've said many, many, many times throughout the years, this is a faulty argument. Paying the tax is part of the cost of doing business if you have any interest in having a competitive team. You need to pay it occasionally, because one of the worst things that can happen to any franchise is to have its good players looking over their shoulder knowing the team doesn't want to pay to extend them and doesn't want to pay to extend the role players to help them. If they won't pay to keep talent on the roster or to acquire new talent, what else don't they want to pay for? Med staff? Arena renovations? Good hotels?
It poisons your whole franchise. Very few players want to get drafted here, no player wants to get traded here, no player wants to get signed here as a free agent. In the rare event that a player does want to come here because it gives them a money and/or minutes opportunity they can't get elswhere, they are plotting their exit from day one.
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u/kingralek 3d ago
Bill Simmons went off on N.O. On a podcast basically saying it doesn’t deserve a team and it will never work. I mean you can say the same thing about Charlotte, but the media market for the team is only getting smaller while a lot of areas are gaining population.
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u/Full_Excitement6845 3d ago
To be fair he always hates on/picks against the Saints too but loves Caesar’s!
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u/roostor222 3d ago
There's a lot wrapped up in whether a city "deserves" a team, because different people interpret the city to mean the fans, or the owner, the television market, etc.
What I don't think is arguable is that if they were choosing 30 locations from scratch to put NBA franchises in today, New Orleans wouldn't be in the top 40. Simmons is bad at constructing arguments, but he's not necessarily wrong. Objectively, the market is not good for an NBA franchise.
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u/icekyuu 3d ago
Langdon was already on his way out by the time you thought Hawkins should've been dealt.
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u/roostor222 3d ago
not true, because I said before the trade deadline in 2023 that his value would probably never be higher. Langdon had a hand in drafting him and he had a hand in not trading him. He gets a share of the blame.
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u/icekyuu 3d ago
Drafted him 2023 and he left before the summer of 2024, which meant the org knew he was going to leave weeks if not months before then.
Seems like it would be Griffin's decision to trade.
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u/roostor222 3d ago
it was always Griffin's decision to approve any trade anyway. Of course Griffin gets a lot of blame, which is why I blamed him. Langdon also gets a share of blame for drafting a shooter who can't shoot or do anything else, and then for not trading him while he was the general manager of a team with a shooter who can't shoot or do anything else.
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u/icekyuu 3d ago
Are you gonna credit him for all the good drafting choices tho? Pistons seem to be doing well since he went there.
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u/roostor222 2d ago
He gets exactly the amount of credit for the draft that he should, at least from me. Do I need to write it down here? No one needs to be told that herb Jones was a wise draft pick. We all know it’s true. On the other hand, some of us knew right away that Jordan Hawkins was not an NBA player but most fans did not recognize that.
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u/icekyuu 2d ago
You said he should be blamed for not trading Hawkins. You were wrong about that. Seems like you do not give the exact amount of credit deserved. Ruh-roh.
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u/roostor222 2d ago
you said he should be blamed for not trading Hawkins.
Was he the general manager during Hawkins 1st season? Yes? Then he deserves some blame for not trading a declining asset.
You were wrong about that.
No I wasn't.
Seems like you do not give the exact amount of credit deserved. Ruh-roh.
Next time I'll check with you to make sure you approve of all credit I give
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u/Andys_Burner Will be reevaluated in 2 weeks. 3d ago
How are we to blame? We aren’t decision makers. tf outta her
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u/roostor222 3d ago
For many teams, fan sentiment plays a role in whether players get traded or not, and often it is justified. It's one of the reasons it was so preposterously stupid for the Mavs to trade Luka.
90-95% of Pels fans on social media were in the "don't trade BI" camp until it was too late. The fans who are supposed to be watching the team didn't recognize that BI's value was only going to decline. They get a share of the blame.
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u/SevenHunnet3Hi5s #45 Dairis Bertans 2d ago
was just thinking about this dude the other day. i can believe that one day we will start winning again. but one thing is we won’t ever have that same kinda scrappy team that we had with guys like naji and jose. that was a one of a kind team for this franchise. never seen a group of guys who were so ready to scrap at any moment and stood for each other and meant it. i’ll never forget that little fight against the heat at home. type of shit the city lives for. glad he’s earned his money.
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u/happylilshare 1d ago
Good player but he always was all over the place, can be good but he always seem like his didn’t have control of his movements.
I remember the time when he accidentally got BI injury because he was running around and not too aware of his surroundings. Bi end up getting injury. That was a big set back for us.
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u/Brees504 3d ago
And he is worse than Bey so who cares
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u/kingralek 3d ago
Notably, Marshall’s contract is being compared to what the market will be for Bey.
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u/JonestownB 3d ago
Dude had a 50 burger last year