It was a calm night with a hint of a chill in the air outside the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, Ontario, February 24th, 2002. The Supersonics were in town, but not in demand. Together with the unsure condition of star Vince Carter, making him a possible no show, that meant a long night of sore throats and lean wallets for Scalpers, all of whom were pushing their goods at the top of their lungs to little avail.
Inside the ACC very few could focus on the game at hand, with tip off a little more than half an hour away every screen in the building, and likewise every soul, was fixated on the Canada vs. U.S.A. Olympic men’s hockey final. My girlfriend and I used the blindness of the hockey obsessed stadium employees to smuggle ourselves down into the seating area before ticket holders were allowed in so we could watch the teams shoot around.
Like a child in a candy store I felt a rush of euphoria wash over me, I had never seen the Sonics play in person; the anticipation of the coming match was making me giddy and excited (later described as “annoying” by my dear Jennifer). I spent the time during the warm-ups smothering Jenn in an obscene amount of Sonic trivia and statistics (I commend her for pretending to care), pointing out and commenting on each individual player -- Rashard Lewis, Brent Barry, Gary Payton, all the way through the roster with perhaps the only player overlooked being 7’1”, 272lb. big man Jerome James. By the end of the evening, however, I could never overlook Jerome James again, his 18 points, 12 rebounds and 3 blocks signified his best ever professional game and clinched the win for the Sonics sending an entire arena full of fans (minus one of course) home unhappy.
The biggest debate facing Sonics fans this summer has been the value of JJ. Should the team fight to retain the young center at all cost, including the dreaded luxury tax? Or should the team let him go, convinced he’ll never rise above the role of back-up and is far from worth the asking price? His performance in Toronto is a testimonial to the potential hidden in the young center. However, his 4 point, 3 rebound effort earlier that same week against Portland demonstrates to us that potential does not always equate to success. Which of these two players is the real Jerome James has yet to be determined.
In the NBA, the skill of most centers has very little to do with their financial prosperity. Usually the size of one’s paycheck is determined by the size of ones shoes, with the old cliché that you cannot teach a player to be seven foot tall holding true more often than not. It is that kind of thinking that makes a player like James so enticing to general managers around the league. Seattle fans know all to well that the promise of a seven footer with a little more agility than a beached whale can cause GMs to shovel out the dollars; this was the trend behind the Calvin Booth signing last year in Seattle.
Of course this money for size gamble can pay off huge, but buyer beware: For every Todd MacCulloch to be found there are ten Jim “laughing all the way to the bank” McIlvaines. Yet it remains a gamble GM’s will take time and time again. And so it is that a mere 5.3ppg, 4.1rpg, and 1.54bpg has put Jerome James in line to cash in a long-term contract possibly starting just above 4.5 million dollars (approximately this year’s mid-level exception).
The reason this is a gamble that makes sense for a GM is due to the scarcity of men in the world with James’ natural born abilities. When was the last time you saw a seven-foot tall man walking down the street? The center position is the hardest to fill in the NBA, harder still to fill with any kind of quality player. So when someone comes along hinting at the possibility of skill, GMs everywhere begin to step over their own mothers to get a piece of them. This being the situation it seems easy to say, well the Sonics should go out and fight for James then. But it is a gamble that the Sonics already took last year acquiring Booth for a six-year deal worth somewhere in the neighbourhood of 34 million dollars.
Other teams are willing to gamble on James’ questionable conditioning and experience because the risk/reward ratio is high enough to overlook the blemishes; they need a center enough to be blinded to the risk. For Seattle, though, the risk/reward is not nearly so high. James would be coming back as one of the league’s best paid back up centers should the team decide to get into a bidding war. Since the team has already decided to take a fiscally conservative approach to building a winning franchise, paying two centers starting calibre money would be a mistake that could handcuff management down the road.
Fortunately for the Sonics, the entire league is experiencing a bear market that rivals that of the NYSE. Everyone is cutting corners, trying to squeeze as much life as possible out of every last cent. Because of this new miser philosophy in the league Jerome will probably take home less than what the market would normally bestow upon his 7’1” frame. This means Seattle will take a wait and see approach to determine whether matching the offer sheet given to James is feasible or not. Already the New York Knicks, James’ most vocal suitors, have softened their stance to say they would offer a portion of their exception and not the entire thing, a good sign.
There are those who would say that the only way Seattle can compete is by blowing the bank wide open and taking a Cuban-esque approach to the game, after all it makes sense in theory. But in practice the two most financially flamboyant teams in NBA last year were average at best. The Knicks and Trailblazers looked good at times but nevertheless were laughable during the playoffs. .
Seattle is making the right move by not selling the farm to bring JJ back into the fold. Without a doubt James can play the game, all it took was one evening in Toronto to convince me of that. However, there is no assurance that James will continue to improve. James’ play last year was all over the map, solid at times, awful at others, with a pinch of spectacular thrown in occasionally just to torture fence-sitting fans. James would be a great complement to the Sonics roster next season. The healthy tandem of James and Booth would go a long way towards making Seattle a dangerous club, but if the cost is long-term success, the price is way too high.
Jay Leaver has served as a columnist for SonicsCentral.com since January 2002. The Clutch Corner is updated on Fridays. Jay can be reached at ontario@sonicscentral.com. All opinions expressed in this column are solely the views of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of other columnists or the SonicsCentral.com staff.
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