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Around the League 15-16 Edition


devilsrule33

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That contract was a joke from the start. A friend of mine told me about the original deal and I refused to believe him because it was so ridiculous and out of character for this team. I wonder how different things would have ended up if JVB didn't step in and make the call on Kovy.

Long term, not having him here is an absolute blessing. But, the loss of Parise and Kovy in successive seasons has decimated this F Corp in the short term.

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and not getting his scoring anymore is looking worst every day too

 

And his scoring is disappearing more and more every season.  Even worse, you would still have another 5-10 years left on his contract.

 

I'm willing to deal with a couple or so more seasons of having a team that can barely score than to have someone taking up $6.67M in cap space for many years.

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and not getting his scoring anymore is looking worst every day too

 

You can go this route if you want to, though there are clear signs that he might have no longer been up to the grind of an 82-game regular season anymore (and knew it), and wouldn't have been as prolific a scorer or as effective a player as he has been previously.  But the only thing that matters in this "debate":  HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE...which kills any point as to wondering what he would've contributed had he stayed.  This wasn't a UFA that had an offer on the table from his team and made a tough decision to go elsewhere...this is a guy who wanted out of here badly enough to kill the massive long-term deal he already had in place. 

 

 

What the fvck is with the car parked in the one corner on the side of the goal at Barclays? It looks like something out of a European league. It's horrible.

 

Starting to wonder how the Isles calling that building home can possibly work long-term without some serious interior renovation and modification.   

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And his scoring is disappearing more and more every season. Even worse, you would still have another 5-10 years left on his contract.

I'm willing to deal with a couple or so more seasons of having a team that can barely score than to have someone taking up $6.67M in cap space for many years.

Exactly. Saved me the trouble of having to basically type the same thing.
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You can go this route if you want to, though there are clear signs that he might have no longer been up to the grind of an 82-game regular season anymore (and knew it), and wouldn't have been as prolific a scorer or as effective a player as he has been previously. But the only thing that matters in this "debate": HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE...which kills any point as to wondering what he would've contributed had he stayed. This wasn't a UFA that had an offer on the table from his team and made a tough decision to go elsewhere...this is a guy who wanted out of here badly enough to kill the massive long-term deal he already had in place.

Starting to wonder how the Isles calling that building home can possibly work long-term without some serious interior renovation and modification.

Since Barclays is paying the Isles and arm and a leg to play there, it's probably a 'you'll get what you get and you'll like it' deal. I doubt they do anything structurally to the building. Who's gonna pay for something like that?
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Since Barclays is paying the Isles and arm and a leg to play there, it's probably a 'you'll get what you get and you'll like it' deal. I doubt they do anything structurally to the building. Who's gonna pay for something like that?

 

I still wonder what went on in the engineer's/architect's heads to not consider designing the arena to the possibility of having a hockey team in there.  It really makes no sense whatsoever.

Edited by DevsMan84
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I still wonder what went on in the engineer's/architect's heads to not consider designing the arena to the possibility of having a hockey team in there.  It really makes no sense whatsoever.

 

Not just hockey but any sort of ice activities. Disney on Ice makes big money, as do ice shows with olympic athletes. Sight-lines would be just as poor for that as well. So even if an NHL team never set foot at Barclays...still a major oversight

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That's not on the architect, that's on the client. If they pushed, repeatedly, "unique layout for optimal NBA and concert views", that's what they got.

 

Yup, this ^^^ As an architect myself, the scenario is most likely that the architect would've proposed a (more expensive) more versatile arena plan, to which it's pretty within character to imagine the client saying, "No thanks," as costs were going up.

 

Architects, especially a quality firm like SHoP architects, are rarely that short-sighted, while the clients and developers almost always are. The technology and design strategies to have made the arena (and the jumbotron) multipurpose exist and are pretty standard, so I can't help but think the client simply scrapped them from the plans to save a buck and open on time. We deal with this kind of conundrum everyday and at the end of the day, "customer's always right."

Edited by DJ Eco
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I still wonder what went on in the engineer's/architect's heads to not consider designing the arena to the possibility of having a hockey team in there. It really makes no sense whatsoever.

It was part of the cost savings measure when they redesigned the building and changed architects. Stupid move, but at that time they were just worried about getting it built.

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You can go this route if you want to, though there are clear signs that he might have no longer been up to the grind of an 82-game regular season anymore (and knew it), and wouldn't have been as prolific a scorer or as effective a player as he has been previously.  But the only thing that matters in this "debate":  HE DIDN'T WANT TO BE HERE ANYMORE...which kills any point as to wondering what he would've contributed had he stayed.  This wasn't a UFA that had an offer on the table from his team and made a tough decision to go elsewhere...this is a guy who wanted out of here badly enough to kill the massive long-term deal he already had in place. 

 

i don't take any route i'm just saying one extreme is not better than the other.

 

I keep seeing posters here with a mentality that the worst thing that could ever happen to this team is to have a bad contract. They are fine with not signing an impact player if it means his contract might be bad someday. They are fine with the team sucking now, as long there's no bad contracts.  Lots of cap space and no talent, no depth. and obviously if you sign someone with that cap space, expect to overpay on the market. At the end of the day it's just fans trying to tweak reality to feel better about their situation.

 

That's not saying having overpaid players is better but at least you have productions and value coming in. And while it's fair to say one day it's gonna be a bad contract. You never know, look at all the teams we were making fun of few years ago saying they'd be in cap hell. Look at them now. The new CBA permitted those buyouts and some INSANE trades happen and they are all good. And who's laughing at the moment? certainly not us. 

 

You get good deals on homegrown players or if you have a really good appealing team. We don't have any of that. So to turn your back on guys who could bring production "now" just cause in the future they might not be a good deal... it's really not better than not getting production for years and years and not knowing if we'll even get it. If it doesnt come from drafting we'll have to overpay.

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i don't take any route i'm just saying one extreme is not better than the other.

 

I keep seeing posters here with a mentality that the worst thing that could ever happen to this team is to have a bad contract. They are fine with not signing an impact player if it means his contract might be bad someday. They are fine with the team sucking now, as long there's no bad contracts.  Lots of cap space and no talent, no depth. and obviously if you sign someone with that cap space, expect to overpay on the market. At the end of the day it's just fans trying to tweak reality to feel better about their situation.

 

That's not saying having overpaid players is better but at least you have productions and value coming in. And while it's fair to say one day it's gonna be a bad contract. You never know, look at all the teams we were making fun of few years ago saying they'd be in cap hell. Look at them now. The new CBA permitted those buyouts and some INSANE trades happen and they are all good. And who's laughing at the moment? certainly not us. 

 

You get good deals on homegrown players or if you have a really good appealing team. We don't have any of that. So to turn your back on guys who could bring production "now" just cause in the future they might not be a good deal... it's really not better than not getting production for years and years and not knowing if we'll even get it. If it doesnt come from drafting we'll have to overpay.

 

I don't mind having a bad contract on the team.  We still have one with Zajac.

 

I just don't like THAT contract with THAT player (Kovalchuk)

That's not on the architect, that's on the client. If they pushed, repeatedly, "unique layout for optimal NBA and concert views", that's what they got.

 

This is very true so I wonder what was in their heads?  Did they think they could make the arena work on just Nets games and Jay-Z concerts?

It was part of the cost savings measure when they redesigned the building and changed architects. Stupid move, but at that time they were just worried about getting it built.

 

They saved upfront with the pure basketball design, but lost out on potential revenue from other things like Disney on Ice.

 

Penny-wise, Pound foolish it seems.

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They saved upfront with the pure basketball design, but lost out on potential revenue from other things like Disney on Ice.

 

Penny-wise, Pound foolish it seems.

 

Agreed. Although you'd be surprised how many short-sighted billion dollar deals and decisions are made foolishly and in haste just to support a bottom line or satisfy investors and board members. At that point in time, during/after the recession, the people in charge definitely had tunnel vision: "Get this done, cut the fat, and get it done now." So short-sighted and counterproductive.

 

I had a client shortly after Hurricane Sandy whose 10-story project was affected by the new FEMA maps and guidelines (and their added cost). He had several investors he was answering to, so he instructed us to do anything, everything, execute every loophole, and push back against every city agency we could to avoid the extra work/costs. Long story short, red flags went up, bureaucracy took over, and this turned into an almost 2 year long process. It eventually cost more in legal fees and architects'/engineers' fees than it would have to just do the work, during which time the project would've been done, and for cheaper!!!!! The investors eventually withdrew their funding because of the delay and the job site is now abandoned, with 3 years of design out there for sale to anyone who wants to resume the job from where it was left off.

 

That's not really Barclays related, but it's just a little glimpse into the mind of investors, developers, and "money men" who many times don't use common sense. I'm sure that's what was in play with the Barclays situation.

Edited by DJ Eco
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Agreed. Although you'd be surprised how many short-sighted billion dollar deals and decisions are made foolishly and in haste just to support a bottom line or satisfy investors and board members. At that point in time, during/after the recession, the people in charge definitely had tunnel vision: "Get this done, cut the fat, and get it done now." So short-sighted and counterproductive.

 

Unfortunately that is what happens.  Plus the arena was delayed so many times due to litigation over the eminent domain issues that at some point the developers were basically in the "let's just finish this damn thing already" mode.

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Apologies if this information was posted before, but I found this comment from the head of NetsDaily regarding the Barclays Center interesting:

 

Its a long story but here’s the short version. The ORIGINAL Frank Gehry design for the arena was much larger … 20,000 seat capacity and two-sport capable. Then, after the Brooklyn lawsuits, compounded by the Recession, the whole project was in trouble. Moreover, the IRS changed the rules on municipally owned arenas (and legally, the arena is owned by the State of New York), eliminating the federal tax exemption. IRS grandfathered any arena/stadium that was municipally owned IF it was under construction by December 31, 2009. Ratner had to scramble to get "steel in the ground" to make that deadline. He worked with the arena’s architects, Ellerbe Becket, and contractor, Hunt Construction, to find a plan that he could put in place, get "steel in the ground". He, the architects and contractors agreed to use the Conseco Field House plan. They put together a barebones rendering, which everyone hated but got the job done. (Barclays and Conseco, now Bankers Life are very similar once you’re inside). They made the IRS deadline, saving hundreds of millions.. Problem was Conseco wasn’t planned for NHL, so if there was to be an NHL team, it would have to be configured oddly.. And that’s what happened.
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