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Vlade Divac, Marco Belinelli and Smartly Using Cap Space

I’ve been a fairly vocal supporter of most of Vlade Divac‘s roster moves this offseason, and do believe he’s made the Sacramento Kings roster noticeably better than it’s been in quite some time. There has been one signing I just didn’t get at first though–the addition of Marco Belinelli.

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Belinelli is a former NBA three-point champion being added to a team with long-range shooting woes, sure, I get that. But I looked more and more into Marco’s game, and just kept finding problems with it. His defense is shaky at best, and he seems to be a system player–his career year came in a dominant Spurs campaign that ended with that team winning an NBA title.

So how could he succeed on the Kings, then? Sacramento is shaping up to certainly be much better than they were last season, but they’ve not yet reached the upper echelon of the Western Conference. Hell, Kings fans would be thrilled to simply make the playoffs at this point.

I was making a mistake that I notice a lot in others since I realized I’ve been doing it for so long–I was looking at Marco Belinelli in a vacuum. There are no vacuums in the NBA, just players and teams. It’s stupid to compare Belinelli to the average NBA player, or even starter, because that’s not what he is.

He’s a role player. A term that isn’t nearly as offensive or derogatory as many make it out to be. Really, every NBA player is a role player–it’s just that the role of the LeBron James‘ and Kevin Durant‘s of the Association is to be a superstar, while guys like Belinelli aren’t cut out for that.

Apr 30, 2015; San Antonio, TX, USA; San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Marco Belinelli (3) shoots the ball over Los Angeles Clippers shooting guard J.J. Redick (4) in game six of the first round of the NBA Playoffs at AT&T Center. Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-USA TODAY Sports

He’s a shooter. It’s that simple. In his great 2014 season, Belinelli took a whopping 64.4 percent of his shots from 16 feet and farther from the rim. Of those long twos, he was assisted on 81 percent of his buckets. Of his three-point attempts, 91 percent came via an assist.

So he’s no Kobe Bryant–Marco isn’t going to take the ball down court, size up his defender and score over them. That’s just not who he is. But if you get him some space and the ball, he’ll damn well knock down a ton of shots–he made 43 percent of his threes that career year, good enough for fifth in the NBA.

This is why signing Belinelli was a great move by Vlade Divac–he snuck in and got him locked up for three years for just $19 million total. That contract will be super tradeable over all three of it’s years–teams always need shooters, and especially ones that cost just north of $6 million a season when the cap is expected to reach over $90 million in a couple of years.

Considering the timing of the contract, that’s a steal for the Kings. J.J. Redick is still playing off of a deal signed a few years ago, and he’s getting over $7 million per year for the next two seaons. Lou Williams is making $7 million a year too, and he’s a career 34.1 percent shooter from deep (Belinelli comes in at 39.2 percent).

And considering DeMarre Carroll (who’s never managed to hit 40 percent from long-range in a single season and was assisted on 98 percent of his threes last year) just got a four-year, $60 million deal from the Raptors I think three years, $19 million isn’t bad at all for Marco Belinelli.

Is he going to come in and take Ben McLemore‘s job and start for the Kings for the next three years? No. But he’s going to knock down some threes and help generate some spacing, and he’s going to do it for a relatively low cost. Role players are necessary to build good teams, and Divac locked up a solid one on a good deal in Belinelli.

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