2024-25 Insider Thread

[Final_quest]

On 9/16/2024 at 10:07 PM, JeffS17 said:

Playing hard ball like that shifts the culture over time, too, once a lot of guys in the locker room have had to prove themselves before getting paid.  It's one of the things I respect about Miami's FO.  The big question for me is how much hard ball are we going to be playing when it comes time for Trae's extension.

That is the only concern with playing hardball on every contract negotiation.  How do you create a positive and winning culture and stick it to every player you can during negotiations?  

After the ECF they misread the situation and signed everyone to contracts expressing gratitude and belief that our players will rise to a higher level.  Just because we made that mistake doesn't mean you should over correct and give every guy a shitty contract if you can.  Trae is getting told Jalen is a cornerstone and future star to play with, but then in negotiations you want to take advantage of Jalen's RFA standing and injury history.  You're sending a mixed message to Trae, Jalen, the fanbase, players, and the league.  

Have no idea what the behind the scene conversations are, but it's not as simple as sign every guy to as low of a number as you can because you are awesome at negotiations.  That's not how you want your employer to treat you.  Do we want the reputation of being that team around the league?

[JeffS17]

3 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

That is the only concern with playing hardball on every contract negotiation.  How do you create a positive and winning culture and stick it to every player you can during negotiations?  

After the ECF they misread the situation and signed everyone to contracts expressing gratitude and belief that our players will rise to a higher level.  Just because we made that mistake doesn't mean you should over correct and give every guy a shitty contract if you can.  Trae is getting told Jalen is a cornerstone and future star to play with, but then in negotiations you want to take advantage of Jalen's RFA standing and injury history.  You're sending a mixed message to Trae, Jalen, the fanbase, players, and the league.  

Have no idea what the behind the scene conversations are, but it's not as simple as sign every guy to as low of a number as you can because you are awesome at negotiations.  That's not how you want your employer to treat you.  Do we want the reputation of being that team around the league?

Yes, of course there's a ton of nuance-- my point was really that it will be interesting if they take the same approach with Trae as they are others.  The locker room culture divides happens when one player is getting special treatment, imo.  So far they've signed team friendly or reasonable deals that were not based on potential for DJ and OO.  JJ is next up.  Trae and Dyson are extension eligible next offseason.

[AHF]

1 hour ago, Final_quest said:

That is the only concern with playing hardball on every contract negotiation.  How do you create a positive and winning culture and stick it to every player you can during negotiations?  

After the ECF they misread the situation and signed everyone to contracts expressing gratitude and belief that our players will rise to a higher level.  Just because we made that mistake doesn't mean you should over correct and give every guy a shitty contract if you can.  Trae is getting told Jalen is a cornerstone and future star to play with, but then in negotiations you want to take advantage of Jalen's RFA standing and injury history.  You're sending a mixed message to Trae, Jalen, the fanbase, players, and the league.  

Have no idea what the behind the scene conversations are, but it's not as simple as sign every guy to as low of a number as you can because you are awesome at negotiations.  That's not how you want your employer to treat you.  Do we want the reputation of being that team around the league?

The situation is just very different for UFAs and RFAs and what constitutes "hardball" for RFAs is different than for UFAs.  With RFAs you can send a very clear message to the fans that you will absolutely keep this player.  Sending that message doubles as a warning to the rest of the league not to bid on them in RFA because you will match and actually helps you in negotiations because teams hate having money tied up during FA when they aren't even going to end up with the player.  You can then sign the player to a deal that is good for the team or you wait until their FA offseason.

With an UFA, you need to be much more aware that they can simply walk away and that other teams will bid on them with zero fear because if they strike a deal it is done.  

Good teams already do this and they don't suffer reputational damage from it.  And you still can get deals done like OO's deal last summer.  It doesn't mean that you now are going to send every RFA out to the market to get offers from other teams but you can't be afraid of that if the player isn't being reasonable.  If anything, we cultivated a reputation as a pushover in negotiations in recent years which is bad in and of itself.