I'm a D-Mo fan, and don't think the Rockets are epically screwing him. I think BJ is the worst agent in professional sports. back in July after the first wave of free agents, D-Mo's fair market comp at the time was 3 years 10 mil per. And while teams wouldn't give him that (because they favored going with less risky players like Trevor Booker, Ian Mahinmi, etc) BJ could have gotten his client in the door easily at offering those same teams shopping for bigs a value lower risk option. Instead... like he admitted with his press release/statement a few weeks ago, they wanted "starting center salary", and have a strict hold out strategy. Now I can't tell you that there were or weren't offers, but I can tell you that failing to even get offers of any sort in the range of his market in a seemingly timely fashion relative to the start of the season is a massive failure on his agents part. Even if the offer was below his market rate, if you can gauge how the market is going, and see that situations like this could happen if he doesn't take less than his market to secure an offer in July or August, you should be able to convince your client to go ahead, and take the offer now to secure your contract, or you could be stuck with exactly what is happening now. As an agent the most important thing you can do is track the market, & the supply/demand of your players on that market in order to secure deals for your players.... because moderately "okay" or even "bad" deals for your clients are better than no deals at all.
Once he didn't sign the QO, there really isn't a reason for him to hurry if he's willing to lose a few pay checks. Odds are some player gets hurt for the season and DMo is offered the disabled players exception. Even then, DMo will probably have to take a contract less than the QO if he wants UFA after the season, but those are the breaks for not accepting the QO. Question is "Is having DMo in the games more important to the Rockets or are the pay checks more important to DMo?" I'm still shocked he didn't take the QO.
I'm not sure he has a one-year offer on the table. I think has a two year offer with the second year being a team option/non guaranteed on the table (basically a one-year deal if he sucks/gets hurt, two year deal if he plays well).
Why do you think they're playing hardball? I mean I get they're not playing softball... but from the little leaks we have seen it seems like DMo is the one asking for "the moon" relative to his actual fmv. MAYBE the Rockets have held firm where they are, or maybe they'd be willing to negotiate a little around their number, but it seems like they are in different regions completely on what each thinks is fair... and unfortunately for DMo, we kind of know what the actual fair amount is, since no other team in the NBA or elsewhere has offered him what he wants, so we can only assume the Rockets offer (QO, or wiggle room around there which I suspect they'd do) is fair given DMo's skill-set, injury history and RFA status. I like DMo, but seems like he's the one playing hardball, which is his right. But it's my right as a fan to be a bit disappointed in that. He could be of value to us now, instead he's at best an afterthought and at worst a distraction at the moment.
Wow, 'holic was right. When he said, "DMo isn't worried. He knows he's getting paid" this is what he meant.
I don't know if Steven Adams will be one of them, but I saw earlier today that number in the same sentence with his name. Nearly did a spit-take. He hasn't signed yet, but to think he might be asking for / get James Harden money....? SG Oladipo did just sign for four years $84,000,000, so we'll see what they do with big-man Adams.
Thank you for the laugh. Been kind of a stressful day, and I needed that humor. Even funnier that in so many ways that is exactly what the Rockets "offense" looked like under McHale and JB.
Hey, J.R., After his breakout 2015 season, why didn't DMo get a big, rookie-scale extension in October last year, like Adams and Gobert just got. Spoiler
Because Daryl doesn't pay his players. He usually trades them before it gets to that point. And he tried with D-Mo but Detroit didn't want him. And apparently neither does anyone else? I guess he did match Lowry(Cavs) & Landry(Bobcats). Scola? Anyone else? Add Gorgui Dieng, who just got $16M.
Pitch was even slower than that because he was injured--on IR--after summer back surgery, and he wanted to hold out thinking Morey was low balling him on the extension
