08-05-2021, 01:44 PM
(08-05-2021, 01:10 PM)F Gump Wrote: "Dragic and Duffy allowing him to get stuck at a place he doesn’t want to be with a team that doesn’t want him"
This may be a bit strong on how much leverage Dragic and Duffy have had in this situation. They agreed to the contract in 2020, and now it's played out like it was written (as a potential trade chip where Dragic gets traded somewhere as a big expiring contract). That didn't come with any control over what might happen after he landed elsewhere.
Now he's elsewhere, and it's at least partly on him, if he doesn't like the outcome, to negotiate (not demand) the situation to be one he likes better.
"I just can’t see Toronto falling on that sword just to win the fight. It does them no good to have someone there who clearly doesn’t want to be there."
I think your sword was the idea of "forcing him to stay" and while that's one way to see it, that they shouldn't force him to be there, we have to look at if from other angles as well. Isn't the idea of "pay me in full, and then release me" incredibly unreasonable for Dragic to adopt, if he REALLY doesn't want to be in TOR? What is he offering to give up, if he wants to be elsewhere?
For TOR, it might be about desires, but the actions of "offering to give something up" (and how much) is also relevant. We don't know if Dragic is offering anything back, nor do we know if the Mavs are willing to pay anything more than the minimum, and those have an impact on the equation.
MMG made a good point when he said that "Just makes no sense to give up assets unless it's just Powell and garbage which Toronto won't likely do." I can envision that when TOR first got Dragic, they made some calls to see if they could move him elsewhere, and the Mavs expressed some interest, but in light of the $19M contract, the Mavs reasonably wanted to be compensated to take that contract.
I see moving a Powell-Burke package as compensation of a sort. But what if the Mavs actually think those guys are plus value to keep? Then how do the Mavs get compensated for taking on GD at $19M in a way that also entices TOR? It's harder than you think.
For example, in the least impactful idea I can imagine, say Mavs offer Redick snt and ask for a 2nd rounder from TOR along with GD. In essence, Mavs are eating a ton of bad salary for just a 2nd. And for TOR, they are only reducing their outlay by $5M and it costs them a 2nd. I don't think anyone likes that deal. As a result, I think it's possible the trade angle died fairly quickly, because it was too hard for anyone to find value in a $19M GD year, or the trade equivalent.
Which brings us back to the start of this post. It might be up to Dragic to fix it somehow - take some "free money" from TOR that's less than the $19M and that he doesn't have to work for, and then find a new deal somewhere else.
Your observations about leverage are hard to dispute. But aren’t you omitting the angle that Killer was pushing? Doesn’t one phone call from Duffy saying Luka really wants this to happen put all of the Mavs’ minor assets in play? Doesn’t that same call make a single year at 19mm palatable?