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[F Gump]

I've already made my argument on this and I am trying to understand yours.

If your argument is that the player Josh Green was last season is only worth the MLE, than I agree with you.  Last year, he was an average to slightly above average defensive player and a very good 3-point shooter on modest attempts.  He had a few flashes of handling the ball and made some nice passes when he was asked to do so.  If he were 30 years old with that production, then I would agree that he would be worth the MLE or less.

However, he was 21 years old at the start of last season.  He has improved markedly over the past two years.  He is still only 22 years old.  Not all 22 year old NBA rotation players improve but most do.  Especially those who have shown dramatic improvement over their first few seasons.  He is not the same player he was two years ago and I think the Mavericks will have to factor in that he is likely to improve further when they determine what his future value is to this team.

There will be a lot of teams with a lot of cap space next summer.  Teams like the Spurs, Magic, Rockets, Pistons, Wizards, Jazz and Pacers may each have more than $50 million next summer to improve their teams.  Several of them will have closer to $75 million.  Most of the premiere free agents next off-season are over-30 vets that won't be interested in those teams.  The best players from the 2020 draft class have either signed or will soon sign extensions-  Immannuel Quickley and Jaden McDaniels are likely to extend soon.   Nic Claxton and OG Anunoby are the best young free agents next off-season and will both receive near-max offers.   After that, there will not a lot of good young players available.  I think Josh Green will be an attractive option to those teams holding all that cap space. 

If we wait until next summer to determine his value, then we risk having to match a contract that is much larger than the MLE.  One season ago, I never would have predicted that Max Strus, Rui Hachimura or Bruce Brown would receive contracts for more than the MLE this summer.  Yet, each of them will make significantly more than the MLE.  It is expensive to acquire players in free agency as we should have learned ourselves over the past 12 off-seasons.

The difference between your reasoning on Josh Green and mine is that you want him to be paid based upon what you saw last season (and a bit of what you saw in FIBA).  I believe we will have to pay him an additional premium based upon his age and the dramatic improvement he has shown over the past two years.  I think you also have to factor in the avalanche of cap space that is coming up next off-season.   

I believe it would be better to extend him at $16 million this summer than to wait until next off-season to match the offers he will receive.  If he continues his current trajectory and makes even some marginal improvements, then he will receive offers as a starting-level 23 year old player.  I think those offers could be over $20 million next off-season.  If he makes more significant improvement as a facilitator, then those offers will become really exorbitant.   We would then be putting a lot of faith in Mark Cuban spending a lot of money.   That hasn't always worked out for us.

I understand your point, which is that the Mavs need to pay Green MORE THAN he has shown he is worth, as a preemptive move so that he can't get away. And you assume he will raise his value considerably over the next year, with the thought that he did so this past season.

I just don't agree with those thoughts.

In particular, I think Green fell short last year in how much he raised his game. It was better than the year before (although, it would almost be impossible not to be). But he still was shy about shooting, looking for perfect shots only, or preferring a pass over an obvious shot. Getting to the rim uncontested then passing to the perimeter, rather than taking a layup or dunk, ugh, what an abomination that we'd see regularly. 

Obviously what happens next season cannot be known, but his progress this summer has been super meh, going backwards, which argues against the assumption he will automatically get better in 2023-24. Those factors speak to both current value and his future.

You cite players who got paid more in FA than you expected as a cautionary example. That's fair. But rare. Yet otoh, afaik no RFAs signed an offer sheet and left at an exorbitant unmatched offer-- the ability to match tends to deter offers in the first place. Some FAs who got away were a result of their teams being choked by Hard Cap or by Payroll challenges -- which, relevantly, come when you opt to overpay your roster piece by piece.

I'm also leery of the idea that similar players to Green in contributions, ie primarily defense with anemic offense, will be money-whipped. 

Some FA comps to keep in mind - Thybulle 3/33, G Williams 4/53. There's no reason to think Green's trajectory exceeds either of theirs. And that should also be reasonable way to assess what the Mavs (and others) want to pay for that type of player.

Sure, with every player there's the risk some team will lose their minds and overpay wildly. But I think a Hard Cap World makes that less likely, when the price of an overpay on one player is going to strangle you on others. Even with teams who have huge cap room, I expect they'll want to save it for a star, sooner or later, and not blow it all on very overpaid mid-tier guys. At some price point the player isn't worth it. 

IOW, if you think he's high risk, where he's going to be getting $20M a year even though he's a defense-based player with anemic offense, then I'd rather see the Mavs including him in trade proposals, rather than paying him way more than he's worth as a defensive move. I wouldn't want them to squeeze that bloat into their payroll.