HartfordWhalers wrote:I had a bad year, lets not grab security and instead wait for the year when twice as many good players are free agents? I'm sorry this is all baffling from a Smith perspective, even if it works very well for Atlanta.
Will the market give him the security though? It could. I agree that if someone is offering max (or near enough to) money then he'll sign with whoever makes that offer. Considering his RFA and the fact he's already declined a 3 year/$45M extension with us, I know he's looking to get paid and for awhile. So yes, if he got $16M in the 2nd year of a contract (as you put above), then I'd guess it'd be a no-brainer that he'd sign the contract (which quick math puts around 4/~$66M).
Could he command that? As I stated above, put a post on here that team X will sign him for something close to the max - even as an AAV - and it seems that people will sign up with this site simply to refute the notion. I don't really know where his market would land across those posters though. Maybe it is the 4/$66M above, but if it's closer to 4 years / $40M, then the 1 year deal would definitely be in play. Play for a year @ $18M (I was looking at the wrong numbers before when I was looking for his max - $15.5M was for the '11-'12 season), put a season between this past season and his UFA period, and re-enter FA next year with a higher cap. Even if he has another sub-par season, then he'd still make money over the initial offer if he was able to command a 3 year/$20M offer next off-season considering the time value of money... maybe even with a non-tax MLE offer all things considered.
Some things about the interviews I've seen with Josh recently: he understands the business side of the NBA (more so than I would have figured actually) and he marches to the beat of his own drummer. Remember that he was drafted with Josh Childress and the decisions he made in RFA. No, I don't expect Smoove to run overseas (and definitely not to the Grecian market) but I could see him making a move that several don't expect especially if he's put into a corner where his accounting would get creative.