Andrew Wiggins - can he force his way to the Raptors?

[DBoys]

True, but guaranteed money now talks louder than daydreaming about your second max contract. If a euro club offered wiggins say $12M would you advise him to turn it down? D-Rose could have blown his knee earlier and missed his first max deal. Jason Williams did...

All this is silly conjecturing. The Euro teams do not have a history of lining up around the block offering massive contracts that blow the NBA out of the water. (Heck, if you go to Europe, sometimes you have to worry about getting paid what you contracted for!)

If there was a track record of Euro teams attracting NBA rookies, then it would be a hypothetical worth discussing. But there's not. The lifetime-altering money for a top player is in the NBA, after the 1st 4 years, and the lifestyle is in the NBA immediately.

If I am the team that drafts Wiggins, telling me that he might waste time in Europe is an idle threat, when I am his one and only door to the money and the lifestyle of the NBA.

[Y-Knot]

Premature maybe, but I dont think it's silly. The rookie scale for guys like Bron, Rose and Wiggins is a massive market distortion and it only takes one overzealous and wealthy overseas team owner to pull a star.

[d-train]

In most cases, a rookie has no leverage to dictate his situation. Assuming Wiggins is a generational talent entering the NBA. He can do some things to help his cause without doing more harm than good. But, he is not going to be able to choose his destination. Even Howard as an UFA, had limited choices.

Wiggins can create some havoc. His rookie contract will pay only about $5.5M but his actual value might be well over $20M. On one hand, this gives team’s incentive to hold on to him but it also allows Wiggins to reduce his value by $15M without harming himself. If Wiggins is truly a generational talent, he will always be worth 3-4x his actual paycheck. This might seem like self-destruction but he could easily recover from any damage. Kobe raped a teenage girl and recovered just fine. Wiggins can do a lot of damage short of rape.

The trade value of Wiggins gives him some leverage. His greatest value to a team would be the value of keeping him _if_ he is happy and working to maximize his value. This maximum value could be a volatile and dangerous situation for a team that only holds his rights for 4 years. Wiggins doesn't have a 4-year limitation on his input towards his value. It could be better for a team to trade him at a discount in order to have stable assets to build from.

Wiggins might have more options than some people would like him to have. A lot depends on how good he is at manipulating his options.

[Y-Knot]

Presumably this is how Xavier Henry got the Grizz to up his offer by holding out for the full 120%...that and having Arn Tellum as your agent.

[Y-Knot]

Not implying he's a generational talent ofcourse, just that a non-disgruntled player (and agent) is worth more.

[andyhop]

True, but guaranteed money now talks louder than daydreaming about your second max contract. If a euro club offered wiggins say $12M would you advise him to turn it down? D-Rose could have blown his knee earlier and missed his first max deal. Jason Williams did...

What shoe deal would Wiggins get to play in Spain compared to the NBA?

[Scoot McGroot]

Presumably this is how Xavier Henry got the Grizz to up his offer by holding out for the full 120%...that and having Arn Tellum as your agent.

No, he ended up getting the 120% guaranteed, instead of via incentives, because Memphis tried an experiment they knew wouldn't work. Ultimately, every other player in the 1st that year got the full 120%, and left Memphis out on a limb. Xavier was such a minor pick that if he had threatened to go to Europe, Memphis likely would have just let him, as they would have still owned his rights in perpetuity.

[Y-Knot]

Sure but if the Grizz had sufficient leverage they would have no reason to cave.

[Y-Knot]

Quote from ESPN article about Kobe's and Arn Tellum's pre-draft maneuver to make sure Nets didn't draft him eighth.

at http://m.espn.go.com/general/story?stor ... rc=desktop
"Over lunch on draft day, Calipari and Nash told one of the Nets' seven owners, Joe Taub, that Bryant would be a Net in eight hours. Taub preferred John Wallace, the Syracuse senior, and worried that a high school kid might ultimately leave for a bigger market and a better team in free agency.

Only Bryant wasn't about to wait years for his liberation. He called Calipari after the coach's lunch with Taub, and Bryant's agent, Arn Tellem, called Nash. Prospect and agent declared they wanted no part of Jersey; Tellem even threatened that his client would play in Italy if the Nets ignored their wishes."
Nash met with a panicked Calipari and tried to calm the coach. The GM made some phone calls and figured out that the Lakers' Jerry West had reached an agreement with Charlotte, holding the 13th pick, to trade Vlade Divac for Bryant; West was confident that Kobe would make it to No. 13 if the Nets passed at No. 8.

[Scoot McGroot]

Kobe was a very "iffy" pick. Wiggins is "the next coming". Not going to work. Calipari was going to be overruled by his owner even without the threat, though.

[DBoys]

The draft rules and rights rules have changed considerably since then, in part to keep this sort of stuff from being a bother to teams using their draft picks. When's the last time anyone heard of a drafted player using Europe as a threat? The 1990s?

The idea that a draftee's threat of going to Europe these days would cause an NBA team to jump through hoops is pure fantasy. With the team holding all the cards, and nothing at risk, such a bluff would just be an amateurish ploy in a negotiation.

[Y-Knot]

The point is Calipari panicked and so could another GM. GMs have done ridiculously stupid things in this league.

[Y-Knot]

Ilyasova was the last in 2012. http://www.hoopsworld.com/ersan-ilyasova’s-european-demand

[Y-Knot]

http://www.hoopsworld.com/ersan-ilyasova’s-european-demand

[Y-Knot]

Not as a draftee, but the last to use the leverage.

[DBoys]

Ilyasova was the last in 2012. http://www.hoopsworld.com/ersan-ilyasova’s-european-demand

Ilyasova supports my point. He didn't pull a power play to get a different team to draft him. And he was only a 2nd-rounder.

Who drafted him? Milwaukee.
How much did they pay him? Minimum salary.
Did he sign? Yep.
Did he hold out? Nope.

I think you're confused by the fact that some veterans, who aren't getting max money here, may wander to Europe after their contract runs out. But this doesn't happen with players who are max players, only the borderline guys whose demand in the NBA isn't that high. And you don't see players just before or after the draft threatening to go to Europe to force their way to another NBA team (where the money would be the same).

[Scoot McGroot]

Not as a draftee, but the last to use the leverage.

So, not as a draftee, and not to force his way to the team he wants to play for secretly?

And if a GM allows himself to be fooled with a hollow threat like this, they won't have their job the day after the draft. Obviously they're super close to it anyway as they're drafting #1 in the lotto.

[Y-Knot]

Ok Raps fans. This is my last shot at this. After his freshman season, a week before the draft, Wiggins gets himself thrown off a flight shouting that he's convinced there's a bomb on the plane. He is escorted off the plane, breaks free from security and barricades himself inside the Toronto Airport Tim Hortons, as the intl media provides a live feed of him over the next 72 hours sobbing and devouring coffee and donuts en route to gaining 13 lbs. His draft stock plummets and the Raps take a "flyer" on him and send in Wayne Gretsky and Steve Nash to talk him down off the chocolate-glazed rack.
He comes down, seeks two weeks of "therapy" averages 30 ppg, gets rookie of year. His agent later brags, about pulling off "The Royce White."

[bondom34]

Ok Raps fans. This is my last shot at this. After his freshman season, a week before the draft, Wiggins gets himself thrown off a flight shouting that he's convinced there's a bomb on the plane. He is escorted off the plane, breaks free from security and barricades himself inside the Toronto Airport Tim Hortons, as the intl media provides a live feed of him over the next 72 hours sobbing and devouring coffee and donuts en route to gaining 13 lbs. His draft stock plummets and the Raps take a "flyer" on him and send in Wayne Gretsky and Steve Nash to talk him down off the chocolate-glazed rack.
He comes down, seeks two weeks of "therapy" averages 30 ppg, gets rookie of year. His agent later brags, about pulling off "The Royce White."

I'm not a Raps fan, and not from Canada, but you've made sure it's known you're not Canadian either ! Just kidding. Seriously though, this thread is nuts, there's no way this stuff would happen.

[wiLQ]

IMHO the best chance for Andrew Wiggins to force his way to the Raptors would be to challenge the entire draft system in court. But I'm guessing long legal battle and a probable huge loss of income won't be enough for him to possibly maybe change rules in the sport.