Mojo Amok wrote:doclinkin wrote:I actually think now one good value in the league may be inking cheap early extensions on late bloomer talents. If you can in fact develop them.
Then you have a core of players under your system that peak while under an extended rookie contract. And they prove to be moveable assets later on if you’re trying package a deal or slide into someone else’s good deal.
In that respect players like Bonga and Wagner may be the exact sort of players we would trade for or sign. Guys who show promise in practice but on court are buried behind other players who are a year or two more advanced in their similarly late-blooming development (Bryant, Brown).
That would definitely be a nice dynamic to leverage - I guess the key is finding that sweet spot on the money to where someone's willing to ink the long term deal rather than the short term "show me" contracts that we see so often. Both the team and the player taking on a certain degree of risk and presumed security - threading the needle in negotiations.
Though not a late bloomer exactly, we kinda did something like that with Bryant, but it may have just had more to do with him being a center and the weakness of that market (and even then I would have greatly preferred a fourth-year tacked on).
Suffice to say I would approve of that plan.
Be careful about offering extensions from a position of power to players who get shot while soliciting prostitutes, because the guaranteed bargain rate contract you leverage may be "bulletproof"
