Dan Z wrote:This year Detroit has been an all-time losing team, which is a big reason why I don't think he'd want to go there. Yes, he's not winning in Chicago either, but he's been here a few years and might feel better about turning things around rather than go to another losing situation.
WindyCityBorn wrote:Detroit would have to offer him a max contract. Detroit isn’t winning 30 games next season. He will get $25 million per from the Bulls and be happy. He would already be gone if they didn’t have a handshake deal,
Reply to both these things at once. I don't think the marginal benefit of Chicago vs Detroit is worth more than $1M a year or so. Missing the playoffs is missing the playoffs. DDR going to Detroit, if he's even remotely worth 25M would also considerably increase their odds of winning.
I'm not saying DDR has to max every dollar, but if he's taking a meaningful discount, it isn't to play on a the 19th best team in the league. Also not saying Detroit would be interested in him either, but if they are, I don't think they have to outbid us by 30M to get him.
Dan Z wrote:However, it's possible that money sways him and he picks Detroit, but keep in mind that after this season he made 257 million for his career.
Also, there has been talk about DDR going to LA (where he's from) for awhile now so maybe he takes less to go there?
It's certainly possible he gives up a lot of money for a location he wants to live in or a chance to win a title. Effectively, that's just choosing a different value prop other than money and completely shifts the topic.
My feeling (which may not be true but is how I look at it)
Probably 98% of contracts can be explained by maximizing money or maximizing chances to win. There are some arbitrages around preferred location due to weather, city, friendships, family, hometown etc.. or opportunity on the team (ie, maybe the Nuggets have the best chance to win but if I'll never see the floor I don't really care, I want to contribute not be the 15th man), but the vast majority of stuff is either money or titles.
Usually if you choose money, you are always taking the most and all the other factors are only tie breakers between two relatively similar offers. In the case where there is a huge gap in those other factors maybe it can have more than tie breaker effect, but that's often not the case, because the 2nd factor is usually winning and typically the teams with massive winning gaps are stuck at the exception level contracts and often at TMLE or below and the teams with money are WAY above that, so if you go to that team, money becomes basically a non factor.
Using this framework, it's unlikely Chicago is a meaningfully better destination than Detroit if money is the primary motivating factor. It's a better city and he probably has friendships here because he's been here, and that probably accounts for something, but probably not more than 10M in total over the life of his deal would be my guess, and if Detroit offers 10M more over 3 years, and we refuse to match, it leaves such a bad taste in his mouth that it starts to poison the well. There's a fair chance he also figures I probably stand a good chance of getting traded anyway, so why take less?
If he uses the winning framework, Chicago is just going to lose to any of the top 8 teams in the league who could bid on him.
Maybe the real wild card is Philly. If Philly were to bid because they have cap room and bid like say 15M or something, their chance to win and quality of city overall might be a compelling thing where it breaks the mode of purely chance to win vs money because the money is still really good and perceived chance to win isn't maximized but is certainly reasonable and might be one of the rare cases with a compromise is possible.