Josh Giddey 3.0

[DuckIII]

Giddey doesn't have a "market value." Neither do Kuminga or Cam Thomas. They are unfortunate "victims" of a free agency market that gives them virtually no leverage in negotiating their contracts. Giddey, in my opinion, has quite a bit more leverage than Thomas and Kuminga, but its still not much.

The unofficial opinions of 16 unidentified front office employees making up hypothetical values while having no skin in the game is informational as a data point but is hardly a "market value." The vastly superior method to establish market value, which is still imperfect, is just to look around the league at what guys get paid. And as jnrjr points out, as always there will be varying examples to one extreme or the other, but when you look at those lists its very easy to argue that Giddey's "market value" - were there an actual competitive market of teams with $ to offer - is above $25 million.

He'll end up with a contract value, and its going to be beneficial for the Bulls. But it won't be the result of really determining a market value. There was no market, which is a really great thing for us so long as the Bulls aren't so obsessed with "winning" every nickel and dime out of Giddey that they create yet another sour relationship.

[jnrjr79]

All this worry about building a great team, when the Bulls have shown very little ability to do that.

And we're arguing about paying one of the few bright spots in the last few seasons, 25 mil, over 4 years for a 22/23 yr old. Who obviously has a good BBall IQ, has willingness to improve and suits playing with Matas and Noa (if he plays minutes).

25 Mil is not insane money. Yes, it obviously has implications for building a roster, but IF we don't sign him, what's the Bulls plan? Go into the season with no true ball distributor?

Re: the bolded, are we arguing about that? It seems like 95% of people posting in this thread are good with the $25M number, even those who are not as high on Giddey as others. The disagreement seems to be when you're at or close to $30M.

People keep saying "why won't the Bulls just pay him $25M," but there's been no reporting so far that Giddey would take that. And if the Bulls move to $25M now, Giddey won't likely accept it - he'll use that to bargain his way to some number greater than that.

I thing I'd be interested to know is whose "turn" it is in the negotiation. Did Giddey ask for $30M and the Bulls counter with $20M or vice versa? Typically in a negotiation, you don't bid against yourself, so I wonder whose court the ball is in right now to make a move. I have no idea, but it would not shock me if it were in Giddey's and his agent is just waiting to see if interest develops with some other team in a way that can be leveraged.

[Stratmaster]

All this worry about building a great team, when the Bulls have shown very little ability to do that.

And we're arguing about paying one of the few bright spots in the last few seasons, 25 mil, over 4 years for a 22/23 yr old. Who obviously has a good BBall IQ, has willingness to improve and suits playing with Matas and Noa (if he plays minutes).

25 Mil is not insane money. Yes, it obviously has implications for building a roster, but IF we don't sign him, what's the Bulls plan? Go into the season with no true ball distributor?

Re: the bolded, are we arguing about that? It seems like 95% of people posting in this thread are good with the $25M number, even those who are not as high on Giddey as others. The disagreement seems to be when you're at or close to $30M.

People keep saying "why won't the Bulls just pay him $25M," but there's been no reporting so far that Giddey would take that. And if the Bulls move to $25M now, Giddey won't likely accept it - he'll use that to bargain his way to some number greater than that.

I thing I'd be interested to know is whose "turn" it is in the negotiation. Did Giddey ask for $30M and the Bulls counter with $20M or vice versa? Typically in a negotiation, you don't bid against yourself, so I wonder whose court the ball is in right now to make a move. I have no idea, but it would not shock me if it were in Giddey's and his agent is just waiting to see if interest develops with some other team in a way that can be leveraged.

I agree most everyone thinks 25 mil is the number. The reason I am involved in this debate at all started with the notion that AKME has "finally learned to negotiate" and that 20 mil is a great place to start. As if the greatest negotiating skill is picking a number and then offering an amount equally lower than that number as the player is higher than that number.

I believe that the Bulls botched this negotiation just as badly as the Williams contract; just in the opposite direction. A perfect example of over- correction.

If the number you are looking to get the player for is 25 mil, it would be far more effective to offer 24, and when the player says 30 you say "we will give you 25 mil AAV. That's our final offer. Not a penny more. We can negotiate the terms that make sense for both parties at that price but that is our top number".

Or you can play hardball and try to screw him at 20 mil because you think you have leverage.

If I am Giddey's agent and you throw that leverage in my face, I ask just a few questions.

1. How long have you been looking for a player to run your offense? I believe an end of career Rondo was the closest you came.

2. Didn't you say you want to run a specific type of offense?

3. You wasted several years without getting that point player while you had prolific scorers. Are you going to bring in or develop yet another big time scorer only to have no one to facilitate them?

4. How many more years of failure are you willing to accept to save a couple million a season as you wait to find another player who fits this mold?

[jnrjr79]

All this worry about building a great team, when the Bulls have shown very little ability to do that.

And we're arguing about paying one of the few bright spots in the last few seasons, 25 mil, over 4 years for a 22/23 yr old. Who obviously has a good BBall IQ, has willingness to improve and suits playing with Matas and Noa (if he plays minutes).

25 Mil is not insane money. Yes, it obviously has implications for building a roster, but IF we don't sign him, what's the Bulls plan? Go into the season with no true ball distributor?

Re: the bolded, are we arguing about that? It seems like 95% of people posting in this thread are good with the $25M number, even those who are not as high on Giddey as others. The disagreement seems to be when you're at or close to $30M.

People keep saying "why won't the Bulls just pay him $25M," but there's been no reporting so far that Giddey would take that. And if the Bulls move to $25M now, Giddey won't likely accept it - he'll use that to bargain his way to some number greater than that.

I thing I'd be interested to know is whose "turn" it is in the negotiation. Did Giddey ask for $30M and the Bulls counter with $20M or vice versa? Typically in a negotiation, you don't bid against yourself, so I wonder whose court the ball is in right now to make a move. I have no idea, but it would not shock me if it were in Giddey's and his agent is just waiting to see if interest develops with some other team in a way that can be leveraged.

I agree most everyone thinks 25 mil is the number. The reason I am involved in this debate at all started with the notion that AKME has "finally learned to negotiate" and that 20 mil is a great place to start. As if the greatest negotiating skill is picking a number and then offering an amount equally lower than that number as the player is higher than that number.

I believe that the Bulls botched this negotiation just as badly as the Williams contract; just in the opposite direction. A perfect example of over- correction.

If the number you are looking to get the player for is 25 mil, it would be far more effective to offer 24, and when the player says 30 you say "we will give you 25 mil AAV. That's our final offer. Not a penny more. We can negotiate the terms that make sense for both parties at that price but that is our top number".

Or you can play hardball and try to screw him at 20 mil because you think you have leverage.

If I am Giddey's agent and you throw that leverage in my face, I ask just a few questions.

1. How long have you been looking for a player to run your offense? I believe an end of career Rondo was the closest you came.

2. Didn't you say you want to run a specific type of offense?

3. You wasted several years without getting that point player while you had prolific scorers. Are you going to bring in or develop yet another big time scorer only to have no one to facilitate them?

4. How many more years of failure are you willing to accept to save a couple million a season as you wait to find another player who fits this mold?

I don't really care about the arguments either side can make. They both have many. The only thing here I think is unfair is to say the Bulls have "botched this negotiation." That doesn't really make sense. Neither side has any incentive to move quickly. Giddey wants to wait to see whether the market shifts. The Bulls want to wait to see if Giddey will come down (and all reports are he has not moved off of $30M). The likely path has always been that this thing will drag on until the deadline to sign the QO. That's not to say the Bulls couldn't screw it up, but it's not accurate to say they have already screwed it up, IMO.

[dougthonus]

The only contract the Bulls have bent over on was Williams. And they didn't consider that bending over. They were trying to "motivate" him. Egregiously stupid.

Lavine earned and was getting the max. You can argue he wasn't the right for for the Bulls, they should have traded him earlier, they should have actually tried to build a team around him etc. Take whichever position you want but he wasn't overpaid.

Vuc's contract at 20 mil is fine. Again. You can argue he doesn't fit, or that it was time to shed older talent etc. but 20 mil for his production is appropriate.

I believe the Bulls, the 2nd or 3rd largest basketball market in the NBA, have the 4th lowest payroll. Yeah they are just throwing money at people aren't they?

Who else do you think the Bulls overpaid? I would agree that Donovan should not have gotten 2 extensions. Is that what you mean? But we don't even know if he got a raise, or if he is just hanging in with the 6 mil a season he has been getting for the last decade so he can keep a job.

You are conflating two separate, but related things:

1: Did we negotiate the contract well?

2: Were the results of the contract good?

Just looking at constrained market guys:

Zach would be: No / It depends

For more time than not, we didn't like Zach on that contract and ultimately didn't get a positive return back from him, but there was a time we could have done so if we acted earlier. From a negotiation standpoint, there was no need to kick in a PO or a Trade Kicker into his deal, we were the best deal by a huge margin without those things.

DeMar would be: No / Yes
DeMar discussed that his best offer outside of ours was the TMLE, we literally paid him like 65M more than the next best offer? He may have found something at the MLE eventually as well, but we gave up a 1st + a player moved for a 1st for the privilege of paying him more than double the market value he had elsewhere. DeMar played well enough that it didn't matter.

Vuc would be: No / No
Overpaid in years and dollars right away, could not move him, we wish he wasn't here today but still can't move him.

Pat would be: No / No
Overpaid in years and dollars bidding against ourselves, and can't move him today

Coby would be: No / Yes
We offered him peak market rate based on his performance before hitting FA, then he had a massive breakout year and was worth way more.

Ayo would be: It depends / Yes
We didn't agree to Ayo early on like we did with everyone else, but we offered him more than anyone else in the market was going to pay when he signed. That might have been our initial offer as well and Ayo only took it after the market dried up, hard to say. We clearly believed in him despite having a "vet min" kind of year prior to signing this deal. I'd say Ayo is on a good contract today though, and we're happy with it.

This feels like the one time did negotiate more, but I've not read anything about the particulars internally to know.

I won't include guys like:
Caruso, Jalen Smith, Jevon Carter, because they were UFAs that had potentially robust markets, and so we needed to bid max market to get those guys, the above guys were all people we had leverage with and whether we opted to use any leverage, and the answer generally, every time, was no.

The amount that impacted things is highly variable of course, if Zach didn't have a PO or trade kicker, it wouldn't have ended up having a meaningful difference to us in the grand scheme of things. Vuc / Pat were big misses. Coby / DeMar obviously turned out great despite not negotiating much or in DeMar's case going way above market.

This is only one small slice of AK's job, but it's not one he's done well.

[Stratmaster]

Re: the bolded, are we arguing about that? It seems like 95% of people posting in this thread are good with the $25M number, even those who are not as high on Giddey as others. The disagreement seems to be when you're at or close to $30M.

People keep saying "why won't the Bulls just pay him $25M," but there's been no reporting so far that Giddey would take that. And if the Bulls move to $25M now, Giddey won't likely accept it - he'll use that to bargain his way to some number greater than that.

I thing I'd be interested to know is whose "turn" it is in the negotiation. Did Giddey ask for $30M and the Bulls counter with $20M or vice versa? Typically in a negotiation, you don't bid against yourself, so I wonder whose court the ball is in right now to make a move. I have no idea, but it would not shock me if it were in Giddey's and his agent is just waiting to see if interest develops with some other team in a way that can be leveraged.

I agree most everyone thinks 25 mil is the number. The reason I am involved in this debate at all started with the notion that AKME has "finally learned to negotiate" and that 20 mil is a great place to start. As if the greatest negotiating skill is picking a number and then offering an amount equally lower than that number as the player is higher than that number.

I believe that the Bulls botched this negotiation just as badly as the Williams contract; just in the opposite direction. A perfect example of over- correction.

If the number you are looking to get the player for is 25 mil, it would be far more effective to offer 24, and when the player says 30 you say "we will give you 25 mil AAV. That's our final offer. Not a penny more. We can negotiate the terms that make sense for both parties at that price but that is our top number".

Or you can play hardball and try to screw him at 20 mil because you think you have leverage.

If I am Giddey's agent and you throw that leverage in my face, I ask just a few questions.

1. How long have you been looking for a player to run your offense? I believe an end of career Rondo was the closest you came.

2. Didn't you say you want to run a specific type of offense?

3. You wasted several years without getting that point player while you had prolific scorers. Are you going to bring in or develop yet another big time scorer only to have no one to facilitate them?

4. How many more years of failure are you willing to accept to save a couple million a season as you wait to find another player who fits this mold?

I don't really care about the arguments either side can make. They both have many. The only thing here I think is unfair is to say the Bulls have "botched this negotiation." That doesn't really make sense. Neither side has any incentive to move quickly. Giddey wants to wait to see whether the market shifts. The Bulls want to wait to see if Giddey will come down (and all reports are he has not moved off of $30M). The likely path has always been that this thing will drag on until the deadline to sign the QO. That's not to say the Bulls couldn't screw it up, but it's not accurate to say they have already screwed it up, IMO.

Fair enough. I will rephrase. The Bullsc starred these negotiations poorly, and on the wrong foot. They haven't "botched them".... yet.

[jnrjr79]

The only contract the Bulls have bent over on was Williams. And they didn't consider that bending over. They were trying to "motivate" him. Egregiously stupid.

Lavine earned and was getting the max. You can argue he wasn't the right for for the Bulls, they should have traded him earlier, they should have actually tried to build a team around him etc. Take whichever position you want but he wasn't overpaid.

Vuc's contract at 20 mil is fine. Again. You can argue he doesn't fit, or that it was time to shed older talent etc. but 20 mil for his production is appropriate.

I believe the Bulls, the 2nd or 3rd largest basketball market in the NBA, have the 4th lowest payroll. Yeah they are just throwing money at people aren't they?

Who else do you think the Bulls overpaid? I would agree that Donovan should not have gotten 2 extensions. Is that what you mean? But we don't even know if he got a raise, or if he is just hanging in with the 6 mil a season he has been getting for the last decade so he can keep a job.

You are conflating two separate, but related things:

1: Did we negotiate the contract well?

2: Were the results of the contract good?

Just looking at constrained market guys:

Zach would be: No / It depends

For more time than not, we didn't like Zach on that contract and ultimately didn't get a positive return back from him, but there was a time we could have done so if we acted earlier.

In what sense does the return on the Zach trade not clear the low bar of being "positive?" They got semi-useful players/expiring contracts and their first round pick back, which turned into Essengue.

They obviously did not strike at the optimal time, but the trade return was positive, IMO.

[jnrjr79]

I agree most everyone thinks 25 mil is the number. The reason I am involved in this debate at all started with the notion that AKME has "finally learned to negotiate" and that 20 mil is a great place to start. As if the greatest negotiating skill is picking a number and then offering an amount equally lower than that number as the player is higher than that number.

I believe that the Bulls botched this negotiation just as badly as the Williams contract; just in the opposite direction. A perfect example of over- correction.

If the number you are looking to get the player for is 25 mil, it would be far more effective to offer 24, and when the player says 30 you say "we will give you 25 mil AAV. That's our final offer. Not a penny more. We can negotiate the terms that make sense for both parties at that price but that is our top number".

Or you can play hardball and try to screw him at 20 mil because you think you have leverage.

If I am Giddey's agent and you throw that leverage in my face, I ask just a few questions.

1. How long have you been looking for a player to run your offense? I believe an end of career Rondo was the closest you came.

2. Didn't you say you want to run a specific type of offense?

3. You wasted several years without getting that point player while you had prolific scorers. Are you going to bring in or develop yet another big time scorer only to have no one to facilitate them?

4. How many more years of failure are you willing to accept to save a couple million a season as you wait to find another player who fits this mold?

I don't really care about the arguments either side can make. They both have many. The only thing here I think is unfair is to say the Bulls have "botched this negotiation." That doesn't really make sense. Neither side has any incentive to move quickly. Giddey wants to wait to see whether the market shifts. The Bulls want to wait to see if Giddey will come down (and all reports are he has not moved off of $30M). The likely path has always been that this thing will drag on until the deadline to sign the QO. That's not to say the Bulls couldn't screw it up, but it's not accurate to say they have already screwed it up, IMO.

Fair enough. I will rephrase. The Bullsc starred these negotiations poorly, and on the wrong foot. They haven't "botched them".... yet.

Yeah, this is I think the main funny disconnect in this thread - the overwhelming majority of people seem to be pretty aligned on where the numbers should ultimately land. The disagreement is on whether it is good or bad that the Bulls have been playing their hand the way they have.

[Stratmaster]

The only contract the Bulls have bent over on was Williams. And they didn't consider that bending over. They were trying to "motivate" him. Egregiously stupid.

Lavine earned and was getting the max. You can argue he wasn't the right for for the Bulls, they should have traded him earlier, they should have actually tried to build a team around him etc. Take whichever position you want but he wasn't overpaid.

Vuc's contract at 20 mil is fine. Again. You can argue he doesn't fit, or that it was time to shed older talent etc. but 20 mil for his production is appropriate.

I believe the Bulls, the 2nd or 3rd largest basketball market in the NBA, have the 4th lowest payroll. Yeah they are just throwing money at people aren't they?

Who else do you think the Bulls overpaid? I would agree that Donovan should not have gotten 2 extensions. Is that what you mean? But we don't even know if he got a raise, or if he is just hanging in with the 6 mil a season he has been getting for the last decade so he can keep a job.

You are conflating two separate, but related things:

1: Did we negotiate the contract well?

2: Were the results of the contract good?

Just looking at constrained market guys:

Zach would be: No / It depends

For more time than not, we didn't like Zach on that contract and ultimately didn't get a positive return back from him, but there was a time we could have done so if we acted earlier. From a negotiation standpoint, there was no need to kick in a PO or a Trade Kicker into his deal, we were the best deal regardless of those things.

DeMar would be: No / Yes
DeMar discussed that his best offer outside of ours was the TMLE, we literally paid him like 65M more than the next best offer? He may have found something at the MLE eventually as well, but we gave up a 1st + a player moved for a 1st for the privilege of paying him more than double the market value he had elsewhere. DeMar played well enough that it didn't matter.

Vuc would be: No / No
Overpaid in years and dollars right away, could not move him, we wish he wasn't here today but still can't move him.

Pat would be: No / No
Overpaid in years and dollars bidding against ourselves, and can't move him today

Coby would be: No / Yes
We offered him peak market rate based on his performance before hitting FA, then he had a massive breakout year and was worth way more.

Ayo would be: It depends / Yes
We didn't agree to Ayo early on like we did with everyone else, but we offered him more than anyone else in the market was going to pay when he signed. That might have been our initial offer as well and Ayo only took it after the market dried up, hard to say. We clearly believed in him despite having a "vet min" kind of year prior to signing this deal. I'd say Ayo is on a good contract today though, and we're happy with it.

This feels like the one time did negotiate more, but I've not read anything about the particulars.

I won't include guys like:
Caruso, Jalen Smith, Jevon Carter, because they were UFAs that had potentially robust markets, and so we needed to bid max market to get those guys, the above guys were all people we had leverage with and whether we opted to use any leverage, and the answer generally, every time, was no.

The amount that impacted things is highly variable of course, if Zach didn't have a PO or trade kicker, it wouldn't have ended up having a meaningful difference to us in the grand scheme of things. Vuc / Pat were big misses. Coby / DeMar obviously turned out great despite not negotiating much.

Well we have a very different view on a couple of those players which will certainly affect how we feel about the contracts. From a negotiating view I think we actually agree that they negotiated poorly on almost every contract to date.

The difference is I believe they are still doing that. You think the
Giddey situation is how contracts should be skillfully negotiated. I don't.

[dougthonus]

The difference is I believe they are still doing that. You think the
Giddey situation is how contracts should be skillfully negotiated. I don't.

What would you do if you were negotiating with Giddey today? What would your opening contract offer have been? If he declined and demanded 30M would you then keep raising your offer or would you wait? What does ideal look like to you?

I also don't know if what we're doing is ideal, but I know that actually making an attempt is better than not making an attempt. I expect it will end up better than we have done in the past. Our past actions would have been to agree to Giddey on a 5/150 deal before FA opened. I'll wait to see where we land before commenting on whether we beat that, but I'd guess anything other than the QO will be better than that.

To ask "is this skillfully negotiated?" is an interesting question. I'm not an NBA level negotiator, and I'm not certain what ideal is. There are a lot of dynamics to this, we've poked around a lot of the edges of them (Giddey's value, the current market situation, threat of QO, not pissing off a player you value, comparison to other contracts on the roster, etc etc). I'd imagine both sides know they aren't going to get what they want in their opening salvos so it's also about where each side is willing to land.

I'll wait to look at the result to see how things went, but as it stands today, I'm much happier with where we are right now than where we would typically be in the past.

[DuckIII]

Skillful negotiation is getting a player you want, at a salary that makes sense, without poisoning the relationship.

2 of those 3 appear to be in the bag. Its the last one that only a few seem to care about it. Most of the posts are only about maximizing (or rather minimizing) the Giddey negotiations on paper. But these things aren't limited to paper. I just hope AK keeps that in mind. If he does, this should end reasonably well. If he doesn't, I share Strat's "overcorrection" concern.

[jnrjr79]

The difference is I believe they are still doing that. You think the
Giddey situation is how contracts should be skillfully negotiated. I don't.

What would you do if you were negotiating with Giddey today? What would your opening contract offer have been? If he declined and demanded 30M would you then keep raising your offer or would you wait? What does ideal look like to you?

I also don't know if what we're doing is ideal, but I know that actually making an attempt is better than not making an attempt. I expect it will end up better than we have done in the past. Our past actions would have been to agree to Giddey on a 5/150 deal before FA opened. I'll wait to see where we land before commenting on whether we beat that, but I'd guess anything other than the QO will be better than that.

To ask "is this skillfully negotiated?" is an interesting question. I'm not an NBA level negotiator, and I'm not certain what ideal is. There are a lot of dynamics to this, we've poked around a lot of the edges of them (Giddey's value, the current market situation, threat of QO, not pissing off a player you value, comparison to other contracts on the roster, etc etc). I'd imagine both sides know they aren't going to get what they want in their opening salvos so it's also about where each side is willing to land.

I'll wait to look at the result to see how things went, but as it stands today, I'm much happier with where we are right now than where we would typically be in the past.

IMO, it's not really possible to know whether a negotiation was done "skillfully" when you're not a party to it, at least when the result is good. All we can do is look at the outcome and make an inference as to whether it seems like it was handled well or not. If a result is bad, it might be easier to make the leap to "this wasn't negotiated well," though.

[jnrjr79]

Skillful negotiation is getting a player you want, at a salary that makes sense, without poisoning the relationship.

2 of those 3 appear to be in the bag. Its the last one that only a few seem to care about it. Most of the posts are only about maximizing (or rather minimizing) the Giddey negotiations on paper. But these things aren't limited to paper. I just hope AK keeps that in mind. If he does, this should end reasonably well. If he doesn't, I share Strat's "overcorrection" concern.

I find this item to be the least concerning of the 3, because it seems rare for a player to agree to a new deal, but have the relationship with the franchise be materially damaged.

[DuckIII]

Skillful negotiation is getting a player you want, at a salary that makes sense, without poisoning the relationship.

2 of those 3 appear to be in the bag. Its the last one that only a few seem to care about it. Most of the posts are only about maximizing (or rather minimizing) the Giddey negotiations on paper. But these things aren't limited to paper. I just hope AK keeps that in mind. If he does, this should end reasonably well. If he doesn't, I share Strat's "overcorrection" concern.

I find this item to be the least concerning of the 3, because it seems rare for a player to agree to a new deal, but have the relationship with the franchise be materially damaged.

Well the first two are slam dunks, so I don't know how the 3rd can be the least concerning. There's no doubt the Bulls want Giddey and unless he signs the QO it appears clear to me (though who knows I guess) that the contract is, at minimum, not going to be an overpay.

So that leaves number 3. And my recollection on league negotiations and player salaries in both the NFL and NBA is that players who feel slighted absolutely do hold it against organizations even when they do sign their deals and it becomes an issue. Sometimes its an issue and sometimes its not. But its very real. We even have a couple of pretty prominent examples in Chicago with Jimmy Butler and Scottie Pippen.

[jnrjr79]

Skillful negotiation is getting a player you want, at a salary that makes sense, without poisoning the relationship.

2 of those 3 appear to be in the bag. Its the last one that only a few seem to care about it. Most of the posts are only about maximizing (or rather minimizing) the Giddey negotiations on paper. But these things aren't limited to paper. I just hope AK keeps that in mind. If he does, this should end reasonably well. If he doesn't, I share Strat's "overcorrection" concern.

I find this item to be the least concerning of the 3, because it seems rare for a player to agree to a new deal, but have the relationship with the franchise be materially damaged.

Well the first two are slam dunks, so I don't know how the 3rd can be the least concerning. There's no doubt the Bulls want Giddey and unless he signs the QO it appears clear to me (though who knows I guess) that the contract is, at minimum, not going to be an overpay.

Sorry. I meant in the abstract, not specific to Giddey. In a random contract negotiation, getting the player I want + a salary that makes sense strike me as bigger concerns than the risk of getting both those things but somehow also simultaneously poisoning the relationship. If the player is willing to sign with you at a certain number, most of the time it's unlikely that the relationship. has been poisoned.

So that leaves number 3. And my recollection on league negotiations and player salaries in both the NFL and NBA is that players who feel slighted absolutely do hold it against organizations even when they do sign their deals and it becomes an issue. Sometimes it's an issue and sometimes it's not. But it's very real. We even have a couple of pretty prominent examples in Chicago with Jimmy Butler and Scottie Pippen.

I think the NFL is the #1 example of this happening basically never. Guys hold out all the time, go to the media, demand trades, and then they sign and it's all copasetic. Just this year, you've seen it with Terry McLaurin and Myles Garrett.

I do not think Jimmy Butler is a good example of this, either. He wanted Chicago to max him and to make him the centerpiece of the team. He did not resent his deal and want out.

I may have been too young to remember this, but my sense is Pippen is also a bad example. Jerry warned him against signing the deal he did, but Pippen wanted that deal. He only came to resent it later (if we're talking about the same contract here).

[sco]

Giddey doesn't have a "market value." Neither do Kuminga or Cam Thomas. They are unfortunate "victims" of a free agency market that gives them virtually no leverage in negotiating their contracts. Giddey, in my opinion, has quite a bit more leverage than Thomas and Kuminga, but its still not much.

The unofficial opinions of 16 unidentified front office employees making up hypothetical values while having no skin in the game is informational as a data point but is hardly a "market value." The vastly superior method to establish market value, which is still imperfect, is just to look around the league at what guys get paid. And as jnrjr points out, as always there will be varying examples to one extreme or the other, but when you look at those lists its very easy to argue that Giddey's "market value" - were there an actual competitive market of teams with $ to offer - is above $25 million.

He'll end up with a contract value, and its going to be beneficial for the Bulls. But it won't be the result of really determining a market value. There was no market, which is a really great thing for us so long as the Bulls aren't so obsessed with "winning" every nickel and dime out of Giddey that they create yet another sour relationship.

I'm with you 100%.

If even if he ends up with a 4/$80M deal, I sincerely doubt the relationship sours (at least to the point that it matters for his next deal). These guys go through agents specifically to keep the relationship with the player in tact. His agent, if he is worth $hit, would have walked him through the market situation up front, which would include how RFA works and the fact that there was only realistically 1 team out there who MIGHT have upped the "market to $30M" but there was a decent chance that the Bulls would be holding all the cards unless some other teams comes in. It would have been in the agent's interest to say that...otherwise, he could only look just ok or worse, if he didn't bring home the $30M deal. There's a decent chance that this agent won't even be his agent on the next deal, but he could.

I think many here are just projecting their personal concern about losing him into these discussions...and I get that.

[DropStep]

Giddey doesn't have a "market value." Neither do Kuminga or Cam Thomas. They are unfortunate "victims" of a free agency market that gives them virtually no leverage in negotiating their contracts. Giddey, in my opinion, has quite a bit more leverage than Thomas and Kuminga, but its still not much.

Whatever their market value turns out to be in any given moment, I think it could swing quite a bit throughout the next season or two. As has been pointed out, many good teams are on the verge of being gutted (or are currently being gutted - read: Boston). That has always been a path a few "all in" contenders would take, but I can't remember feeling like this many teams need to cut costs.

I don't think this thing (the CBA) has quite filtered through the system, even two years in. I don't think anybody has a good handle yet handle on what players should really be worth in this new world going forward, as most teams with old-style contracts on the books don't have enough money to even pay their own guys, much less go get Kuminga. But some agents and GMs will still be looking at historical comps that are probably no longer applicable. One day we will reach equilibrium, but it hasn't happened yet. The NBA labor market still feels unstable and volatile.

Is there such a thing anymore as a sustainable roster that is also good? That remains to be seen. Maybe after a couple years of players getting contracts that are 65% of what they hope for, teams will be able to breathe? OKC is the most obvious current candidate to fight the tide, because they started off with an enormous head start of cheap players and draft picks. But it remains to be seen how long even they can survive on an artificial diet of cheap rookie contracts, which fit into the chalk outline of beloved and talented players who simply graduated out of their rookie contracts and had to go.

(Disclaimer - I know players are still supposed to get their proper percentage of revenue. I am not sure how or when that will happen. Because, I maintain that the "apron factor" is dominating the "they still have to get the same piece of the pie" factor at the moment. If anybody figures out who is getting paid under these rules, let me know. I have a hunch it is max players and old contracts that are in their third or fourth year, but I don't know. Really, what DOES happen when the league has to pay players a percentage, but they also disincentivize teams to do so? Do we have a blanket payout to all players coming?)

[Stratmaster]

The difference is I believe they are still doing that. You think the
Giddey situation is how contracts should be skillfully negotiated. I don't.

What would you do if you were negotiating with Giddey today? What would your opening contract offer have been? If he declined and demanded 30M would you then keep raising your offer or would you wait? What does ideal look like to you?

I also don't know if what we're doing is ideal, but I know that actually making an attempt is better than not making an attempt. I expect it will end up better than we have done in the past. Our past actions would have been to agree to Giddey on a 5/150 deal before FA opened. I'll wait to see where we land before commenting on whether we beat that, but I'd guess anything other than the QO will be better than that.

To ask "is this skillfully negotiated?" is an interesting question. I'm not an NBA level negotiator, and I'm not certain what ideal is. There are a lot of dynamics to this, we've poked around a lot of the edges of them (Giddey's value, the current market situation, threat of QO, not pissing off a player you value, comparison to other contracts on the roster, etc etc). I'd imagine both sides know they aren't going to get what they want in their opening salvos so it's also about where each side is willing to land.

I'll wait to look at the result to see how things went, but as it stands today, I'm much happier with where we are right now than where we would typically be in the past.

From my conversation with another poster:

"If the number you are looking to get the player for is 25 mil, it would be far more effective to offer 24, and when the player says 30 you say "we will give you 25 mil AAV. That's our final offer. Not a penny more. We can negotiate the terms that make sense for both parties at that price but that is our top number"."

By offering a lowball number, you are basically saying "we are open to significant negotiations on the number but if we can we will pay you as little as possible"

[jnrjr79]

The difference is I believe they are still doing that. You think the
Giddey situation is how contracts should be skillfully negotiated. I don't.

What would you do if you were negotiating with Giddey today? What would your opening contract offer have been? If he declined and demanded 30M would you then keep raising your offer or would you wait? What does ideal look like to you?

I also don't know if what we're doing is ideal, but I know that actually making an attempt is better than not making an attempt. I expect it will end up better than we have done in the past. Our past actions would have been to agree to Giddey on a 5/150 deal before FA opened. I'll wait to see where we land before commenting on whether we beat that, but I'd guess anything other than the QO will be better than that.

To ask "is this skillfully negotiated?" is an interesting question. I'm not an NBA level negotiator, and I'm not certain what ideal is. There are a lot of dynamics to this, we've poked around a lot of the edges of them (Giddey's value, the current market situation, threat of QO, not pissing off a player you value, comparison to other contracts on the roster, etc etc). I'd imagine both sides know they aren't going to get what they want in their opening salvos so it's also about where each side is willing to land.

I'll wait to look at the result to see how things went, but as it stands today, I'm much happier with where we are right now than where we would typically be in the past.

From my conversation with another poster:

"If the number you are looking to get the player for is 25 mil, it would be far more effective to offer 24, and when the player says 30 you say "we will give you 25 mil AAV. That's our final offer. Not a penny more. We can negotiate the terms that make sense for both parties at that price but that is our top number"."

As someone who does this for a living (kinda sorta), offering 96% of what you're willing to pay out of the gate and then bumping it 4% and saying "best and final" is a great way to not get a deal done.

[Stratmaster]

What would you do if you were negotiating with Giddey today? What would your opening contract offer have been? If he declined and demanded 30M would you then keep raising your offer or would you wait? What does ideal look like to you?

I also don't know if what we're doing is ideal, but I know that actually making an attempt is better than not making an attempt. I expect it will end up better than we have done in the past. Our past actions would have been to agree to Giddey on a 5/150 deal before FA opened. I'll wait to see where we land before commenting on whether we beat that, but I'd guess anything other than the QO will be better than that.

To ask "is this skillfully negotiated?" is an interesting question. I'm not an NBA level negotiator, and I'm not certain what ideal is. There are a lot of dynamics to this, we've poked around a lot of the edges of them (Giddey's value, the current market situation, threat of QO, not pissing off a player you value, comparison to other contracts on the roster, etc etc). I'd imagine both sides know they aren't going to get what they want in their opening salvos so it's also about where each side is willing to land.

I'll wait to look at the result to see how things went, but as it stands today, I'm much happier with where we are right now than where we would typically be in the past.

From my conversation with another poster:

"If the number you are looking to get the player for is 25 mil, it would be far more effective to offer 24, and when the player says 30 you say "we will give you 25 mil AAV. That's our final offer. Not a penny more. We can negotiate the terms that make sense for both parties at that price but that is our top number"."

As someone who does this for a living (kinda sorta), offering 96% of what you're willing to pay out of the gate and then bumping it 4% and saying "best and final" is a great way to not get a deal done.

As someone who did this for a living for 25 years, including multi-year, multi-million contracts, you have no basis for saying that. The lowball approach invites significant negotiations. You are far better going in with a fair offer slightly below your max and standing firm at your max.

Let me try this a different way. You are employed by my organization. Your contract is up for renewal and this is my pitch:

"you were brought into the industry on our 4 year apprenticeship/prove it plan (NBA rookie contract scales). Last year, we increased your responsibilities significantly from a role player in the organization to a leadership role. Got to admit. You killed it. You performed at a level that no one in that role in this company has performed at in the last decade. We look forward to you continuing in that role. We know that others in the industry in that role make $300k a year or more. But it was only for half a year. Therefore, we think it is fair to pay you $200k a year for the next 3 (or 4, or 5) years."

What is your response?

Mine would be one of two things. In Giddey's shoes, my best response to that offer would be "fine, give me the $200k for one year and we will talk again 12 months from now". My worst response would be to laugh and walk out of the room.