Extending Blatche

[mhd]

Considering the stupid contracts being tosses around, should the Wiz consider extending Blatche now? Andray would probably welcome longterm security. The Wiz would love to get a discount. What should the terms be?

[Rafael122]

How old is he? 23? He'll be 25 by the time his contract runs out? 5 yr/$40 million. Frontloaded. I'm probably lowballing him at this point. If Amir Johnson got $34 million over 5 years, Blatche should get more.

[nate33]

I would think now is the worst possible time to extend him. When Boozer and David Lee go get $12-15M a year, Blatche is going to want that too. I think we're better off waiting. With the new CBA and presumably a tighter cap, it might be cheaper to just resign him in 2012.

I'd offer an extension for 3 years, $30M just as a good faith gesture, but my guess is that he'd decline.

[Benjammin]

I would think now is the worst possible time to extend him. When Boozer and David Lee go get $12-15M a year, Blatche is going to want that too. I think we're better off waiting. With the new CBA and presumably a tighter cap, it might be cheaper to just resign him in 2012.

I'd offer an extension for 3 years, $30M just as a good faith gesture, but my guess is that he'd decline.

I made the same point (without the numbers) in another thread. It would be a very hard sell to get Blatche to accept 3/30 in this climate. But in a few years with a more restrictive CBA with teams capped out, he could be cheaper to re-sign in 2012 plus we'll know more about how he continues to play and develop.

[AXL2018]

I love Blatche more than anybody but i wood wait at least till tha end of tha season he just broke his foot and lets see how him and wall work 2gether i think they could b nasty 2gether

[willbcocks]

We got so freakign lucky with dray. First drafting him, then signing him to that absurdly cheap contract, then the timing with the new CBA. Awesome stuff.

[hands11]

I would think now is the worst possible time to extend him. When Boozer and David Lee go get $12-15M a year, Blatche is going to want that too. I think we're better off waiting. With the new CBA and presumably a tighter cap, it might be cheaper to just resign him in 2012.

I'd offer an extension for 3 years, $30M just as a good faith gesture, but my guess is that he'd decline.

agreed. No reason to do anything before the CBA

[montestewart]

We got so freakign lucky with dray. First drafting him, then signing him to that absurdly cheap contract, then the timing with the new CBA. Awesome stuff.

True w/ the lucky, though he helped the Wizards out a little. I wonder though if his repeatedly striking out in the money dept. might fuel a resentment toward his only professional team if the cards aren't played right. Even if the Wizards are dealing straight up, if he thinks he's getting played, maybe he just leaves. I'd like him to stay a Wizard or at least trade his value rather than letting him go as a free agent.

[hands11]

I love Blatche more than anybody but i wood wait at least till tha end of tha season he just broke his foot and lets see how him and wall work 2gether i think they could b nasty 2gether

What does that mean ?

[Hoopalotta]

I wonder though if his repeatedly striking out in the money dept. might fuel a resentment toward his only professional team if the cards aren't played right. Even if the Wizards are dealing straight up, if he thinks he's getting played, maybe he just leaves.

I agree, while we did get lucky as Will-B said, we can't just exploit the the most underpaid non-rookie labor in the NBA and expect the relationship is going to be great. Did management do anything wrong? No? Will that matter from Dray's camp's perspective? Not necessarily.

That said, what are we going to do? I think I was the first one to suggest that we renegotiate Dray's deal about three months ago. But uh, now? Yikes, seems like a fair plan, but it's really the wrong environment.

In a vacuum I actually wouldn't hate to see Dray's deal ripped up and replaced with five years at $50 million on a flat $10 million a year (I think we could just squeak that in with our cap space). But, I can't say that is very realistic at this moment for a number of reasons.

All told though, I would expect some resentment to brew up if Dray is playing out the next two years at $6.8 million. Yeah, he can only blame himself, but it's still not going to sit well.

[MJG]

I'd definitely wait until the new CBA. I mean, if you want to offer a cursory 2-3 years at ~10 million per, that's fine, but if you're thinking of going max on the years, you'd best wait another season.

[wrexingcrew]

I'd offer an extension for 3 years, $30M just as a good faith gesture, but my guess is that he'd decline.

Agreed. Maybe that helps keep him in the fold, per monte's point, even though I can't see him taking it either - which is perfect for us, because we need to see more consistency before we commit more anyway. I guess the only problem is that, given the market right now, he'd actually feel insulted by a 10mil/yr offer. The scary thing is that he probably has a right to.

[pancakes3]

he's still bitter about the last extension he signed. i doubt he's giddy to sign another one without testing the free agency waters

[hands11]

The way I see it, Dray got his day in the sun last year once we traded CB and AJ and Gil was in legal hell. He got to show he could produce as a starter and produce very well.

But he is signed for two more years and the CBA is coming due. Like it or not, he has to understand the situation. It's not like we can just rip up his contract.

So now he is coming off a broken foot. This doesn't really bother me to much. I think he will be fine and ready for the season but we do have to see what kind of numbers he can put up over a season as a starter. Having a second scorer in Gil and a real PG in Wall or Hinny on the floor should actually help Dray.

So you let him PHAO for this season. Then see where things are with the CBA. Depending on how he plays this year and what the new CBA looks like, you work up a new contact as soon as you know what the new CBA looks like.

Part of the key to keep Dray happy is to make sure he understands this situation so he knows what to expect and he feel like it is fair. Communication is key about these kind of things.

There is a new sheriff in town with Ted. He needs to, and I expect he will, establish the open communication about these kinds of things. No going to the press first. Ted needs to work with EG to come up with a Dray plan and make sure Dray knows what it is. I would recommend meeting with Dray jointly or even all three including Flip. That would go a long way to making Dray feel like he is important and this is something they are serious about. This way Ted also know first hand they is was handled the way he would like.

Dray is still young. He should get paid well before he leaves this league but he has to understand that most of his great production was for only part of a season and he is in deed already signed.

Hey, the flip side of this happens all the time. Players aren't always paid for what they are worth on the short side and the high side. It's not like if Dray signs and ends up not producing that he can or would tear up the contract and negotiate it down.

We talk about the bad contracts all the time and they are almost legendary. Kind of the reason they need a new CBA.

[jmrosenth]

Let's see if he can duplicate last season's late season success this year before we go extending him for no real reason. Color me skeptical.

[nate33]

By the way, we can extend Blatche right now, but we no longer have the cap space to renegotiate the two remaining years on his contract. If we wanted, we could renounce our TPE and renegotiate right now, but that would leave us with no TPE to trade, and nothing but minimum salary vets to fill out our roster.

If Blatche would agree that he's worth a 3-year, $30M extension, I'd definitely give up the TPE and make the renegotiation. As discussed before, we would rip up his current contract that pays him $6.7M over the next two years, and instead sign him to a new 5-year, $37M contract. If we front load it to the maximum extent our salary cap situation allows, the contract would look something like this:

$8,400,000
$8,400,000
$7,600,000
$6,800,000
$6,000,000

His 2nd year salary (plus Hinrich's if we don't move him) would probably prevent us from going after Melo in 2011, but his salary thereafter would be pretty low, right about the time when we're looking to add a few final pieces via free agency. It also keeps the salary pecking order much cleaner. When McGee is a free agent, it'll be easier to justify paying him a couple of million less than Blatche. If Blatche is only making $8.4M at the time, then McGee can get $6.5M. If Blatche is making $11M at the time, McGee would want $9M.

[rockymac52]

^ that would really be the dream scenario. I dunno though, I expect Blatche to be determined to cash in when his contract is up. The kid thinks he is an allstar, and probably thinks he's always been an allstar and just needed butler/jamison/arenas off the court to prove it. Clearly he can put up the stats, but it'll be interesting to see what he does when there are other players on the court who are better than he is. If he can accept that he's going to be the 3rd or 4th best player on our team (who knows?), and thus have slightly worse stats in return for wins, then he's a guy we need to have. But if he wants to be the star, and get paid like it, he'll go wherever the money and playing time opportunity is I'm afraid. Now maybe he's loyal to the Wizards for sticking with him, despite poor playing time decisions by former coaches, or maybe he values long term security more than a potentially huge contract, but I'm just skeptical. Anyone know who his agent is? Maybe if Melo signs this 3 year/65 million extension it will wake Blatche up and he'll realize that 5/37 (3/30 + current contract) is a pretty good haul with the new CBA possibly shaking things up.

If I had to guess, we won't see an extension in the near future, and when his contract expires, it's going to be really interesting to see what we do with him. I'm worried. I really hope we can prove to him that we're on the right track by then, I hope he improves his game even more and becomes a team player, and I hope he can accept a contract for what he's worth and not what other undeserving players are receiving these days. While 3 years/30 million is pretty fair IMO, all Blatche has to do is point to Gooden and Frye's recent contracts of 5 years/32 million and 5 years/30 million respectively. Given his far superior talent and younger age, he's worth much more than an additional 5 million, and he knows it.

[nate33]

^
All true, but at the same time, we're talking about giving him an immediate, substantial raise from $3.3M to $8.4M in each of the next two years. Money in the hand can be a powerful incentive.

[rockymac52]

True. Not to mention he's seen his teammates go down to so many fluke injuries (now he has too from the sound of it), so he should be well aware how quickly it can all go away, and at the moment while he's definitely got a lot of money, he probably doesn't have enough to support him the rest of his life.

[verbal8]

At this point I would offer Blatche to add an extra year at 10 million(maybe go up to 12). I would do it as a renegotiated deal, because I think Blatche on a reasonable deal in 3 years is likely better than a prospect. If he wants to add more than a year I would reduce the amount to 9 million. If it is a 3 year extension, I would insist on a team option.

If Arenas was GM he would write up these contracts put them in the locker room with a sign to "Pick one".