<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">So John Salmons gets five years and $25.5 million from Sacramento? Better hope they got his signature on the contract before putting out the press release. Better hope they got his signature on the contract before putting out the press release. We can argue until the cows come home whether the Raptors are better off with Fred Jones at three years or Salmons at five (I'd take Jones in a close decision) but one thing is for certain: Salmons had made some enemies. And I'd like to think his agent, Joel Bell, lost some respect around the league, too. First of all, there were people around the Phoenix Suns organization patting themselves on the back a couple of weeks ago because they were sure they were getting Salmons. There were some pretty happy faces in Raptor land a couple of weeks ago because they figured Salmons was the answer to their backcourt depth problems. So a guy who lied to two teams gets a richer deal than he ever imagined with a third. I'm sure there are Raptor fans sticking pins in their Salmons voodoo dolls right now. Yes, it's a wacky league. Next time the agent Bell says he's got a guy for a team, maybe a GM will hang up the phone.</div> Source
I hate John Salmons, but for some reason I think he would help the Raptors more becuase he is pretty versatile and can handle the ball pretty well.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting durvasa:</div><div class="quote_post">Can someone recap how he lied?</div> Well basically he made verbal commitments to the suns, then backed out for the raptors (for more money) then backed out to go to the Kings (for more money). Each time he backed out of a deal the teams were heavily under the impression that he had committed and was going to be signed. Although he said "fit" was the reason for backing out of the raptors, that smells like pure BS. As raptors fans, I don't think we can be too angry considering we signed Fred Jones for way less and are taking less risk. Personally, I think it's going to affect his agent more than it affects him. He'll have his 5 year stint and then he'll have another contract to sign... he may have a new agent by then so who knows ... but this whole thing will be long gone. His agent (Joel Bell) is going to scrutinized by teams heavily now when negotiating contracts and probably is going to be bargaining on unfavorable terms. Doug Smith did a decent job of pointing this out in the article.
There is a reason why you should never trust a verbal agreement, because there are no garuntees. Honestly, the Suns/Raptors are the idiots for actually thinking the verbal agreement had secured his signature. Until the papers are signed, nothing is certain, hell he might even back out of Sacramento. You never know with these things. It's not like this hasnt been done before, its a common occurance really.
Didn't he also say something like God told him not to come to the Raps? So it's kind of a good thing he didn't end up here b/c I wouldn't want to replace one wacko (James) with another wacko.... (and no, I'm not trying to insult religious people.... just the wackos)
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting dunksworth:</div><div class="quote_post">Didn't he also say something like God told him not to come to the Raps? So it's kind of a good thing he didn't end up here b/c I wouldn't want to replace one wacko (James) with another wacko.... (and no, I'm not trying to insult religious people.... just the wackos)</div> apparently god is good at math- god got salmons 2.5 million dollars more over the life of the contract and i think cali is very tax friendly, esp for the rich.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting NTC187:</div><div class="quote_post">There is a reason why you should never trust a verbal agreement, because there are no garuntees. Honestly, the Suns/Raptors are the idiots for actually thinking the verbal agreement had secured his signature. Until the papers are signed, nothing is certain, hell he might even back out of Sacramento. You never know with these things. It's not like this hasnt been done before, its a common occurance really.</div> Well that's understandable ... but the thing was they couldn't sign him until the respective time. It's not like they verbally agreed and then walked away from the table. Raptors needed to clear a roster spot so they had to wait to cut andre barrett. I think the Suns were in a similar situation waiting for FA season to start. So the reason there was no signature on the contract is because it wasn't possible at the time. Agreeing in principle doesn't make it a contract, as you said, but doing so and walking away from the table is bad business.
