To me, it seems that Neil was like..ok LA is leaving, we need to rebuild the roster, so he goes out and signs mediocre talent to 3-4 year deals to hold the team over till he can find long term pieces. Then this offseason, he was like, fuck it, let's just go with this team.
If Neil would have done nothing but resign Harkless this offseason, we'd still have had enough to offer a near max contract to someone this offseason. (or do a lopsided trade) But now we're stuck with Crabbe/Turner/Leonard.
Harkless was looking for the big payday and held out until the very end of FA. He only agreed to take what he did because it was the most the Blazers could give him and not go into luxury tax territory.
Bullshit. Did any other team offer him more money? This guy was a year removed from being given away for free.
Twice with the "Bullshit", Sinobas? As dviss1 just showed, it's possible to question a post and request a link without being an ass about it. http://www.blazersedge.com/2016/7/2...arkless-signs-portland-trail-blazers-contract That matches pretty closely with my memory of the situation. Given all of the money being handed out by teams under the new TV money era, Harkless and his agent had hoped for a big offer based on his showing at the end of last season. He didn't end up getting another offer and wanted to come back to the Blazers. His contract amount was based on keeping the Blazers under the luxury tax threshold. If they hadn't signed Leonard, Crabbe & Turner and said that they were going to wait for the FA market the next summer, do you really think that Harkless would have signed a bargain-priced contract to return to a team with no depth? A much more plausible scenario is that he bets on himself, takes the one year qualifying offer contract, and plans on making even more money the next summer. Just because you can imagine a nice little scenario where the Blazers have a bunch of cap space and a good young SF signs with them for relative peanuts doesn't mean that matches anywhere close to reality. Some would even say that such an imaginary view of the NBA world was pure, unadulterated bullshit.
I don't agree that it's more plausible that he decided against a better scenario for himself (this is under the assumption that signing the qualifying offer and hitting the market next year would be more financially enriching) because Leonard, Crabbe and Turner made the Blazers such an enticing team that he wanted to "sign for relative peanuts" to be a part of it. I think that's extremely unlikely. To play with Curry, Durant, Green and Thompson? Yeah, maybe a guy takes less. Not to play with Crabbe, Leonard and Turner. I think after seeing his market was weak, he preferred to take the security of the Blazers' offer over potentially getting hurt or having a poor year and seeing his market dry up completely. I personally don't think signing Crabbe, Leonard and Turner to extremely overpriced deals made Harkless decide to sign.
I think at least part of the reason that Harkless wanted to return to the Blazers is that he liked his teammates and what they achieved last year. He may well have signed with the Blazers anyway for the greater security of a contract in hand vs. the insecurity of the one-year QO, but there wouldn't have been any hard line for Olshey to have used as leverage in keeping Harkless' contract amount down. At this point we're just stating opinions, but I find it pretty hard to believe that he signs the contract that he did absent there being any real reason for the Blazers not to give him a few more million as their SF starter.
The luxury tax line isn't leverage. Leverage is power you have over someone or something else. It's like me saying I have leverage over a BMW dealer because I can only afford to pay $20,000. Olshey's leverage was the qualifying offer and the market. Harkless apparently couldn't find a better deal. And it wouldn't surprise me if he liked his teammates, but A. Turner wasn't one of them and B. the vast majority of his teammates would still have been in place absent Crabbe and Leonard. I basically don't believe that Crabbe and Leonard were such pivotal teammates that Harkless turned down a superior offer elsewhere to provide a "hometown discount" because of them.
Last season’s free agent class was very weak. The result was, several players received ridicules offers in relationship to their skills. Even though Harkless had shown he had some NBA skills and athleticism, (potential), he was not one of the lucky players to be waaay overpaid. Next off-season’s free agent class is very strong. You can forget about the Blazers trading our waaay overpaid players Turner and Crabbe, unless we add in a bushel full of draft picks to sweeten the deal. The other GMs will just go after next season’s large free agent class. Unless Harkless shows a huge improvement to his game this season, I doubt he would have received much interest next off season as a free agent. It is the old business rule of supply and demand. Last season the demand was greater than the supply. Next off season, the supply is equal to or greater than the demand. Harkless did as well as he could for his family. And I am happy he is a Blazer for a few more years.
Of course the luxury tax is leverage as to the amount of the contract. We saw it last year with Wesley Matthews in his Dallas deal. He was going to sign for $12M when it looked like the Mavs had Jordan agreeing to sign with them. Once that went away, Cuban raised him up to a max contract. Without the threshold, there's no limit in place to keep the amount of Harkless's contract down as low as it was. Could he have gotten max money, no, but the Blazers have a track record of not being stingy.
If Matthews could have gotten a max deal elsewhere (which I'm skeptical of), but was willing to sign for $12M with Jordan also signing, it simply means that he was determined to sign in Dallas regardless of salary. Which means the leverage was not the luxury tax line but his desire to be there. The limit in place is what kind of deal he could find elsewhere. Considering what you quoted indicated that his market was weak, the simplest explanation is that he could not, in fact, find a better deal elsewhere and preferred to sign now rather than wait for next year.
I think you protest too much. The fact that the Blazers went within $500K of the luxury tax to sign him, which barely left them any wiggle room for a FA signing in the event of injury or to make a lopsided trade, is certainly indicative that the threshold was a factor that both sides knew was in play.
It doesn't make any sense at all stating Harkless signed for less than he could really find. He didn't have any other offers, so he signed the best one. No other offer on the table that was bigger than the one he received. I don't know why you have it like that in your mind. Seriously it doesn't make any sense. I can only accept that he agreed with the current structure of his contract in order to help the team, but he surely didn't leave any money on the table.
It was obviously a factor for the Blazers. They offered him the best deal they could without going into the luxury tax. With no better options, Harkless took it. I'm protesting just the right amount, because that seems like the most sensible reading of the situation. I don't believe that if there had been $20M more of pre-tax room, that Harkless magically would have had the leverage to demand any significant fraction of that. That isn't how leverage works. If I'm offering you the best deal for your used car but you know I have a lot more money than that, you don't have extra leverage based on that knowledge. I'm offering the best deal--your only option is to sell it for less to someone else. My having more money doesn't help you. We know his market was weak, because he and his agent admitted it. Unless Olshey is stupid, he wouldn't have offered more when there was no reason to.
