Kings pull offer to Iguodala (split)
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I think there is some stuff that might have went on behind the scenes. what if the Kings asked that the offer remain confidential so as not to upset relations with Reke if we had to turn back to him? The agent misrepresenting our numerical offer (52 instead of 56/58) according to Amick only pointed to one thing as well.
It is not like we just gave him an average offer and got upset because he did not sign with us right away. I think PDA and Vivek's message was simple - we will treat you like a superstar, we are giving you the best $$$ offer (basically overpaying you) and no other team in NBA will do that but we want your commitment. He probably said that he was not ready and wants to talk to other teams. It was his right as a free agent but we also had a right to expect a different answer taking into consideration what kinda offer we gave him. Our FO was aggressive and Iguodala (and/or his agent) thought they were desperate.
You had me a little confused bro lol. Im with you on the fact that we dont want agents to think they have to sign deals immediatly, but I dont think thats what happened. I like that we are not going to let the agents use us as a pawn to get their clients what they want. Too many small market teams deal with this issue and its refreshing to see our GM take a stance against it.
Uh.. of course Iggy's agent would show the highest outside offer to Denver, Denver can offer him the most money with a 5th year. Had nothing to do with small or big markets. Agents are paid to get their players the most money. I don't see how that would be unexpected or offensive.
If the Kings leaked out a time limit (+reason for the time limit) when the offer was initially reported there likely wouldn't be a fuss over this. It's largely nothing, but could have been easily avoided.
If the Kings leaked out a time limit (+reason for the time limit) when the offer was initially reported there likely wouldn't be a fuss over this. It's largely nothing, but could have been easily avoided.
http://www.grantland.com/blog/the-triangle/post/_/id/67490/finding-the-right-destination-and-the-right-price-for-the-versatile-andre-iguodala
Here's a detailed article published on July 1st speculating in detail about where Igoudala might end up. You know how many times Sacramento is mentioned? Not once. Nobody considers us a realistic option for signing any free agents because nobody takes the Sacramento Kings seriously right now. Did we really expect that to change overnight? The question I'm asking myself is whether this strange (and basically unprecedented) course of action with the Igoudala contract offer makes people in basketball take Sacramento more seriously, and I'm afraid that the answer is probably the reverse. I'd be happy to be proven wrong in this case, but can anybody imagine the Spurs pulling a move like this? Of course not, that's a classy organization. So why are we commending our front office when the only positive thing anyone has to say about this is that we probably shouldn't have been offering him that much money in the first place?
Even if you give the new front office the benefit of a clean slate, they're going to be judged by their track record and right now their track record is playing hardball with an asset we can't really afford to lose and making a "blink and you missed it" offer to a guy nobody thinks we had a chance of signing. It's still too early to panic, but for all the twitter chatter we actually haven't done anything yet while Memphis wasted no time re-signing Tony Allen, San Antonio already has deals with Splitter and Ginobili, Minnesota got Kevin Martin and Chase Budinger, the Clippers have retained Chris Paul and traded for JJ Reddick to fill their SG spot. It's too early to panic, plenty of time for that later, but I also don't see how any of this can be spun as good news for us.
Here's a detailed article published on July 1st speculating in detail about where Igoudala might end up. You know how many times Sacramento is mentioned? Not once. Nobody considers us a realistic option for signing any free agents because nobody takes the Sacramento Kings seriously right now. Did we really expect that to change overnight? The question I'm asking myself is whether this strange (and basically unprecedented) course of action with the Igoudala contract offer makes people in basketball take Sacramento more seriously, and I'm afraid that the answer is probably the reverse. I'd be happy to be proven wrong in this case, but can anybody imagine the Spurs pulling a move like this? Of course not, that's a classy organization. So why are we commending our front office when the only positive thing anyone has to say about this is that we probably shouldn't have been offering him that much money in the first place?
Even if you give the new front office the benefit of a clean slate, they're going to be judged by their track record and right now their track record is playing hardball with an asset we can't really afford to lose and making a "blink and you missed it" offer to a guy nobody thinks we had a chance of signing. It's still too early to panic, but for all the twitter chatter we actually haven't done anything yet while Memphis wasted no time re-signing Tony Allen, San Antonio already has deals with Splitter and Ginobili, Minnesota got Kevin Martin and Chase Budinger, the Clippers have retained Chris Paul and traded for JJ Reddick to fill their SG spot. It's too early to panic, plenty of time for that later, but I also don't see how any of this can be spun as good news for us.
Its Offensive when you have no intensions of your client signing with us but knowing that you can use our OFFER to your advantage to get your client signed elsewhere. It happens in sports all the time i get that, BUT we dont have to let agents use us like that. I remember this happening to the 49ers a few years ago with Kurt Warner when arizona was trying to play hardball with him , his agents intensions all along were to get him alot of money from Arizona so he could stay there, at the time the niners wanted a top QB and we flew him out to frisco, took him on a helicopter ride, offered him alot of money. It was looking like we were going to get him. His agent USED the 49ers and the very next day got him the contract from arizona that he wanted. Its reality, it happens but it sucks being used like that. this situation with IGGY feels the same way. We went after IGGY hard and his agent used us to try and get him a good deal from another team. But since we pulled the offer his agent no longer has the kings OFFER to use to maipulate Denver or any other team to give him alot of money log term
I have two feelings about these preceedings.
1. Iggy may come back into play again once Howard chooses a team. After that, some teams will try to grab any Free Agent and other teams will go into full tank mode thus avoiding top FAs.
2. Free Agents don't clamor for San Antonio, but Free Agents also know San Antonio cannot be used as a pawn for negotiations or a place to get overpaid. The new ownership may be trying to create that reputation here. "Sacramento is business, not play." Instead of "talk to the Maloofs like you'd come here so they prop you a free hooker in Vegas."
1. Iggy may come back into play again once Howard chooses a team. After that, some teams will try to grab any Free Agent and other teams will go into full tank mode thus avoiding top FAs.
2. Free Agents don't clamor for San Antonio, but Free Agents also know San Antonio cannot be used as a pawn for negotiations or a place to get overpaid. The new ownership may be trying to create that reputation here. "Sacramento is business, not play." Instead of "talk to the Maloofs like you'd come here so they prop you a free hooker in Vegas."
I think you pay too much attention to experts a-la ESPN gurus Chad Ford or Bill Simmons and what they think. We don't need to earn their respect. They are bandwagoners, just like any other journalist. They will love us, embrace this franchise and include us in their articles and trade rumors etc. as soon as we start winning again. They did not like our fat offer to Iggy? Who cares? At this point, we have to overpay people and we will, we have to and it does not matter what they (national media) think. Classy or not, our FO will have to explore every option to make this team better. We cannot do what San Antonio does, or Miami does, or Brooklyn does. We just can't. I actually really like PDA now. I was not impressed by his interview when he was hired. Now I can see that he has what it takes to turn this franchise around. We need a GM who can act as a crisis manager and we got one.
This is two different issues to me. The national sports media has been pretty consistently wrong in their coverage of Sacramento related matters. I don't expect that will ever change. We're of passing interest to them at best-- slap together something with the most convenient sources you can find, do a minimum amount of fact checking, and pass it off as due diligence. Big markets have a lot more talking heads and subsequently there is a perception that all that chatter is somehow commensurate of actual import. It doesn't particularly bother me that nobody media-wise had Igoudala coming here before free agency. Like I said, we're an afterthought to most media folks. A curiosity to some, a punchline to others. But I am worried about what people actually connected to the business of basketball think -- agents, GMs, other players. The way they view our franchise is going to affect our ability to work with them in the future. And for better or worse, a lot of these people don't have time in the day to do their own fact checking on every team in the league which means the national media perception is going to affect us.
The storyline the past 5 years has been that this is a nowhere franchise that nobody wants to play for. The transfer of ownership got us some positive attention for a change, but I think most people are still in a "wait and see" mode as regards the new Kings braintrust and so first impressions do matter. We're not putting our best foot forward here in terms of generating a new positive league image and here's why ... The first free agent who talks with our front office is first given a very generous contract offer and then mere hours after it's reported, we officially withdraw the offer without any explanation why. If the idea is to project a public image that this franchise is all business, I don't personally see how playing games with the first contract offer this front office makes is a way to do that. Looking at it from the outside, I think it makes them look either indecisive and over their heads or scheming and untrustworthy. Neither one is positive. Add to that Igoudala, a veteran player who also happens to be his team's representative for the NBA Player's Association, now believes this franchise used him for their own ends. Every person you use in the course of "just doing business" is potentially spreading the message of your character, or lack thereof, to all of their acquaintances. I think they'd have gotten more respect from just being clear and transparent about what their intentions were and then proving that they are good for their word.
EDIT -- I just wanted to add that we haven't yet seen the end of this storyline either. Right now the perception is a bad one I think, but if it turns out this was all according to plan and we somehow do get Evans and Igoudala (or whoever else we're targeting) and both are happy campers and New Orleans and Denver feel like they just got beat by a superior opponent, maybe it ends up being a positive image after all. Too early to tell obviously.
The storyline the past 5 years has been that this is a nowhere franchise that nobody wants to play for. The transfer of ownership got us some positive attention for a change, but I think most people are still in a "wait and see" mode as regards the new Kings braintrust and so first impressions do matter. We're not putting our best foot forward here in terms of generating a new positive league image and here's why ... The first free agent who talks with our front office is first given a very generous contract offer and then mere hours after it's reported, we officially withdraw the offer without any explanation why. If the idea is to project a public image that this franchise is all business, I don't personally see how playing games with the first contract offer this front office makes is a way to do that. Looking at it from the outside, I think it makes them look either indecisive and over their heads or scheming and untrustworthy. Neither one is positive. Add to that Igoudala, a veteran player who also happens to be his team's representative for the NBA Player's Association, now believes this franchise used him for their own ends. Every person you use in the course of "just doing business" is potentially spreading the message of your character, or lack thereof, to all of their acquaintances. I think they'd have gotten more respect from just being clear and transparent about what their intentions were and then proving that they are good for their word.
EDIT -- I just wanted to add that we haven't yet seen the end of this storyline either. Right now the perception is a bad one I think, but if it turns out this was all according to plan and we somehow do get Evans and Igoudala (or whoever else we're targeting) and both are happy campers and New Orleans and Denver feel like they just got beat by a superior opponent, maybe it ends up being a positive image after all. Too early to tell obviously.
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Who used who? Iggy's agent said the contract was for 4/56 and the Kings said it was 4/52. Isn't that a problem coming from Iggy's side. I'm sure it can be twisted to make us look bad as people are used to thinking we are inept, but it may not be the truth. Who was playing games with who? I think Iggy and his agent was scheming and untrustworthy. I start with the mis-stated salary offer and then we don't know the rest of the story.
My guess is they were fine with waiting since they probably made the offer to him when they sat down with him and his agent. It was only once incorrect numbers were leaked out, they then realized that his camp was using Sac to increase other offers. If he really wanted to be here the first we would have heard about the offers details are when he agreed to the deal.
At this point, the only people who are talking crap about it are fans (no surprise) and press (no surprise). I think most NBA people (managers, coaches, players, agent) know what actually happened, at least at some capacity. There is a very good chance that our FO was punked by Iggy's agent. Partially, it happened because many people still think that they can treat us as a third world country. And our answer was simple - we were not going to tolerate it. And they just pulled the offer without creating a scandal but still they made a statement. At the end, I think Iggy will be upset much more with his agent and not the Kings. It was really a small nothing but it was a good message - idiots no longer run this franchise.
A day after and there is a part of me that feels sorry for Iggy. Yes, his agent is a creep who probably created the entire situation by leaking our negotiations to the media after we probably made it clear for him not to. Yes, I'm sure Iggy was not certain that Sacramento should be his next home. But from all accounts it looks like he was given a day to decide where he'll spend probably the last part of his career. I know there is speculation, but I think, given the emotion/mannerisms of his tweets, that he did have us in consideration. Some might not even be so harsh on his agent as the actions he performed can be considered by some to be typical of the objective of his profession. I'm glad that we are taking a hard line, and improving the culture of the program, but there is a part of me that feels sorry for Iggy, given such a short time period to decide his fate, and how much he loved and wanted to stay in Denver before FA began. Obviously the bridge is burned, but I don't know if he did or didn't deserve that PR lashing
Maybe the Iggy deal made Jalen Rose unhappy, and Iggy unhappy, but if the Kings made a stretch offer to Iggy (not aware of a bigger one) and his agent inflated it publicly to squeeze more out of another team, and PDA pulled it - I think that is a good message. Our Front Office isn't to be effed with. We don't suffer from low self esteem, we won't grovel. And Vivek's PR head Leslie Moore has been subtly mocking Iggy on twitter #WOW #REALLY , just as she mocked Larry Bird #PIGS FLY when HE strung us along.
I love this front office - love love love love it. And if they feel a thorough housecleaning is called for, I'm happy to be along for the ride. Gonna be a hell of a ride.
PDA has not ruined our 28 win team. We don't grovel for free agents. And we don't want to pay $44M for the Pelicans 6th man (neither do 28 other teams by the way).
Anyway I don't think our FO looks unorganized and dumb. On the contrary I think they look disciplined and focused.
I love this front office - love love love love it. And if they feel a thorough housecleaning is called for, I'm happy to be along for the ride. Gonna be a hell of a ride.
PDA has not ruined our 28 win team. We don't grovel for free agents. And we don't want to pay $44M for the Pelicans 6th man (neither do 28 other teams by the way).
Anyway I don't think our FO looks unorganized and dumb. On the contrary I think they look disciplined and focused.
You did not answer my question but let me help you - you know little or almost nothing about that crazy NBA world. And we are ALL like that. That's why we are fans, just fans. You know NOTHING about what happened during Iggy negotiations and yet you have a strong opinion and call people (who are way smarter than you) dumb. They are not organized because they pulled that offer? Really? I do not know whether to laugh or cry.
We do not know a lot about the Tyreke decision either. May be they see him as a poor fit, may be they do not like his medical report. I do not know. You do not know. Nobody knows. May be they have a different plan. At this point, we know only one thing - we have a bad team and we need a serious make over and it is up to PDA, Malone and Vivek to change that. May be they will fail, may be they are not that good but we should give them a chance to rebuild this team. It is not a time to scream, panic, blame and call them dumb. Open your mind.
We do not know a lot about the Tyreke decision either. May be they see him as a poor fit, may be they do not like his medical report. I do not know. You do not know. Nobody knows. May be they have a different plan. At this point, we know only one thing - we have a bad team and we need a serious make over and it is up to PDA, Malone and Vivek to change that. May be they will fail, may be they are not that good but we should give them a chance to rebuild this team. It is not a time to scream, panic, blame and call them dumb. Open your mind.
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