Tristan Thompson vs. The Cleveland Cavaliers

[TheWaterboy]

Reports are that Thompson did not sign his qualifying offer before last night's deadline.

Lots of interesting questions now: Which side blinks? When? What does the standoff do to the Cavs going forward? What does it do to TT's reputation around the league?

[rocwell]

[slaw]

I understand trying to get every last dollar you can but he's overplayed his hand here. Hard to understand why he thought he had that much leverage. Lebron wasn't going all-in for him if that was the plan. Stupid.

[rocwell]

He was offered 80 fucking million dollars.

That's $80,000,000.00

[JimiCliff]

He was offered 80 fucking million dollars.

That's $80,000,000.00

For a player with basically one skill.

[MACK11]

If I were the Cavs I'd rescind my offer of 80M and if no one else offers TT anything that means he can sit a home for entire season and try again next summer as a RFA again

[slaw]

Without doing any particular fancy math and just eye-balling the numbers, assuming something like a 40% tax rate you're talking a $9 million difference after tax over 5 years? It's probably even less than that. That is not going to materially change your lifestyle at all when you are making those kind of dollars.....

Is this about RESPECT? LOL.

[The Great One]

So what is he up to?

[rocwell]

So what is he up to?

scouting overseas teams?

[Balls of Steel]

Cleveland would've been ridiculed for even offering him $80M. To reject it makes TT look like a fool.

[rocwell]

[Quirk]

I guess him and his agent have seen this:

http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/teams/cle?season=2014

[TheWaterboy]

Upon reflection, it seems pretty clear that Cavaliers are going to wait it out on this, despite already being undermanned to start the season. The most likely scenario I see for a resolution to this is LeBron getting fed up and calling out the player and/or the franchise publicly and repeatedly until those getting called out gets sick of the weight of most of the Cavalier fandom and most of the sports press being against them.

The second most likely scenario I see is Thompson firing Rich Paul to save face before agreeing to a contract of less than maximum value, either for the Cavaliers themselves or in a sign-and-trade to another team. Even if this scenario does not happen, Rich Paul should possibly be fired anyways for agreeing to these tactics (or suggesting them, if that is what happened) without doing the math on the luxury tax for Cleveland, without bringing the contracts of comparable players into the discussion, and without ensuring that the qualifying offer was signed in a timely fashion regardless as Thompson's ticket to UFA status.

I suppose it is possible that signing the QO was part of the original Rich Paul master plan, but Thompson balked at the last minute; in that case, his pride really got in the way of doing the smart thing for his self-interest.

[Bendit]

I guess him and his agent have seen this:

http://www.boxscoregeeks.com/teams/cle?season=2014

But that list is Cavs centric. And not the only consideration. The Cavs just cant afford to cave here imo (emphasis on afford)...their payments over and above TT's salary in luxury taxes becomes just too onerous ....eg. @16 mill./yr the tax payment would be about 46 mill. making TT effectively a 62 mill. cost/yr. Yikes.

http://larrybrownsports.com/basketba...ury-tax/270763

[TrueTorontoFan]

If I were the Cavs I'd rescind my offer of 80M and if no one else offers TT anything that means he can sit a home for entire season and try again next summer as a RFA again

thats similar to the Latrell Spreewell thing.