Scraptor wrote:
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The reality is, over the first few years of that extension, his salary didn't matter much - we were in the process of a rebuild. Next year and in 2016 and later is when it will matter - and in 2016 he now has the possibility of getting paid 23M. The whole idea of extending a player like DD long term is to take a gamble he will outplay his contract. Why set up a scenario where if all goes well, he gets to opt out of said contract and hit the open market with his increased value? Even if you retain him, surely he is no longer on the value side of the curve.
Heck any forethought at all would have shown that summer 2016 would have a big jump in TV money, so it is the LAST season you would want to put a player option in (as the player is almost guaranteed to opt out). The deal was lambasted at the time as being an overpay. If you needed to give him the high pay (again, his value around the league was nowhere near 10M at the time) to lock him in long term, you sure as heck do not let him opt out of being locked in long term.
If it would have taken more money to get him to commit for the full 4 years, might as well have let him go to restricted free agency and let the market decide his value.
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