Nene deal complicates matters
Bob Finnan
07/30/2006
Email to a friendPost a CommentPrinter-friendly
Drew Gooden's agent expected a similar offer from the Cavaliers
Agents are sometimes a strange breed.
They not only try to get every last penny for their clients, which is to be expected, but they also work by almost a cast system.
It all starts with Player A getting X-amount of dollars. If the agent for Player B thinks his client is as good or better than Player A, then he'll go to his grave trying to get that kind of money.
In the NBA this summer, the contract that threw everything out of whack was Denver's signing of forward/center Nene to a six-year, $60 million deal.
The instant agent Dan Fegan got that deal for Nene, every other power forward and center expected that kind of money. And, unfortunately for many players, many teams refused to overpay for talent.
One of those teams is the Cavaliers. Agent Calvin Andrews saw Nene's deal and expected that kind of offer for restricted free agent Drew Gooden.
Gooden is a good player, a darn good one at that. But he's probably not going to get $10 million a year from the Cavaliers - or anyone else.
Further clouding the issue is that the Cavaliers have two other power forwards on their roster in Anderson Varejao and Donyell Marshall. They probably overpaid for Marshall last summer (four years, $21.5 million) and will probably have to overpay next summer when Varejao becomes a restricted free agent.
Varejao might be their power forward of the future. He could even blossom into their starter this year whether Gooden is re-signed or not. No one is quite sure about that just yet, even though Varejao was outstanding in the second-round playoff series against Detroit.
The Cleveland coaches wonder if his aggressive, play at 100-mph style translates best by being a starter or a sixth man. Will he be able to stay out of foul trouble? Will he burn himself out playing 32 minutes instead of 15-18? No one knows these answers.
One thing you can count on is the 6-foot-10, 240-pounder being highly coveted next summer. Teams are going to be aggressive in their pursuit of him, and one knowledgeable agent predicted he'd get more than the mid-level exception in contract talks.
Coupled with the fact that Varejao dumped former agent Herb Rudoy, who got two maximum or close-to-max contracts for center Zydrunas Ilgauskas from the Cavaliers, and hooked up with Fegan, could mean that Varejao might be hard to re-sign.
Which brings us back to Gooden, who really has four options.
1. He can take a $5.4 million qualifying offer from the Cavaliers and become unrestricted after this season - a last resort, his agent said.
2. Gooden can sign an offer sheet for the mid-level exception with another team, which the Cavaliers would likely match.
3. He can re-sign for perhaps $7 million a season with the Cavaliers - more than any other team appears to be willing to pay.
4. Or he can accept, and possibly help arrange, a sign-and-trade with a team interested in his services.
If Gooden takes option three - re-signing for perhaps $7 million - then his agent loses face with the other agents. If he can't get Nene money, he loses respect. It doesn't make sense to you and me, but that's how agents think.
Chris_SandersNot Always The Best Moderator
Dback JonDoing it My Way