Nerlens Noel will be the guy Dennis Schroder replaces as the guy that “Fumbled the bag”!
Writer’s note: Before anyone takes a look at Andre Drummond in this picture and believes he should be a part of this list…nope. The Los Angeles Lakers never even offered him a contract to turn down. That veteran’s minimum deal he got in Philadelphia was earned!
The funny thing about NBA free agency reports is that only a few really knows what goes down in these negotiations. There are about ten insiders tops that fans can bet their house on. Even then those insiders have conflicting reports. Just look at what Chris Haynes and Adrian Wojnarowski stated about the Nerlens Noel negotiations with the Dallas Mavericks.
Chris Haynes:
Adrian Wojnarowski 20 minutes later:
Nerlens Noel clearly betting on himself with acceptance of $4.1M QO. He turned down 4-year, $70M Mavs offer made on July 1, sources say.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) August 26, 2017
Let’s assume Woj’s report is more accurate for this exercise and say the Mavericks did offer Noel a 4-year $70 million deal during the 2017 offseason.
At the time of this offer, Noel like Schroder banked on teams having money to spend on free agents. But like this offseason with each passing free agency deal, the market dried up quickly along with the number of teams that could even offer Noel a deal. Like with Dennis’ Boston deal, the price was then non-existent.
Noel was waiting on a max deal offer of around $25 million per year based on his experience. The Mavericks had given him the qualifying offer of $4.1 million to have the ability to match any deal offered by another team because Noel was now a restricted free agent.
Once the threat of a $25 million max offers was eliminated and after no team could offer Noel anything close to $17 million Dallas originally offered, the $70 million contract offer was pulled.
There have been numerous comments about what Schroder’s agent will be doing in his spare time if he gets fired. Well after this fiasco, Nerlens Noel dismissed his agent Happy Walters for…
Rich Paul of Klutch Sports.
The six degrees of separation is amazing researching these players. See Dennis Schroder could have asked for advice from a Klutch Sports client (No not LeBron James or Anthony Davis!) on how to finesse this situation.
After all despite not getting the max deal that he wanted, Rich Paul actually put on a smooth remix and got him in a Lakers uniform. Read on to see who…