If we max noel at 25m a year and he never becomes more than a 8/8 10/10 kind of guy who gets injured and plays less than 30mins a game that would be so much worse than him walking a year from now. He hasn't earned a max according to the free agent market. Regardless of being a RFA, that didn't stop bad contracts like otto porter or crabbe being thrown out there. There have been numerous RFA's who get max offers from other teams. I don't buy that teams didn't offer it simply because we said we would match. We don't know what our actual offer is because we have heard 12 and we have heard 18. We don't know what Noel wants, if he wants 18 or 20 or max. We aren't low-balling a guy when nobody else made a reported offer.
Let's get real it's not like there were a ton of 5's on the market for him to compete with. If someone wanted him they would have offered him a significant contract regardless of what we said. He had competition in Kelly Olynyk, Mason Plumlee, Alex Len, and Dedmon. And his name wasn't even being linked to teams with a market that pathetic. If Whiteside was available now he would have gotten a significant offer, if Jordan was free he would have as well.
|