*** Serious question, what’s the precedent for a team tying up a ton of cap space via the RFA process in a guy who had been outright bad in years 1-4? I don’t know the answer, I’m sure there are examples but it seems rare.***

I’m surprised that you are questioning whether NBA front offices make bad decisions or not. There are plenty of cases of bad decisions regarding the RFA market. Perhaps not exact comps to Barrett, but then again, there aren’t any exact comps to Barrett to begin with. I can tell you that Lonzo Ball had been bad for almost all of his 4 years when he was signed to a big offer sheet; Omer Asik was bad for his career when he was signed to a large offer sheet; Jeremy Lin was good for only a few weeks when he was signed to his large offer sheet; Chandler Parsons wasn’t exactly dominating the league when he signed an large offer sheet; Tyler Johnson had shown very little when he signed a large offer sheet; the aforementioned Allen Crabbe was not very good at basketball when he signed an offer sheet; and, finally, Zach LaVine had been RJ Barrett bad for 4 years when the Kings signed him to an $80mil offer sheet in 2018.

Leon was actually not fooled. First he tried to trade him. Then he negotiated a non max contract that beat expectations. Then he took a risk that having RJ on that contract would be better than having to trade him with no leverage.

That’s good process!

And you know what? He’s not even wrong yet!!

RJ Barrett doesn’t need to be great for that contract to not be a mistake. All he needs is 24 or 25 year old RJ to be worth more in the trade market than RJ Barrett was this year.

It’s just not that big a deal, IMO.

Hunter extended with his incumbent team, like RJ.

Hahaha, yeah, you’re right. Somehow between reading your comment and posting my answer, i thought it was about extending bad players. 😀

I’m not going to psychoanalyze the guy but there’s a lot coming from RJ that indicates he thinks he is already really good at NBA basketball. Probably doesn’t bode super well for a leap.

Despite all his bravado, watching that interview clip from RJ reminded me he’s only 22 and the NY press is asking if he’s the reason we’re losing. Oof. I def. could not handle that pressure at age 22 much less today, so I want to cut him some slack emotionally (but I also wish he was way better at putting the basketball in the hoop).

However that does not mean I’m doomed to be wrong about every other opinion I have about contracts

Absolutely.

But I see the same logical mistake in both, specifically that you are classifying them before they’ve even begun.

I agree that he is vastly overpaid and that it’s a bad contract, I just think more context needs to be applied before calling it a massive blunder by Leon.

You can say he was going to be an RFA but you’re ignoring the very stupid but very real ecosystem of overrated high picks: shit hits the fan if you don’t extend them after year 3 (see Porzingis, Ball, Ayton).

So it was not unforced. Leon did have to do something with RJ last summer, even if it was for a stupid reason.

The first thing he tried to do was trade him. That was smart.

After that it was all crystal ball shit. Sure there were 9,000 minutes of inefficient scoring but come on. RJ’s a number 3 pick averaging 20ppg. No one is going to let a guy like that become disgruntled and demand a trade.

To me, it’s a bad outcome but it was a smart process.

And I think Leon deserves credit for getting him on the non max deal. It took Phoenix 12 months of hardball to get Ayton to accept that. Leon did it without the acrimony.