re: Griffin to try to keep AD

Freedom may seem overrated when you keep getting slapped in the face by your buddies getting permanently injured and how it may affect your earning.

Wall tore his Achilles but is set for life due to his Supermax extension. Boogie lost out on a huge payday twice because he had a severe season-ending injury.



The LeBron plan of doing 1+1s every year may seem appealing due to the amount of control it gets you but all it takes is one bad step to tear something and then never be able to earn that kind of money again.

I don't think any of us can put ourselves in his place or can understand having that level of wealth. But he is so young and so rich. If he gets hurt next season, he can just pick up his option for the next season at over 28M. So there really isn't a huge injury risk. His plan is clear and it is the same as every major player in the NBA. They want to control their careers. I can't blame him for that. But just look at all the major stars in the NBA. Very few are signing extensions (Westbrook?). He is just following the popular trend..

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If you hooked Griffin up to a lie detector today, he would tell you that his top priority is to get AD to stay and sign the extension and he believes he has a shot at it. He is fully prepared if AD says no, but it was not BS or spin. He is legitimately going for it.

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You’re too smart to believe this.

I doubt he signs the extension but all it takes is enough doubt in the back of his mind.


Let's look at this on a few levels.

One, he fricked up his trade value through his public temper tantrums and flirting with the Lakers. This means that there may not be enough of a return on him for the Pels to send him out. If they don't send him out, they would be daring him to walk away from $200m+ and security.

Two, getting traded for proper value means that he'll probably be going to a depleted team. Think the Knicks after the Melo trade, where Dolan sent out pretty much every asset they had in order to seal the deal and in the process damned the Knicks to mediocrity or worse for most of Melo's tenure.

Three, his big hope was to play next to LeBron on the Lakers, as LeBron was the biggest player in the game and the Lakers were the top organization. The past few months have revealed that LeBron's not himself anymore and that the Laker organization is a shite show whose issues put ours to shame. Why take less money to go be Robin to an aging Batman who no one else wants to play alongside and working for an owner who has some serious screws loose? (Jeannie Buss is insecure as hell and it is showing itself between her handling of the Lakers' coaching search and her inexplicable attempt to pick a fight with Clippers owner Steve Ballmer over the Clips' new facility)

Four, we just hired a new guy to run the whole team, who has a past relationship with his agent Rich Paul thanks to his time running Cleveland while LeBron was there, so he has his own people telling him "Yeah, he did my boy LeBron right while he was in Cleveland".

Five, thanks to AD's temper tantrum killing our season, we have a high lottery pick which has a decent shot of becoming either a generational talent in Zion or a future superstar guard in Ja, either of which would look great alongside AD and Jrue.



I'm not going to blow smoke up your arse saying he's definitely going to take it but we have a combination of trusted basketball people and assets to work with that make this a much more appealing team than it was back in February.

The Lakers completely going to shite makes that sale a lot easier because his top destination isn't nearly what he thought it would be and, in hindsight, may be glad he didn't end up there when he wanted it.

I got 5+ people behind the scenes telling me this is true and one guy on Pelicans Talk telling me its not. Maybe it makes me dumb to believe them, but yes I do. Again, he is prepared if AD says no but it makes all the sense in the world to try to make this happen and if you look at it from AD's side, are his other options really that great.

Griffin is gonna come into that meeting and straight up tell him that he isn't going to LA. So, now AD could go to Boston, which might not have Kyrie, and even if they do, they likely aren't the favorites out East. On top of that, he is losing out on about 35 million even if he goes there and re-signs for 5 years.

If he goes wherever and leaves after a year, he would leave 85 million on the table. And where is he going? To the Lakers to play with Lebron who will definitely be over the hill by then? And even in that option, he would have effectively wasted two years of his prime and lost a ton of money, just to go to a crap franchise with a star on the way down.

The truth is that AD's alternatives aren't that great. On top of that, contrary to what people think - yes 85 million still matters. This is what Griffin will try to sell Rich Paul and AD on, and its a solid argument. If they remove emotion, they will consider it. If they are still too much in their feelings, they won't. But I promise you, Griffin is gonna genuinely try.

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got 5+ people behind the scenes telling me this is true and one guy on Pelicans Talk telling me its not.

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Exactly. Thank you for proving my point.

If Griffin couldn’t get the people around him to believe it or at least sell it, this gambit would be worthless. And maybe a SMALL part of him believes it because people at that level believe they can do anything.

But he doesn’t. This is a gambit to increase value and for Pr. My job is to sense bullshite and to sell it back. I know it when I see it.

People are coming at me like I’m saying this is a bad thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. It’s a GREAT thing. Smart move. I couldn’t be happier with Griffin outside of the Gentry boondoggle.

He had to do this and he’s done a great job selling it.

You are correct in that it is a secondary biproduct, not the MAIN reason he is taking this approach.

He says this and it gives him a chance to accomplish his top goal (keep AD) AND it helps him in negotiations if he has to go to plan B. So, in reality you are not wrong, except that you think his primary goal is all fake. It's not. He will sit down with AD and try to get him to buy in and agree to sign that extension. That won't be fake. If you don't believe that, then thats fine. But I promise you that if you can get a lie detector and Griffin in a chair, you will see he really wants that, as does ownership.

One big factor is ownership is really pushing a reconciliation and asked candidates about it in their interviews. Not saying it is a main reason Griffin got the job, but in that interview he truly believed he could give the team the best chance at keeping AD.

Not really sure where to put this because it doesn’t deserve its own thread but NBC sports is offering some details about the Laker negotiations.

Apparently our front office ignored calls from Pelinka in favor of talking with Magic.

They are debating as to whether it was wanting to deal with the perceived power person in the Laker front office or if Dell had lingering bad feelings with Pelinka over his time as Gordon’s agent, such as his attempt to leave for Phoenix.

Why not both?