Time to get real on Pat's next contract

[Ice Man]

Sucks for Pat to have a major injury like this in the midst of his contract year, probably costs him tons of money or makes him take on tons of risk (take the QO and try to prove it and try again as a UFA).

Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe his agent successfuly sells the concept that his December improvement represented the true Pat, who will soon be an outright good player. And thereby gets paid $$$ based on potential. Whereas if he had stayed healthy, and December turned out to be a one-off, he might make less money because he would be deemed to have a lower potential.

I mean, I dunno. But however it works, much of the value (maybe most) of Pat's contract will be based on assessments of what he "can" do, not what he has done. Because a player at the level of what he has done can be signed on the cheap, during the summer.

[MrSparkle]

Sucks for Pat to have a major injury like this in the midst of his contract year, probably costs him tons of money or makes him take on tons of risk (take the QO and try to prove it and try again as a UFA).

Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe his agent successfuly sells the concept that his December improvement represented the true Pat, who will soon be an outright good player. And thereby gets paid $$$ based on potential. Whereas if he had stayed healthy, and December turned out to be a one-off, he might make less money because he would be deemed to have a lower potential.

I mean, I dunno. But however it works, much of the value (maybe most) of Pat's contract will be based on assessments of what he "can" do, not what he has done. Because a player at the level of what he has done can be signed on the cheap, during the summer.

All it takes is 1 team … Spurs, Pistons, Jazz, Raptors, Hornets… low stakes, might throw a bonkers offer… (which imo is $20m)

But man. He will have a hard case if he finishes the season with zero games. I would imagine $10m salary is fair (if not generous).

I guess we’ll see in 2 weeks what the Bulls doctors say… but short of an incredibly optimistic diagnosis, I’m dreading the pattern repeats itself and we invest in another injury problem.

[dougthonus]

Hmmm. Maybe. Or maybe his agent successfuly sells the concept that his December improvement represented the true Pat, who will soon be an outright good player. And thereby gets paid $$$ based on potential. Whereas if he had stayed healthy, and December turned out to be a one-off, he might make less money because he would be deemed to have a lower potential.

I mean, I dunno. But however it works, much of the value (maybe most) of Pat's contract will be based on assessments of what he "can" do, not what he has done. Because a player at the level of what he has done can be signed on the cheap, during the summer.

Given the google DR says this is like 3 months to 2 years with a likeliness of 3-9 months, but the timeline is super non specific to Pat's foot injury and probably takes into account this type of injury in many places and whatever, I'd break it down something like this:

I would break it down like this:
1: He comes back after the all-star break and looks healthy
- This injury probably has no impact

2: He comes late in the season and looks reasonably healthy
- Debate now is likely only about how good he is and how much potential he has not the injury
- Injury probably is only relevant in removing his opportunity to show more and resume will be the same as today but even October Pat wasn't improved enough that this is likely a huge loss. It's hard to envision a scenario where he goes Coby White and starts scoring 25 a game or anything even with more time. He was just iteratively better at the things he was good at already for the most part

3: He doesn't come back by season's end, but is able to show in some way that he's healthy via workout or something else
- Teams will wonder a bit about how healthy he is, so injury hurts a little bit
- Process to prove health will be tougher / slower / money may be gone
- Injury probably hurts him in this case, but probably not significantly

4: There are legitimate questions about his current health but is expected to be ready by training camp
- Health is now factored largely into the price
- Teams will now question how much they want to pay for upside with large risk
- Injury probably costs him a ton of money

5: He's not healthy in July and is already expected to miss part of the season
- He's probably now on "prove it" level deals or significantly reduced long term deal where a team knows there is a large risk of nothing in year 1

[GoBlue72391]

With 3+ seasons of uninspired play and linear development, can we really afford to re-sign Pat to anything other than a Coby/Ayo esque team friendly contract? I believe we could pretty easily replace his production with a combination of Craig, Phillips, and Terry, all of whom play the same position and role as Pat, and they make a fraction of what Pat wants. That's not even considering free agency and trade targets for PF.

Plus with this edema injury, we really don't want another player with a big contract not playing due to a mystery injury like Lonzo, if that is what ends up happening (hopefully not). That's a risk we can't afford to take.

It's never been more clear to me that the correct move is to trade Pat for whatever we can get. His injury came at the worst time with the trade deadline a week away, but we could still manage a sign-and-trade in the offseason if needed, it just sucks to potentially trade him when his value is his lowest.

AKME loves Pat though and he's their pet project, so I unfortunately see us doubling down on him like we have with Vuc.