Eric Bledsoe: How Rich Paul ruined his summer

It’s July 11, 2014 in Cleveland, Ohio. LeBron James’ agent, Rich Paul, sits in a V.I.P booth at one of Cleveland’s hottest clubs, sipping Cristal and vaping on his e-cig (You can’t smoke indoors anymore; it’s 2014, people.) Paul just completed one of the world’s best PR campaigns in recent memory and worked out the deal for James’ return to Cleveland. It’s time to relax.

Staring off into the distance, Paul’s phone, sitting on the table in front of him, beeps, and he looks at the screen and sees “51 missed calls.” In shock, Paul spews champagne all over the table; he’d forgotten about his restricted free agent Eric Bledsoe.

On a scale of one to ten, that scenario of Paul actually forgetting about Bledsoe feels like it’s about a seven. There’s no realistic explanation for how badly Paul botched Bledsoe’s restricted free agency, other than that scenario I just described to you.

Yeah, I made it up, but the actual story probably involves strippers and Cuban cigars instead of e-cigs.

There’s a distinct reason why other restricted free agents, like Chandler Parsons and Gordon Hayward, got max offers from other teams, and players like Greg Monroe and Bledsoe are forced to sign qualifying offers even to play this season. My fellow FanSided columnist, Seth Partnow, wrote about this problem at length six weeks ago. If you have a moment, I suggest taking the opportunity to read about how restricted free agency has become too “restricted.”

While I agree with him that restricted free agency, which exists to allow teams to keep their free agents, is becoming increasingly harder to navigate, Paul has the responsibility as Bledsoe’s agent to set the market for his client. So far, the only thing Paul has proven he knows how to do is not get his free agent a contract… and help put together another NBA super team. But that has little to do with “Mini-LeBron” and more to do with the real LeBron.

Let’s take a look at the old timeline of how we got to this point with Bledsoe and the Suns:

–Nov. 1, 2013: Eric Bledsoe says he wants a max deal

–Dec. 30, 2013: Suns’ GM Ryan McDonough says Suns will match “any reasonable offer” and “will do whatever it takes” to keep Bledsoe

–June 8, 2014: Eric Bledsoe, again, says he wants a max contract

–July 17, 2014: Chris Broussard reports the Suns offered Bledsoe a four-year, $48 million contract

–July 28, 2014: Bledsoe says “I can understand the Phoenix Suns are using free agency against me.”

–Aug. 13, 2014: Phoenix Suns’ owner Robert Sarver says the Suns “haven’t spoken to Bledsoe in four months.” Remember, the Suns’ season ended April 16.

–Sept. 5, 2014: “Looking like” Bledsoe will take Suns’ qualifying offer

–Sept. 5, 2014: “Regular-Size LeBron” James tells Suns to “break bread” and sign Bledsoe

Prior to the season, of course, Bledsoe is going to admit he wants a max contract. Everyone wants a max contract. It’s the oldest negotiating strategy in the book; he’s setting the bar high, as high as the bars can be set.

It wasn’t a bad move by Bledsoe putting the “max contract bug” in the Suns’ ear.

Heading into the season, Bledsoe also had the ability to play himself into a max contract, something that might have been able to do if he didn’t get hurt and miss half the season. Bledsoe also saw his backcourt running mate from Kentucky, John Wall, get paid last offseason. Of course, Bledsoe thinks he is worth that kind of money.

Unlike Wall, though, Bledsoe has missed 89 games in his first four seasons, more than a full season of action, because of injuries. Until he proves he can stay healthy for a full season, no one will give him more than the four-year, $48 million that the Suns offered, which was an incredibly fair contract.

If one thing’s certain, the Suns aren’t stupid. They sniffed Paul’s agent play from a mile away and said the entire season that they were going to re-sign Bledsoe. Why wouldn’t they want to re-sign him? The Suns got Bledsoe for Jared Dudley and a second-round pick (basically nothing) from the Clippers.

Letting the rest of the NBA know the Suns were going to re-sign him does two things: One, it tells the rest of the league to stay away from Bledsoe; two, it gives the Suns leverage in negotiations by giving Paul and Bledsoe a false sense of security.

That’s where Paul and Bledsoe went wrong; they believed they had a deal with the Suns before free agency even started, in my opinion. They bet the Suns, when hard-balled, would cave to their request of a max contract, a five-year, $80 million deal. And, why shouldn’t they? Bledsoe is a great player when he’s healthy. The Suns should want to appease their young star, right?

That’s the main problem in Paul’s plan for Bledsoe. He assumed the Suns were desperate enough to give their best young player a max contract, if they had to. Paul also forgot, or couldn’t get, the most crucial part of that strategy, getting another team to make an offer on Bledsoe that forces the Suns to make a decision.

Chandler Parsons and his agent, Dan Fegan, got a three-year, $46 million deal lined up with the Mavericks, forcing the Rockets to match the offer or lose him in free agency. Gordon Hayward and his agent, Mark Bartelstein, went out and got a four-year, $63 million offer from the Charlotte Hornets. Ultimately, the Jazz matched the offer, but Hayward put the pressure on the Suns to make a decision. Bledsoe and Paul failed to do that, and now they’re in quite the pickle.

Granted, this offseason was different from any other because there was so much waiting on James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, and other big-name free agents to announce where they were signing that it handcuffed the entirely league. No team could rule out the possibility of getting on the right end of a sign-and-trade or risk tying up finances in case a better free agent cam along. Then, once James, Anthony, and Bosh made their decisions, the run on free agents was faster than anyone expected. That worked against Bledsoe, but I fault Paul for not realizing that would happen. There were so many teams waiting on the big-name guys that, of course, after those players signed, other teams were going to sign whoever they could get their hands on as quickly as possible. That’s common sense.

Paul and Bledsoe had every opportunity to find the team to make Bledsoe a max offer. The Lakers were even sitting out there, with a ton of cap space, and they didn’t even bite on Bledsoe. That’s how bad Paul’s pitch must have been, if he even made one at all. The “So, I’ve got this guy they call ‘Mini-LeBron’ and you should offer him a max contract” pitch probably wasn’t going work anyway, though.

I’m not sure the “I’ll ask my other client, the best player in the game, to advocate for Bledsoe on social media to sway the Suns” trick is going to work either.

"Great work today lil bro @ebled2!! Future All-Star in this league in no time. PHX break bread. #Klutch #Work #GymRats #StriveForGreatness— kingjames (LeBron James’ Instagram)"

Imagine you’re the regional manager of midlevel paper company, and as the manager, you’re in charge of the staff, the hiring and firing if you will. One of your top salesmen has one year left on his contract, and he wants a pay raise or he’s leaving for a different company. You’re considering the offer but don’t think he has another company to go to, so you’re willing to ride it out and see what happens. Then, out of nowhere, you see on social media that one of your employee’s best friends, who also happens to be the best paper salesman since Michael Jordan since the late 90s, has posted something essentially saying, “Pay my friend.” What do you do? Do you even consider the best paper salesman’s idea?

Think about it.

Now, Bledsoe has to choose between signing the $3.7 million qualifying offer with the Suns or sitting out this season completely. Based on Bledsoe’s injury history, sitting out the season, training everyday, and testing the waters in free agency might be the best option for Bledsoe. After the season, Bledsoe will be an unrestricted free agent regardless of whether he signs the qualifying offer or not. If Bledsoe gets injured again, there will be no chance of a big offer next offseason, not even what the Suns offered him this summer.

Bledsoe is a talented point guard, but there’s a lot of talented point guards, two others on the Suns, in fact. The Suns already have a replacement plan of Goran Dragic and Isaiah Thomas in place just in case Bledsoe doesn’t play this season or if he leaves after next season. It’s time Bledsoe and Paul figure out a plan of their own.

If he signs the offer, Bledsoe is betting on himself to go out next season, stay healthy, and play the best basketball of his career. If he does that, Bledsoe might warrant some max contract offers in free agency. Like I said earlier, the Lakers will be involved, so don’t take any ridiculous, Kobe Bryant-esque offers off the table.

If the Suns’ $48 million offer is officially off the table, then it might not be a bad idea for Bledsoe to sit this season out and take his chances in free agency. Likely, that wouldn’t warrant any teams to give him a max contract, but it would ensure Bledsoe is healthy and free to sign with any team he wishes, which he would be able to do anyway if he plays.

It was a slightly different scenario, but Dante Exum could have gone to play professionally in Europe or Asia, or he could have gone to an American college to play basketball after he graduated high school. Instead, he took the season off and didn’t play any competitive basketball. His draft stock was at an all-time high, and instead of ruining his draft stock by playing and showing his weaknesses, Exum disappeared and emerged as the fourth pick in the draft.

Bledsoe could do something similar to what Exum did. Take the season to train and get healthy and then try again next offseason. It might be the best option at this point.

Hey, maybe that car dealership in Cleveland is hiring more professional athletes?

Those are the two options Bledsoe has right now. Sign the offer and play, or don’t and sit the entire season (and possibly work at a car dealership with Josh Gordon).

That’s what Bledsoe’s agent did for him this offseason; he got him a guaranteed contract at a car dealership in Cleveland without playing basketball for one season.

We’ll just say it wasn’t quite as much as what Paul did for his other client, LeBron James.