2 hours ago
(3 hours ago)F Gump Wrote: I know you guys are probably seeing such a setup as a bad thing, but imo it would actually be a huge step forward in improving their negotiating results.
Cuban, by participating directly in negotiations as the person leading the talks, could never get the best deal, because he could never say, "I have to ask the boss" and then come back and say "The boss needs just a little bit more." OTOH the other team could (and would) do that very thing, and would get more and more assets at the margins. Cuban was always a patsy, the whole league knew it, and would take advantage.
We even heard Cuban talk to reporters about negotiations as always going in this manner, and bemoaning the fact that other teams' execs "always have to talk to owners and they they can't pull the trigger on deals" - not realizing he was exposing his naivete' as a negotiator.
Nico got pantsed by Pelinka in this same manner. When Nico asked for the moon for Luka, Pelinka told him that his owner would need X and Y, and at other times he had to check with his owner who wanted a bit better deal, and all along Pelinka was his "friend" trying to help him, and gradually he whittled the ask for Luka down to almost nothing. OTOH Nico spoke for the Mavs as the one who controlled the bottom line - but Pelinka never spoke for the Lakers. Pelinka, of course, made his reputation as an expert negotiator (he was a top player agent, before he was a GM) while Nico's background was one of getting along with others and making them like him. Guess who won, and who got crushed?
By injecting the necessity to ask permission, to get approval, to see what the boss says, the Mavs would accidentally take a huge leap -- and even better if the guy at the top realized what he had, and had the ability to work it to his advantage. Put a used car lot manager or a timeshare sales manager on the payroll to create and navigate the negotiating process, and the gain would be massive. (Unfortunately Cuban's ego made him have to be the point man, so under Cuban they had no way to play the game.)
Its definitely a balance. The thing is Dumont has no idea what he is doing and we don't have a single individual to own the recommendation back to Dumont. If we have Finley and Ricardi and Cuban all pulling in different directions I don't know how that gets sorted out. Its fine to have a better negotiating tactic, but with a committee the issue is determining what your goals are and where you draw the lines to begin with. I guess we will see. At this point it does not look like they are planning on bringing in a GM before the end of the season and my expectation is very little gets done until then.