2021-2022 ROSTER TALK: [ARCHIVED]

[Winter]

I'm judging him by the views of people that watch him play

Here's the thing about that. No one who watches him play knows what happened in contract negotiations or what other teams are threatening to outbid them for the player's service.

The list of things that writers and fans don't know about contracts when they are signed is enormous.

Who will they get to replace the player if that player is lost to another team?
Are you a team that frequently needs to overpay in general in order not to get outbid (which is usually more than half the league and includes Dallas)?
What are the future ramifications and cap issues?
Does that person currently add something that truly advances your metrics?
How does that player compliment the system on offense and defense?
Do the player's current metrics appear to be sustainable?

The list is long, and contracts are notorious for being rear-view mirror discussions. I weary of these discussions, and I promise not to write about them after this post. But hindsight is useless here, and way too many people think they know more than they do.

Did they overpay for Bertans? Sure. Did they think that at the time it was signed? Possibly. But either way, Washington thought Bertans brought something that few people had - a 3-point shooting big man that could be a game-changer. He was generating excitement in 2018-2019. Washington thought they couldn't let him walk without making it attractive to stay. They desperately needed some more player-buzz. For an organization to let an interesting player go to another team can be a public relations nightmare. Steve Nash is a classic example, and the look of that would have been much worse if Dallas had not eventually gotten a championship. 

Every team has bad contracts because players disappoint you from one year to the next. But fans and writers love to drag out the "we overpaid!" argument. Some players are overpaid on every team and in every year. No team ownership gets it right every year. Far more important here is how you manage bad contracts going forward. Dallas is not so bad when you look at it that way.