Top 3 Reasons Andre Iguodala and Louis Williams Haven’t Been Signed

Everyday I read another Sixers fan complaining about the time it’s taking to sign Andre Iguodala and Louis Williams. As a fanatic as well I too understand the anxiety of not having two of the team’s best players not signed this late into the off-season. With that said I also fully understand WHY this is the case. When you think about the situation from the point of view of why, it gives, at least for me, some piece of mind.

I have little doubt that both players will be signed and ready to go before training camp. This summer’s free agent market has just been a bear for restricted free agents and their respective teams. Here are some things to consider before you go off on a rant as to what the hell Ed Stefanski and the Sixers are doing.

Top 3 Reason Iguodala and Williams haven’t been signed

1. No offers from other teams and therefore no 7-day time frame to respond.

This is the biggest reason nothing has gotten done. Teams with restricted free agents typically wait for another team to set the market price for their restricted players. But this season, with all the big money swallowed up by the unrestricted players, that left the restricted guys out in the cold.

The 7-day response deadline serves as a built in pressure cooker to speed up the process. So far Stefanski and the Sixers have felt no pressure to get a deal done quickly. All that was needed was one offer and we would be past this; instead the negotiations drag on.

Will a foreign team come in and make an offer to Andre Iguodala or Louis Williams? Maybe. It really depends on the conversations between them and their agents. Are they looking overseas to put pressure on the Sixers? Is there a team out there willing to pay Iguodala $13M+ per year to play overseas? I doubt it. But I think if that were to happen the Sixers would react and at least match the offer from a team outside the U.S. for either player.

2. No comparable restricted players have been signed (until now)

Prior to the Monta Ellis signing last week and the Andres Biedrins signing that should be final today that is (more on this in my next post). Basically there has been NO market at all for restricted players, making evaluating a player’s worth that much tougher. The Sixers should be evaluating how much Lou and Iguodala are worth to the Sixers but having more information should help. Those outside points of reference help both sides of the negotiations.

For the player, he can see what similar players are getting and help shape his own number in his mind. I honestly think players have little clue how much money they should ask for. They aren’t like management working under a salary cap or charged with building a winning club. They are the puppets of sports agents, and looking at what other guys get paid is really their only way to get a ballpark figure for themselves.

For teams, it gives them rebuttals to outlandish contract demands. Meaning if player X says “this guy got this and I am on that level” (aka Emeka Okafor looking at Dwight Howard’s contract), the team can respond with hard core statistics and production to dispute such ridiculous claims as in the case above. We all know it; people are delusional and constantly overstate their abilities. As a pro athlete that psychological misrepresentation is just amplified by the money-hungry agents who stroke their egos.

Is this the case with Andre Iguodala? I don’t know because I am not a fly on the wall in these negotiations. But if I had to bet on it I think the answer would be a resounding - YES.

3. New Sixers GM

I already wrote about my theory regarding Andre Iguodala hoping he could juice Billy King this summer for an overblown contract. I don’t think there will be very many bad contracts given out during the Ed Stefanski era in Philly. That means negotiations are probably not as warm and fuzzy as Iguodala and Williams had hoped. I can just picture Stefanski as a pretty hardcore negotiator and, considering nothing has gotten done, pretty firm on his position.

And the deliberations continue.

At first I was going to do a top 5 or 10 list, but I’d rather stop at three and see what you guys can come up with in the comments. Good to be back and should have a couple more Sixers posts coming in the next day or so.