Detroit forward Greg Monroe is currently in a holding pattern as a restricted free agent with the Pistons, and Detroit’s vow to match any offer has continued to dissuade other teams from extending an offer sheet. After reports said Monroe turned down an offer than for less years, but more per-year than a five-year, $60 million deal he supposedly turned down, Monroe denied they had ever even offered the five-year deal they supposedly augmented — paying him more per year than anyone else on the team — Monroe said they never even offered him the five-year deal.
Earlier this week we wrote about the stagnant contract negotiations between the Pistons and Monroe. In the report from the Detroit Free Press, Monroe allegedly turned down a five-year, $60 million contract and a shorter-term deal that would have paid him more per year than Josh Smith‘s four-year, $54 million deal he signed last summer. Monroe claimed on Twitter today he’s never even been offered the original five-year deal:
"@millerfootball5: Come on @M10OSE how can you reject a 5 year 60 million deal" < cant reject anything that was not offered to me…carry on
— Greg Monroe (@M10OSE) August 10, 2014
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The 24-year-old Monroe is in the same boat as restricted free agent Eric Bledsoe.. Both players can sign a one-year qualifying offer — for a drastically reduced rate — to remain with their teams for another year before becoming unrestricted free agents next summer. That’s the route Bledsoe is apparently leaning towards. Except doing so risks all that could transpire in the ensuing year were they to get injured or see their production drop off enough they don’t command as much on the open market next summer.
For Bledsoe, it seems to he a disconnect between what he and his agent feel he’s worth (a max deal), and what the Suns — as well as a handful of league executives — believe he’s earned (a four-year, $48 million offer that’s still on the table) during a 2013-14 campaign that saw him play in only 43 games all year after only backing up Chris Paul with the Clippers before that time.
According to Monroe — who shares a cluttered frontcourt with exciting young center Andre Drummond and somnambulant power forward Josh Smith — the reports he’s turned down an offer that would have made him the highest paid player on the Pistons team are not only false, but he claims they never even extended the five-year, $60 million deal they’ve allegedly already increased.
Is this a case of the Pistons leaking details of a deal Monroe didn’t even see, or has there been a miscommunication between him and his agent? If the Pistons have been leaking false contract details, it could be an attempt to scare potential Monroe suitors away from making an offer. That would surely make him angry, and perhaps pissed off enough to run the risk inherent in signing the one-year qualifying offer.
If Monroe is right, this puts another roadblock in a negotiation process that’s become more and more muddled as free agency has continued.
Did the Pistons ever make the ofer?
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