[gray]

Lager Hog, on Jul 31 2009, 01:03 PM, said:

I would assume he means what he's putting in his pocket. If he's putting $7.5 this past season, don't you think he'll want to make more? I don't think he's concerened about cap hit, I would think he's more concerened about take home pay.

No, because the cap is just the average salary year to year. Therefore, the total contract value is the same. He is taking home the same amount of money. So it doesn't matter if he goes 8,8,4 or 10,5,5 at the end of the day he's still making the same amount of money. So he wants a raise over his 6.75m deal. So, if he signed another 4 year deal instead of the $27m one he got, he's probably looking for one in the $31m range.

[Gady]

gray, on Jul 31 2009, 01:34 PM, said:

No, because the cap is just the average salary year to year. Therefore, the total contract value is the same. He is taking home the same amount of money. So it doesn't matter if he goes 8,8,4 or 10,5,5 at the end of the day he's still making the same amount of money. So he wants a raise over his 6.75m deal. So, if he signed another 4 year deal instead of the $27m one he got, he's probably looking for one in the $31m range.

it probably holds true for the LAST career contract, but not exactly for the prime one. It's much easier to negotiate your NEXT contract if you got your numbers going up (or, at least pretty even), rather then your proposed schemes. Imagine, say, 7,7,7 after your previous 8,8,4?