The way these extensions are going it's looking more sensible to wait with Smart. A lot of teams look like they will have capped themselves out of the market by summer!
Indeed. That's the way to look at it.
It's incredible how stupid these GM's are.
Denver looks like it's so scared to loose its players that it will automatically grant any salary wishes a player/agent demands. Plumlee signed for about 14 million a year was a clear overpay, but they did it anyway because they were afraid to look foolish if he signed elsewhere after trading for him with the Nurkic-deal.
Now Harris was to become a restricted free agent, so Denver had control over him, but they probably wanted to please him and get rid of the uncertainty of free agency and so they just gave him exactly what he wanted. This contract may turn out to be reasonable if Harris makes the next step, but obviously if they had waited till next year it would have been likely that they could have signed him for less.
It's a shame actually because Denver is a talented and fun team, but now all there progress has to come from developing their own players since they have no room for big trades or free agent signings. They might lose an important player because of salary considerations in the future.
We should be so grateful that Ainge does not work that way and always sees the big picture and puts the interest of the franchise at number one. He won't commit to Smart when his demands become unreasonable. So we can be assured that Smart won't be given an 80 million contract.