It's good to have influential friends.
When Tristan Thompson and the Cleveland Cavaliers couldn't come to an agreement on an extension of Thompson's rookie-scale contract on Oct. 31, most assumed that Thompson would eventually be taken care of.
After all, Thompson is a client of Rich Paul and Klutch Sports, the same agency that represents teammate LeBron James, who is said to wield considerable power in the Cavs organization. Re-upping a James compatriot could be seen as a James tax of sorts, one that would be well worth it to a point.
That point, apparently, is much higher than what seems reasonable. Thompson turned down a generous four-year, $52-million extension this fall, according to a report from Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo Sports.
It had been reported previously that Thompson may have turned down a deal worth eight figures annually, but $13 million per season seems tough to have walked away from.
As Wojnarowski explains, this could have a lot to do with James:
As much as ever, the Cavs discovered that the opening week of the regular season in contract talks on forward Tristan Thompson, with the Oct. 31 deadline approaching for the draft class of 2011 rookie extensions looming. James' agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, represents Thompson.
James is the biggest reason Klutch Sports exists, and he's an active recruiter of high school, college and current NBA players to join the agency. Of course, plenty of players help their agents recruit. So when James committed as a free agent in July, everyone understood there was a tax - spoken or unspoken - that would come with James' return, that would manifest itself in an above-market deal for Thompson.
...
Paul isn't the first agent to leverage one more prominent client's extension against another, nor the last.
With Thompson set to become a restricted free agent with little leverage this summer, that salary would be exorbitant.
Thompson is a solid if unspectacular two-way player, averaging 9.7 points and 7.9 rebounds on 53.5 percent shooting, but $13 million puts him in the range of LaMarcus Aldridge, Serge Ibaka and David West and ahead of names like Derrick Favors and Paul Millsap.
He's not those guys.
It's tough to imagine a non-James team offering Thompson a deal in that ballpark, so Thompson has either overplayed his hand and taken on a great deal of risk here, or Paul and Klutch Sports are all kinds of confident in eventually getting more out of the Cavaliers.
