The Pulse: Fans say Suns need to negotiate smaller contract with Eric Bledsoe
Jul 29, 2014, 11:59 PM | Updated: 11:59 pm
Every day, ArizonaSports.com asks readers a question. It’s the Sanderson Ford Poll Question of the Day, and it can be found midway down the right side of our home page.
On Monday, July 28, we asked what the Phoenix Suns should do with restricted free agent guard Eric Bledsoe, offering five options from which voters could choose.
Two answers stood out from the rest, but the prevailing one was, “Continue to negotiate a smaller deal.” Forty-seven percent (518 total) of the 1,095 voters chose this option.
ESPN’s Chris Broussard reported on July 17 that Bledsoe and his agent were asking for a max deal of five years and $80 million, while the Suns offered a four-year, $48 million deal.
Our poll suggests that readers think the four-year guard is asking for more than he’s worth. This might also be why the second-most popular option was, “Explore sign-and-trade possibilities,” which got 36 percent of the vote. If Bledsoe will only stay in Phoenix for that much money, the team might as well trade him for another asset(s), some readers essentially say.
The third-most popular answer was, “Let him sign one-year qualifying offer,” with 12 percent of voters (131 total) clicking on that one. If that were to happen, Bledsoe would finish out his current contract at a lot lower salary than he could earn in a new deal, but he would become an unrestricted free agent at the end of the 2014-15 year.
Only 3 percent (31 people) of voters said to give him a max deal, while 2 percent (18 total) clicked on “Other.” That latter option could include such scenarios as signing him to the qualifying offer but making sure to deal him before the trade deadline, or perhaps letting another team make him an offer now and then matching it — banking on it not being an $80 million deal, of course.
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