It was different here because we couldn't sign Melo outright for the max without losing Taj, who Melo supposedly wanted kept on the team.
That was nothing but hearsay that was never fully corroborated by Melo. If he was so unwilling to play without Taj, why was it reported he was trying to recruit Gasol to NY, a player we were also pursuing at the same time?
If he wasn't willing to sign for less, what leverage would he have to get NY to do a S&T? NY can just laugh at us and say "screw you guys, we're not trading you anything" and that's basically what happened.
Once again, we do not know for certain that was the case and think about if it actually was true. So Melo just signs with NY, even though he doesn't really want to, because his new boss is being an A-hole and won't budge on a S&T? Yea that's a great start to their new relationship.
If Melo really wanted to be a Bull, his agent would have found a way to make a S&T work.
If Melo had been willing to take less or if he had said that he'd commit if we traded Taj to clear up space, it might be a different story. So really, it does seem that Melo was going more for the money in which case, we really didn't stand a chance against NY. No one did.
This is what is most likely true. Melo had never been a FA and wanted to go through the process. In the end, he wanted his $$. I can't say I totally blame him, especially when you grow up dirt poor like he did. What I cannot stand is all the posturing he did, which cost us several quality wing FA's, while we waited on his decision to return to NY like most of us had expected. He knew on THURSDAY of last week he was resigning with NY, but delayed his "decision" because LBJ made his announcement on Friday & he a day to be all about him.
But enough about Melo. He's going to wallow his career away on a mediocre team while we will likely make the Finals this season with a healthy roster. I think things worked out just fine.