NO, No, no... my apologies for believing you understood that players get pay raises. I will do my best to map out basic details from this point forth as to avoid any pain in your brain.
I understand that players get pay raises, but again, that's not what you said, you said 8 mil per year.
Elton brand didn't sign for 12 mil per year, he signed a 5 year deal with a base salary of 12 mil with raises.
When you said 8 mil per year, i assumed you mean, well, 8 mil per year, that the contracy would AVERAGE out to 8 mil per year...like when he turned down 50 mil over 5 years that averages out to 10 mil per year but his first year salary isn't 10 million...it's basic math really
This is silly. Just because a player is better, it doesn't mean that you should be willing to pay any amount to keep him. Again, a STARTING salary of $12MIL for Iguodala is vastly overpaying him and financially putting him in the class of Dwayne Wade, Carmelo Anthony, and LeBron James and not in the class with Caron Butler, Tayshaun Prince, and Josh Howard.
I don't like comparing contracts to the year before, or previous years, because the market is defined by this current year only, rightly or wrongly....and iguodalas agent, rightly or wrongly can point to andrew bogut and say 'are you telling me andre iguodala isn't worth as much as andrew bogut'? I expect GMs all over the nba want to kill the new bucks GM for establishing such a ceiling for such a questionable talent...
it's similar to the NFL thing with rookie contracts, it seems every year the #1 pick gets more money than the #1 pick the year before...is it right or wrong? That's up to you (and roger godell says it's bad, very very bad) but it's what the market bears.
If the clippers offer andre iguodala s STARTING SALARY of 12 million (see what I did there?) then the market has said he's worth 12 million dollars next season with subsequent raises, so then the sixers decide if he's worth that much, and in your mind it seems you'd rather take a risk with the inferior ben gordon than over paying the more talented andre iguodala to field a better roster...(you yourself said gordon was inferior to iguodala, so the sixers with gordon would be worse to the sixers with iguodala right?)...the numbers are stupid, i don't disagree, but i'd rather have an over paid BETTER player than the more 'properly' paid inferior player (especially since I'm still not 100% convinced of ben gordon in general)