When I read Helene Elliott’s initial barrage of tweets on her Leiweke interview, one comment in particular jumped out at me, but then — when it didn’t make it to the Times article — I completely forgot about it. This was the tweet:
Leiweke also said Doughty, as young, elite player in big market can make up the difference in endorsements easily
This is an important comment, I think. Because, if you think about it, it makes absolutely no sense at all unless Doughty is contemplating accepting an offer from another team. [UPDATE: allow me to clarify what I was trying to say here: I’m not saying that I think there IS an offer and Doughty is contemplating accepting it; I’m saying I think that Camp Doughty may be soliciting — i.e. trying to attract — offers from other teams in order to force the Kings’ hand. As I have said in other posts, I assume other teams would also want longer term deals, the same lengths Doughty is resisting here, so I don’t see how an offer sheet would help him get where he wants to go. I don’t think a team would be willing to give up four first round picks for a few short years of Doughty.]
That argument — which was used during the first heady days of the Summer of Kovalchuk — only applies when comparing two different sports markets, i.e. two different cities and two different teams. The argument says, “sure, you might be able to get more money from Team X, but you won’t get the rich endorsement deals you will get here in Los Angeles.”
This comment is telling Drew not to sign an offer sheet.
Which tells me that they think it’s possible.