We’re always hearing how we should bet on ourselves and not settle for less than what we’re worth. But we should also back up our talk with our actions.
That wasn’t the case with Dennis Schroder, who turned down a couple of contract extension offers from the Los Angeles Lakers because he thought he deserved a bigger role and paycheck, and now he’s not getting any attention in free agency at all.
Schroder thought he should get north of $20 million per year but wasn’t exactly efficient in the playoffs, and even though the Knicks and Bulls were reportedly interested in him, now it doesn’t seem like anyone will be willing to meet his asking price.
That’s why former NBA Champion Robert Horry was brutally honest with him, calling him out for turning down those two contract offers from the Lakers:
“You said, ‘Oh, I want to return to the Lakers.’ But you wanted to play games,” Horry said on ESPN’s The Jump. “Now you are the disaster of your own game plan. You don’t know what you’re going to do. You probably lost about $60 million because you didn’t sign with the Lakers. Now you’re probably going to have to sign a one-year deal because I don’t think the Lakers are going to bring you back because they’re stacked now. They have no room for you.
“He wanted to be a starter in this league. Now wherever he goes, he’s going to go back to being a backup. I just hope it doesn’t turn out like an IT situation where you pass up on all this money, and you can never recoup it,” Horry concluded.
Schroder is a valuable player that could really help a contending team but he’s stuck in limbo. He’s not as good as he thinks he is nor he would be a starter on every team, but he’s too good to come off the bench as well.
Hopefully, he’ll come back to Earth and embrace the role and contract someone’s willing to offer him.
