Free Agency Zac Williams [joins Carlton as an RFA for a 1st round compensation pick]

[PMBangers]

This isn't a 'my club is better than yours' contest, keep discussion relevant to Zac Williams please

 

[Dangerousfield]

Williams is not elite.

Rated by Champion Data the highest player for GWS last year, above all the highly paid stars!

 

[La Dispute]

You may have forgotten already but Chris Judd did come to Carlton when you were in the bottom 4 and got the spoon in the previous 2 years. It happens.

Judd stipulated he was only going to a big Melbourne club, and this was what, 13 years ago? Free agency didn’t exist at that point, and there were far fewer options for players to move.

Judd also originally wanted to go to Collingwood, but knew they didn’t have the collateral to accommodate West Coast in a trade, so he chose Carlton who had draft picks and young players they’d be open to trading to enable the deal. We’d also just added Murphy and Gibbs and were just about to take Kreuzer in the draft (back when the draft had been comprehensively demystified), and the common perception at the time was Judd would elevate Carlton into the top 8, which occurred in his second season.

There’s now a big pretty clear blueprint for player movement, and gun players almost exclusively nominate clubs they project will be contending.

It’d be nice for North fans to finally land a big fish after so many years, but if they couldn’t sign topline players for a kings ransom when they were a mid-range team I’m skeptical they’re going to be able to sign Williams as a bottom 4 team about to commence a rebuild.

 

[Mordecai]

You've got 10 years to set yourself up for life, flags are nice but don't pay the bills. He's been on modest coin at GWS apparently, needs a big payday before he moves onto a gardening business or the like.

I agree.

Obviously it's an adaptive trait to be a team player in the AFL. Clubs will draft highly skilled players with better picks if they're also team oriented and have leadership material.

It follows that a lot of good players play for less money than they could earn.

That doesn't mean there aren't players out there who are more selfish, particularly toward the second half of their career and start to think about what the extra money could mean for their... family, friends, business ambitions etc.

Many will choose to forgo the extra 100k or whatever it may be in the hunt for success. Some won't. Also we won't be at the bottom forever. He may well be there for our next window. The ladder isn't static.

 

[HairyO]

Tom Browne quoting up to $900k on twitter literally this morning! Other media sources have speculated at similar $ level earlier this year too (https://www.sen.com.au/news/2020/02...sd900-000-for-this-gun-out-of-contract-giant/). I certainly don't think he's worth that amount, but that's irrelevant to what cubs will pay when they see a need. Even if it doesn't end up quite at that level (say $800k), it seems more than his value to me.

Yes. Tom Browne is always spot on.

He will take a call from any player manager and spread the gossip as if it were true.

 

[La Dispute]

I'll give you two, Dayne Beams and Lachie Neale.

Beams went home for family reasons, Neale smartly chose Brisbane after a promising back back to 2018, and they’d hit the draft pretty hard over 2017-2016 and added Charlie Cameron. Their list was already in reasonable shape, and was starting to prove that prior to him joining.

I don’t think North have anywhere near the same pull, existing in a saturated Melbourne market and quite possibly haven’t even arrived at their lowest ebb.

 

[mpal6]

Judd stipulated he was only going to a big Melbourne club, and this was what, 13 years ago? Free agency didn’t exist at that point, and there were far fewer options for players to move.

Judd also originally wanted to go to Collingwood, but knew they didn’t have the collateral to accommodate West Coast in a trade, so he chose Carlton who had draft picks and young players they’d be open to trading to enable the deal. We’d also just added Murphy and Gibbs and were just about to take Kreuzer in the draft (back when the draft had been comprehensively demystified), and the common perception at the time was Judd would elevate Carlton into the top 8, which occurred in his second season.

There’s now a big pretty clear blueprint for player movement, and gun players almost exclusively nominate clubs they project will be contending.

It’d be nice for North fans to finally land a big fish after so many years, but if they couldn’t sign topline players for a kings ransom when they were a mid-range team I’m skeptical they’re going to be able to sign Williams as a bottom 4 team about to commence a rebuild.

It's all relative in my view. We never know whether Zac Williams and other players took way less to see if GWS can keep the list together and get that flag. Frankly the way everyone was carrying on around here was like Gold coast and GWS will win the next 10 premierships, he may very well have.

If that flag tilt didn't work out and now he's looking at setting up for his family + after-footy phase of life, he could be prioritizing the big pay first. Even someone like Jeremy Cameron is doing the same, negotiating up the $ so he doesn't miss out on his prime.

If there is a club willing to pay Zac Williams at that scale and he wants to take it, who are we to judge him as mercenary and so on? Most of the supporters won't even blink for a second and move on to the next player if (touch wood) Williams does his knee tomorrow. It's just a game for the players earning their livelihood so let's all ease up a bit.

 

[Peel67skin]

North need to follow Blues rebuild not Brisbane .

 

[mpal6]

Beams went home for family reasons, Neale smartly chose Brisbane after a promising back back to 2018, and they’d hit the draft pretty hard over 2017-2016 and added Charlie Cameron. Their list was already in reasonable shape, and was starting to prove that prior to him joining.

I don’t think North have anywhere near the same pull, existing in a saturated Melbourne market and quite possibly haven’t even arrived at their lowest ebb.

Whether it's Shaw or recruitment team I'm not sure - but someone is doing something right over there in terms of attracting players. Corr has nominated them already, Williams might do the same.

In my view this is the year there'll be a higher ratio of AFL ready players available due to smaller list sizes, delistings etc. If North play their cards right, they could move through this rebuild pretty quickly. They have rightly cleared the deck with 11 delistings.

 

[Mordecai]

Beams went home for family reasons, Neale smartly chose Brisbane after a promising back back to 2018, and they’d hit the draft pretty hard over 2017-2016 and added Charlie Cameron. Their list was already in reasonable shape, and was starting to prove that prior to him joining.

I don’t think North have anywhere near the same pull, existing in a saturated Melbourne market and quite possibly haven’t even arrived at their lowest ebb.

Look how people reshape the narrative to fit.

 

[La Dispute]

Look how people reshape the narrative to fit.

It’s more highlighting realistic reasons why players nominate other clubs over others.

Sure Williams will get paid marginally more at North than any other club, but then factor in their status as a bottom 4 club going through a rebuild and also the very real question of their viability going forward and you wonder why he’d bother?

 

[La Dispute]

Whether it's Shaw or recruitment team I'm not sure - but someone is doing something right over there in terms of attracting players. Corr has nominated them already, Williams might do the same.

In my view this is the year there'll be a higher ratio of AFL ready players available due to smaller list sizes, delistings etc. If North play their cards right, they could move through this rebuild pretty quickly. They have rightly cleared the deck with 11 delistings.

Corr is getting a contract far beyond what other clubs will offer because he’s more a solid player than one of the better players for his position.

I suspect clearing 11 players is actually going to prolong their rebuild, as they are losing genuine best 22 players and will have to replace them with young guys who take years to come on. They’ll have certainly cleared some cap space, as all clubs are going to, but until they’re pushing up the ladder they’re going to struggle to sign players of Williams’ calibre IMO

 

[mpal6]

Corr is getting a contract far beyond what other clubs will offer because he’s more a solid player than one of the better players for his position.

I suspect clearing 11 players is actually going to prolong their rebuild, as they are losing genuine best 22 players and will have to replace them with young guys who take years to come on. They’ll have certainly cleared some cap space, as all clubs are going to, but until they’re pushing up the ladder they’re going to struggle to sign players of Williams’ calibre IMO

We'll know very soon. If they manage to sign him, then let's get over the "why would he" part and conclude that North have started to get things right ?

 

[Pure_Ownage]

Giants will finish at 10th to 12th on the ladder, which means Band 1 compo would end up around Pick 9 or 10. I actually think that's a very reasonable return for Williams.

I think that's about his real value too.

 

[Mordecai]

It’s more highlighting realistic reasons why players nominate other clubs over others.

Sure Williams will get paid marginally more at North than any other club, but then factor in their status as a bottom 4 club going through a rebuild and also the very real question of their viability going forward and you wonder why he’d bother?

Yeah, agree. If the extra money is marginal and the club's viability is up for question then I don't see why he'd bother.

 

[Mordecai]

We'll know very soon. If they manage to sign him, then let's get over the "why would he" part and conclude that North have started to get things right ?

If it happens the tune will change. He's not elite, he's on way more money than is reasonable.

 

[La Dispute]

We'll know very soon. If they manage to sign him, then let's get over the "why would he" part and conclude that North have started to get things right ?

We can conclude they are getting things right once they start winning more games and showing Williams to be a valuable addition to their 22, and not another Polec type misfire.

 

[mpal6]

We can conclude they are getting things right once they start winning more games and showing Williams to be a valuable addition to their 22, and not another Polec type misfire.

Throwing intangibles like "winning more games" "valuable addition" sound very hollow. This thread is about Zac Williams and where he'll land. In your posts you have called him as an elite talent and your musing was more about why would an elite talent go to a bottom team? If North manage to say all the right things and attract "an elite talent" (your words not mine) like Williams, it just concludes they have started getting things right.

May be it's hard for you to accept and you just starting moving the discussion into intangibles, but it's a very simple "they got Williams with the right message around what the list rebuild looks like and the role he'll play in it". Money on top would definitely help for sure.

 

[the rooboy]

It’s not an either/or thing. Dangerfield, Lynch, Neale, Treloar, Shiel etc could have accepted marginally more elsewhere but chose to go to teams they felt would be contending. They are still all being paid very well.

Polec is the perfect example of a player who chose money over success and his decision looks to have backfired completely.

How he got paid it’s exactly what he wanted


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[the rooboy]

North need to follow Blues rebuild not Brisbane .

Which one none have worked out yet


Sent from my iPhone using BigFooty.com

 

[La Dispute]

Throwing intangibles like "winning more games" "valuable addition" sound very hollow. This thread is about Zac Williams and where he'll land. In your posts you have called him as an elite talent and your musing was more about why would an elite talent go to a bottom team? If North manage to say all the right things and attract "an elite talent" (your words not mine) like Williams, it just concludes they have started getting things right.

May be it's hard for you to accept and you just starting moving the discussion into intangibles, but it's a very simple "they got Williams with the right message around what the list rebuild looks like and the role he'll play in it". Money on top would definitely help for sure.

Winning games and being a valuable addition to the squad are tangible things however. There’s no point spending millions of dollars on a player if there’s no improvement in their performance over time, or Williams bombs completely ala Polec.

Selling a vision for the future (while concurrently paying the player a truckload of money) is only one piece of the puzzle.

 

[Foucault1989]

Aaron Hamill

Haha hilarious.

 

[Mordecai]

Haha hilarious.

Nailed the brief so well it's got you thinking.

 

[Foucault1989]

Nailed the brief so well it's got you thinking.

Not really. All power to North if you get Williams but its pretty unlikely. It's rare for a club going into their first year of a rebuild, who could trade out Polec, Brown and Higgins, would attract the highest calibre free agent this year.

Does that make sense? As a Carlton fan, I've seen this firsthand. You just don't get the cream of the crop as invariably the free agents want to move to a club who is contending or on the way up. North could be bottom 4 for the next 4 years.

 

[aussierulesrules]

He's going to be very rich either way, which is why so few go to the bottom teams even if they can make more money.

Shiel reportedly went to Essendon for $800,000 a year when we were offering him $1.2 million a year, as possibly the most extreme example of this in recent times.

Could he choose North? Of course, but he'd have to be much more money hungry than most have proved to be of late.

 

[Mordecai]

Not really. All power to North if you get Williams but its pretty unlikely. It's rare for a club going into their first year of a rebuild, who could trade out Polec, Brown and Higgins, would attract the highest calibre free agent this year.

Does that make sense? As a Carlton fan, I've seen this firsthand. You just don't get the cream of the crop as invariably the free agents want to move to a club who is contending or on the way up. North could be bottom 4 for the next 4 years.

It makes sense and I agree it's unlikely. There 17 other teams.

Your experience following Carlton is not a wide enough lens to view the situation I feel. Carlton's failures are not the failures of the 17 other teams. It can and does happen. Whilst Higgins, Waite and Dal Santo weren't too tier, they will move to a good organisation with a clear direction.

Our path is very clear. New CEO, new head of football, new list manager, new coach. If you come, you come because you fit our vision. Rhyce wants elite ball users off half back. He wants people who can use the football cleanly. Under Scott we used dour defenders and rebounded by handball or to Waite, Petrie, Goldstein down the line. Change is afoot though and whilst I rate our chances of securing Williams as very low, our ability to pay and offer security is not a limiting factor. It's the opposite.