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CeeZar
As has been stated before, the players that have demanded trades have ALL been under contract and easy to trade. Also they all had team issues not related to contracts and the teams were ready to part with them anyway. We've been over this...
ZERO of the cases involved a blockbuster trade combined with a contract reset like AD is trying to do. ZERO. The actual correct comparison is to see what has happened to players that held out as a result of being unhappy with the tag. It happens. None of those guys were traded. The closest was Gilbert who was not actually traded.
Someone can spin history all they want. But for the history to be relevant, it has to match the current circumstance.
As far as losing cap. Well not really. If AD doesn't report, he doesn't get paid. Unused cap will roll over to the next year and get spent then. So its not lost, just deferred a year. No big deal.
Since you like being technical, I should make you aware that Gilbert was traded. He was traded for 2 first round draft picks. When a player is franchise tagged, the player is the property of the team. Thus, when Gilbert was tagged, he belonged to Washington and they let him go in exchange for the two aforementioned picks. That is the definition of a trade.
But beyond that, whether you want to call it a trade or not, he forced his way off the team because of his discontent. Or you could say that the team grew weary and they parted ways. However you want to say it, the relationship between player and team ended in a separation because of a bitter and irreconcilable contract dispute. I don't see the point of getting technical of whether it was "a trade" or even whether he expressly "demanded" it.
When he chose to sit out the '97 season, he knew they would trade him. See the blurb below.
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"They told him that if Sean sat out the season they would make him the franchise player again, then trade him," a source said.Gilbert-has-day-in-court
On AD...the unused cap will roll over to the next year but it still would be on the books for 2019. That will affect if they can resign Suh, Saffold, Hav, and Brown. So even deferred is a big deal. $15M is a big chunk of change to have to count but get no benefit from.
For this reason, I'm starting to think that if AD held out this whole year and indicated that he's not stepping foot on the field again until he got a new deal, they will resolve the situation one way or another early in 2019. They would work out a deal or trade him early to get closure and be able to reorganize their team building plan.
