The Tobias Harris free agency pitch is coming. It has already begun to hit the Web ahead of his July 1 free agency. The argument to get paid is a good one.
Tobias Harris officially becomes a free agent July 1. Before then, the Magic will surely tender a qualifying offer to retain his rights as a restricted free agent, maintaining the right to match any offer he receives.
This has been the big storyline almost all season as the Magic prepare for their summer. What is Tobias Harris worth and what will he get in free agency? Everyone is expecting something in the $13-$15 million per year range depending on how the market goes. And the increased salary cap expected for the next few years could see all free agent salaries begin to skyrocket.
Harris is going to get his and the Magic will have a decision on whether to match. And while a range seems to be set, it still remains unclear where the Magic will match and how much they are willing to pay.
Harris obviously has the goal in maximizing his value and getting as much money as he can. He and his agent, Eric Fleisher, and his management team, appear ready to go to bat. Or at least someone is doing that.
Orlando Magic Daily received a tweet from an infographic designer that was apparently sent to other Orlando media, including Brian Schmitz of the Orlando Sentinel and Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders, extolling Tobias Harris’ value and pumping up his potential value in free agency.
The full infographic is below:
As Schmitz notes, the company that put this infographic out, NowSourcing, is an infographic design agency. They create charts like the one above and infographics describing the technological advancements at the World Cup, the top-10 pay-per-view fights ahead of the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fight.
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In other words, it appears likely someone hired this firm to design something easily digestible to the media to start pumping up Tobias Harris’ value before free agency. The Magic certainly did not do that as they would like to keep his value as low as reasonably possible to get another bargain in free agency.
Orlando Magic Daily reached out to a member of NowSourcing’s team. The source said NowSourcing was looking to break into the sports market and saw the analytical argument with Harris as an opportunity to do so.
No one would confirm whether Harris or any of his representatives hired NowSourcing to create the infographic.
Regardless of how it came about, the infographic is instructive of something. It shows some of the potential strategy and potential marketing for Harris as he enters this important step of free agency. He has to sell himself as a potential max-value guy as much as teams have to want him as part of their team.
And to some extent, his representatives have to show other teams Harris is a high-quality player. That is where one might think someone planted the idea for an infographic like the one above to show to media to drum up support for drafting Harris or to give information in easily digestible form to general managers and decisionmakers.
The infographic seems to make the marketing plan for Harris.
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