That's not how it played out shane.
Brisbane and Freo were haggling. Free didn't want to give up any more than their first pick. Was that a fair pick for an injury-prone ruckman/forward who had only put together bursts of god games? Maybe, maybe not. But it was market value, because there were only two teams in the market: Freo and West Coast.
Melbourne's pick was a few places lower - which was attractive to Brisbane - and Melbourne backed a dumptruck full of money to Clark's front door. At that point Clark still said no publicly, with the joint press release. Bond was entitled to take Clark at his word.
Brisbane would have eventually have taken pick 16, or we would have added a later pick swap or player. There were still days to go before the clock struck midnight. But Clark decided $600k was more important than being closer to his family and took the deal.
The pre-season draft stuff was just Brisbane being disingenuous, and then Clark's manager sprouted it after the fact to make his client look less like he squibbed the situation and broke his word.
And Freo go stuck cashing out its bonus pick in the worst year to do so.
Could have gone better, but on balance, it's probably not a great idea to have a list manager who negotiates against himself on the basis that a player will straight out lie to his face.
