I'm not entirely prepared to assume that anything being reported by our beats is accurate, so I'm not sold that the first conversation actually revolved around them convincing Kuzmenko he was needed here. It may well have been "we want you to come in, see how you like Philly, but we'll make sure to get you to a contender this year and revisit the conversation in the offseason" or something like that.
But there's also the fact that you could write every single rational thing this front office has ever done on a postcard, ball it up, stick it into a thimble, and still have room for your thumb.