LOL, one of the primary reasons that they were "110%" trading him was because they couldn't afford to keep him at his QO, even if they wanted to.
The fact that he wanted out, the fact that his QO was substantially higher than what his play would dictate he's worth, and the fact that he would hit free agency in a week if he wasn't traded, that stuff ALL factors into his overall value. All of those variables affect the team's leverage in talks.
If his QO was like $1M or something, that would at least give the team the option to choose to trade him later, or to keep him and try to convince him to sign the QO and stay, or whatever. Additional options. It would give the team the opportunity in trade talks to say, actually, we're going to hold onto him, as leverage.
We didn't have that, though. As you said, it was understood by all parties that we'd be trading him, at least in part because of the QO situation.
I don't really feel any of this is debatable and we're just arguing in circles now, so this is the last thing I have to say about it. Given that everyone and their mother knew we had to trade him by July 11 (for whatever reasons you believe are important), this was a good return.