Yes, if he does, he is going to be looking very bad, plus Rockets did not treat him badly, he just had a bit of probelm with JVG.
I was watching the video in slow mo of hakeem when he was teaching yao and i couldn't even follow hakeems footsteps.
Supposedly Scola also has such a deal in his contract (although for more than 10 minutes). Apparently Adelman is willing to follow it through unlike JVG.
I know someone that works in the office. I wouldn't say who said it. But I figured I would seriously ask someone straight up what happened with JVG and Spanoulis and why JVG was really fired and all these things that Morey and CD are so evasive on because Morey and Dawson simply avoid any question regarding the two which tells you there is something strange there. So many fans here act like JVG quit and was always right, Spanoulis was just a crybaby end of story. Yet the GM's are evasive on the subject and Alexander gets digs in whenever he can on Van Gundy. What I was told is that the whole problem was very simple. Spanoulis told the Rockets no way in hell he would even consider signing a contract unless he had a guarantee of 10 minutes per game every game. Carroll Dawson agreed to it and put it in the contract. All JVG was told to do by Dawson was play Spanoulis 10 minutes a game if healthy and that was all Spanoulis expected he would play. He could use him however he wanted just give him 10 minutes. Because JVG had nothing to do with the contract he acted like he was immune to it and because he could not be sued. His position on it was that he told Dawson he never made any such agreement and Dawson didn't consult him before agreeing to it and since he didn't sign it he was not bound by it and it was Dawson's and Les' problem. Throughout the year management got more and more angry at JVG over this because regardless of how Spanoulis played, what he could do on the court was not even connected to the issue. They were in breach of contract and thus had a big player union violation. In fact I was told that Dawson told Van Gundy after watching a pre-season practice that Spanoulis was about 2 months of practice away from being able to contribute much but that did not matter. The contract had a guarantee of 10 minutes so Van Gundy had to play him that time to start the year even if he might struggle for about 2 months of solid play time. Van Gundy simply didn't follow the order. But Spanoulis could not speak or write English well enough to pursue it so he complained to the press in Greece about it. JVG used his poor English as a way to back him and the Rockets into a corner over it by statements to the media because he knew Spanoulis lacked the ability to pursue it. However, the Sports Agency that Spanoulis' agent works for had a meeting with Dawson about it and apparently that was where Van Gundy was told he would be fired if he didn't play Spanoulis because of the legal issues in the contract. This was before a game against San Antonio. JVG then played Spanoulis the next game against San Antonio in line with the contract and then summarily benched Spanoulis again after the game citing to Dawson that Spanoulis wasn't ready and needed too much time to develop at that point in the year because he had not played yet and it was too late to play him at that point in the middle of a playoff push. Dawson agreed but told him that was why he was ordered to play him initially early in the year and told him regardless they were in breach of contract at that point. At that point he was told to play him or he would have to be let go. At the end of the year Spanoulis was told by Morey he would get the 10 minutes next year. Spanoulis agreed not to cause any problems and let it go. But when Morey and Les talked to JVG he refused and also refused on a request to speed up the offense and use Yao in more ways. JVG was immediately fired. Spanoulis agreed "to stay in Houston." At that point Adelman called Spanoulis and told him that he had no reason for Spanoulis not playing and told him he would have gotten plenty of time under him. Spanoulis however was fuming over the Rockets getting James and Brooks and asked Adelman if he would follow up on the 10 minute guarantee. Adelman apparently said yes he would play him 10 minutes a game off the bench at backup PG and SG where he could work him in. The next thing that happened was Spanoulis' agent went to the press saying Spanoulis had demanded out of Houston and was a slave and his mom was sick blah blah blah. I was told this was a rue and ploy by his agent. He was dealt to SA. Apparently what caused this was that Spanoulis asked Adelman to sign the contract BINDING him to the 10 minute clause to, the mistake he made not making Van Gundy sign it, and Adelman refused. Spanoulis and his agent went "nuts" from what I was told and the Rockets were quite shocked at it. In the SA deal it was worked out that Spanoulis would get remaining pay of his NBA deal paid his Panathinaikos and also he would get more money from the Athens team than his NBA deal was. This made him happy and he dropped any issues with the Rockets. However his agent and Spanoulis also demanded that the Rockets come clean and report to the media and fans what really happened. Les Alexander told the Rockets to keep their mouth shut about it over ticket sales and PR. And told them to just agree to it then wait till Spanoulis went overseas and then not do it and figured because of the language barrier this would be fine. Spanoulis spent most of his summer with his national team and didn't even focus on much. But recently many media in Greece and China and Spain had been asking him what happened. He and his agent had noticed that the Houston fans still did not know what happened and that the press still had been told nothing by the Rockets. The agency that represents Spanoulis has advised him that his image in America is totally wrecked and that he has no chance of coming back there unless the Rockets come clean. Now the agency is considering suing the Rockets over the breach of contract over the 10 minutes guaranteed PT because the Rockets would not tell the press and fans what actually happened for fear it would severely hurt their chances with future draft picks and free agents if other players knew this happened. I was also told that Yao's rookie contract had such a guarantee in it as well about 10 minutes of PT a game. I was also told that Scola has the same guarantee of PT as well in his deal like Yao and Spanoulis did or he would have refused to sign also. Lucas and Head and Alston who basically got all the minutes Spanoulis was guaranteed (not much maybe Lucas' PT and a couple minutes here and there of Head and Alston) had no such guarantees. The Rockets management and owner could not understand why it was impossible to find 10 minutes for Spanoulis and basically after JVG refused again after the Jazz series to honor the contract and also to open the offense up like Alexander asked him to do he had no chance of returning. From what I was told Carroll Dawson told JVG numerous times that it had nothing to do with Spanoulis' play or performance, he had the clause in his contract so he had to play. JVG simply refused. The reason I was told why Spanoulis got the guarantee in his deal in the first place was because his agency saw that Arvydas Macijauskus was benched all year in New Orleans by Byron Scott and JVG had the same exact coach - player relationship reputation that Scott did. Therefore the agency would not agree to any deal unless the contract had 10 minutes of PT a game guaranteed. Dawson agreed to this because he was saddened over the team's failure to land Mike James and desperately wanted to add a scoring point guard to the team and his main option was Spanoulis.
No, Translation: The official plan is to place all of the responsibility and blame for this team's failures over the past 7 years on the head coach(es). That way we in the organization, myself included, get to evade publicly taking responsibility for our actions concerning personnel decisions (such as the draft) over the past dozen years. Forgive my cynicism but I've seen this song and dance before from Les. Why it was just 4 years ago that ol' Les was signing the praises of Jeff Van Gundy after showing Rudy T the (trap) door. And you can bet your last dollar that in 2-3 years if the Rockets don't break through against the top teams in the West, there will be another article in the Chronicle just like this one after Les shows Adelman how to operate the controls on that same (trap) door.
none of the ten minutes guaranteed is allowed by the cba in a uniform contract. dawson may have said that to billy. all of the other is nonsense. jvg was fired for one thing only...losing to utah. all the other evasive things are cover your ass type of statements by management. wouldnt it be funny if jvg ever gave his side. these are cheap shots by les and he should be above it all as should the rest of management.
If anyone can show us an NBA contract that guarantees minutes, I would appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
Shockingly I agree, they should just keep it in house. I am sure Les is none to happy that JVG ignored his request to lighten up in the media session and actually joked about being asked to do it. However, now that JVG is gone, the Rockets front office should just let it go....Les should be the bigger man.... This will all blow over when the season starts.... DD
If this is true then, it's just one more example (in a long line) of the absolute incompetence of the idiots running this franchise. Let me get this straight: you have a coach whose job is on the line because injuries during the previous season caused the team to land in the NBA lotto. Said coach's mandate is to win as many games as possible which he manages to do despite losing his star center for 32 games. But no, that's NOT important to the GM & owner - no the most IMPORTANT thing is that the head coach GUARANTEE a marginal Euro player 10 minutes of playing time a game win-loss record be damned. There was once a time when something like this would make me mad as hell. Now, I find myself feeling nothing at all...
Probably somebody like B-Ball Scientist or Kill_Bill_Pana In all honesty, Rockets Dynasty, can you confine yourself to the international forum once the season starts? It's amusing now, and I'm certainnly enjoying but once the season starts I don't think anybody needs to see your routine anymore. The first few times it was funny, but after while it just gets annoying and will just ruin good discussion.
You Sir are a liar plain and simple. Guarantees of minutes are absolutely allowed under the CBA. In fact recently this has been all over the news. But obviously you are some PR person if you post such utter garbage.
That long posting of yours has no credibility, since no player has in his contract the # of minutes he will be guaranteed to play. You lost me at "I know someone."
I doubt there is anything in the CBA that prevents it, but if you include one, then you would obviously have to include a clause that says the guaranteed minutes clause is void if the contract is traded. Without the trade void, the contract becomes extremely difficult to trade. That's why it is such a ludicrous claim by anyone to suggest VSpan had such a clause.
so what does Yi Jianlian's contract guarantee have to do with VSpans. Show us VSpan's guarantee, or else, you are the liar. If it was such a sticking point in the Bucks negotiation with their #1 pick, how could it not have made news with our second rounder.
heypartner, I've yet to read anything that mentions a contract guarantee of minutes. All I've seen are "assurances" from Kohl. Here's the quotes I found in the Dish thread... http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=bucher_ric&page=YiDeal Assurances, nothing about it being in the contract. http://www.nba.com/bucks/news/Yi_Teleconference_Transcript_070829.html I see nothing about it being in a contract, but I do see someone ducking the question. This is worth showing again, however.
