Lots of good info here: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/s...-hurdle-is-a-big-one.html?_r=1&ref=basketball
Howard Beck has been the go-to guy on all things lockout. He is a must-follow on Twitter at this point.
The one thing that's throwing me off a bit is the Amnesty Clause. It says: ¶ Amnesty clause: Each team will be permitted to waive one player, with pay — anytime during the life of the C.B.A. — and have his salary be exempt from the cap and the luxury tax. Its use will be limited to players already under contract as of July 1, 2011. So this is saying that you can waive 1 player during the life of the CBA, and that 1 player must have been under contract as of July 1, 2011? So once you've used it once, it's gone for good? Seems a little harsh, no? Pugs
Two ways I read that. 1. That player has to be on your roster as of that date. 2. That player has to be in the league and under contract as of that date. DD
I always assumed an amnesty clause would be only for already existing contracts. This just says they don't have to make that decision immediately.
Sounds like it doesn't actually matter whether they are on your roster. You can trade for a contract that existed at time of expiry of last CBA and waive it.. IE someone can trade for Arenas/Hedo and Dwight and waive one of the bad contracts
The BRI is a penis waiving contest, but I like most of the CBA agreements, I would have preferred a hard cap, but a more punitive luxury tax is fine, I hope the MLE and S&T exclusions for luxury teams go through though.
More great info here fron SI.com: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/writers/sam_amick/10/29/nba-labor-proposals/index.html Sam Amick has some slightly different %s on the luxury tax. He also clarifies that the "Stretch Exception" provides both payroll AND salary cap relief, which is an absolutely HUGE win for overspending teams. I am trying to look in to which of DD's two possible interpretations (above) of the amnesty rules actually applies. I would think that it would be the second one, since the entire point of allowing teams to use amnesty at any time over the life of the CBA would be not to punish the more prudent teams. Still, that is a major deal point that neither author addresses directly.
Maybe I'm misunderstandings amnesty, but it seems like you would only want to use this on a max contract and not necessarily a bad contract. For example, could Miami use it on LeBron and then resign him to a minimum contract. That way he still gets paid and opens up lots of cap space at the same time.
Undoubtedly, like the amnesty rules in 2005, the new CBA would prohibit the team from re-signing the waived player for the life of his old contract. For instance, if Miami amnesty cut Lebron, they would not be able to re-sign him until 2016. I'll go out on a limb and say they wont risk it. The biggest questions with the new amnesty are (1) whether a team can acquire another team's player (plus additional compensation) and then amnesty cut that new player; and (2) whether the team trading that player could then re-sign the player, since it did not technically amnesty cut him. This latter issue is a potentially big loophole.
For all you 'let's sign player X and use the amnesty clause on him if it doesn't work out' folks: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/20.../nba-labor-proposals/index.html#ixzz1cNHeZaue
I like most of the changes. I think the union already got a pretty big victory keeping the reduction to one year on the length of contracts. I also like that they'll be getting some concession on restricted free agency, which always seemed to me to be unfair to players.
I wish the owners would go to unguaranteed contracts like the NFL, the guaranteed contracts have made players lazy...and the NBA uninteresting for 3/4ths of every game. DD
