Do you think the NBA should adopt non-guaranteed contract rules similar to those in the NFL? After the 'Agent 00 IQ' fiasco, I feel sorry for the Wizards. Players doing stupid stuff like that should be dropped without pay.
if the contracts aren't guaranteed -- then the players should be free to renegotiate before their contracts are up.
Sure, it should go both ways. If a player is producing way beyond their market value, they should have the right to hold out imo. Not applied to rookies though.
I think contracts should still be guaranteed, but a team should be able to void a contract for criminal behavior. For example, there is no way the Warriors should have had to honor Latrell Sprewell's contract after he strangled his coach. In any other profession, that's grounds for termination. In the NBA, it gets Sprewell traded to a better team. The Wizards should have been allowed to void Arenas' contract after the gun incident without owing him a dime.
I'm an advocate of Lemon Law buyout clauses. First two years fully guaranteed. After the second year, teams have a buyout clause for 50% of the remaining value, so long as more than one year remains on the deal. No buyouts after that. Buyouts remain on the team's cap for the duration of the original deal as a check on the system. Only one buyout per team per offseason is permitted. Teams may not buy out a player if injured.
But in any other profession if you suck and cannot live up to your duties you do get fired... So why guarantee contracts? We have seen it where a player hits that big contract $$$ and doesn't live up to it.. I think all contracts should be performance base... What you did in the year can traslate to big $ at the end.. Like performance bonsues can be huge 1-10 Million... While Salaries can stay small
They do have non-guaranteed contracts...see Dampier. Although not exactly what you were refering to. I personally don't want to see contracts waived. Managing the salary cap is a part of the game now. And although I agree that it sucks when a player under performs thier contract, it's also fair for a player to be paid beyond there value if that's what the owner was willing to gamble on. Take Battier or Jeffries right now...two guys that are probably overpaid right now. Do you blame them for the contracts they signed. If they didn't get the guarantee, they probably would have want more money upfront. And it's not fair for a player to stop getting paid due to injury...not his fault at all. In some respect, it's not even his fault if his play declines due to age or injury...and the owners know that going in. If they do introduce non-guaranteed contracts, they need to still have guaranteed contracts available. I can see guys like wafer getting the non-guarantee...but then again, he'll get a one-year deal usually, so what's the difference. It's really only fair to the slackers who stop working hard once they get thier payday....and I'm not sure how you'd quantify that.
I've been wanting non-guaranteed contracts in the NBA for as long as I can remember. At any other job, you get hired under the assumption that you will perform your duties up to or beyond a certain level of quality. If you don't, you get fired. In the NBA, you basically just have to have an awesome interview, get hired, and then do whatever the hell you want for the next 3/4/5 years while the money rolls in. It goes a long way to destroying the competitive nature of the sport. Ideally, they would work something out to where each player got a base salary, plus a % of a team bonus that is based on wins. But then you'd have players flocking to winning teams in free agency. They'd have to work around that.
I like the gist of that. Maybe just replace wins with some other performance-based measurements and not just points, rebounds, assists, etc... something slightly more advanced that better reflects value.
I like the "partial guarantee/50% buyout" idea. On one hand, I see how it's not good for the league for fans to see their franchise as doomed for the forseeable future by horrible contracts and for players to be stuck in bad situations (even while being paid a lot of money) simply because their contract is deemed "above-market." For example, in the Gilbert Arenas situation, both the team and the player can use a divorce and a fresh start. On the other hand, I think teams should be responsible for the deals they sign and think it's kind of cheap for dumb teams to be let off the hook too easily (being a fan of a team with generally prudent management may give me certain bias here). Also, players would like to have some degree of financial security. A "50%" solution will allow teams and players to get out of some genuinely bad situations (the team just has to decide whether things are bad enough for them to want to pay the guy 1/2 of his salary to go away) while still making management decisions meaningful and giving players some financial security.
Team option each year after the first year, player option after the third year. That way, every year is a contract year for the player to perform. And no team can definitely lock up a player in a lowball contract (including rookie contracts) for more than 3 years.
