I just started following American football, and one thing which surprised me about the sport is that the contracts seem to be unguaranteed, meaning if they cut you the contract is null and void (or at least it seems that way in Madden lol). Considering football is a much more physical sport and players have a much higher risk of getting injured, why are football contracts unguaranteed but NBA contracts are? IMHO it would solve a lot of problems and make ballclubs more competitive. Bums like SJAX, Eddy Curry and Jerome James don't deserve to earn millions of dollars due to stupid GMs, and it would serve as motivation for players to keep earning their paychecks. I'm actually surprised Stern and the owners haven't even considered strongarming the players' union and insisting players' contracts become unguaranteed. The players' club might riot and all, but the fact is most of those guys live from paycheck to paycheck anyway, while the owners would probably be happy to not pay NBA salaries for a while. If a lockout happens the players will the first ones agreeing. I suppose making contracts unguaranteed outright would be too much, but a mandatory escape clause wherein players are only guaranteed 10% or the vet minimum whichever is higher if the player is cut would solve a lot of problems IMHO. The vet min. might sound small compared to other amounts, but a million dollars is already a lot of money, and way more than someone who isn't playing deserves.
It's because the football players union is a joke. The basketball union is stronger, not as strong as baseball, but much stronger than football. Don't expect to see non-guaranteed contracts in basketball, that's the last thing the union will give up, as it should be.
Im not going to get all into it, but in reality when you look at it, the NBA contracts are superior to the NFL in many ways. Look at rookie contracts between basketball and football. The NBA has set values already in the 1st round. The NFL on the other hand has kids demanding large contracts when they havent proved a thing in the big leagues. You got guys like Crabtree sitting out over big money. What that does is make a bad team even worse. If they dont draft a special player, which is against the odds, they are locked into paying these rookies huge money. Guys like Jamarcus Russell. When they get a bum pick, it holds the teams back 5 years, because they are spending so much on these rookies, and can never bring in high dollar free agents becasue of it. Just horrible.
The NBA Players Union takes good care of the players compared to other sports. Getting guaranteed money for the high profile players is actually something to be proud of.
Why is that? In real life you don't get payed if you get fired, why is it different for these guys? Isn't the fact that they're earning millions of dollars already enough compensation? Why does it have to be guaranteed on top of everything else? IMHO the unions aren't the joke, its just that the NBA owners are more merciful than their NFL counterparts. In cases like this wherein the owners pay the players their salaries, all the "bargaining" power the union possesses is a just an illusion. It's not at all comparable to an office union because the NBA is the only basketball industry in the country, players don't have anywhere else to go unless they go overseas or the ABA. If the NBA closes down, nba stars won't earn money during the hiatus, and I'm sure 90% of the owners would be happy to stop losing money for a while.
In real life if you're the top .001% of your professional, you take jobs on conditions that pay very very well, and you can negotiate terms of your unemployment. Ever heard of "golden parachute"? Heck, in most professional work a 4 - 6 months severance for getting laid off is not uncommon even for entry and lower level employees. Also if you look at the NFL, there are a lot more money up front. Players don't get paid if they're cut for non-guaranteed part of their contract, but they also have huge bonuses up front (look at how much Matt Stafford got guaranteed).
The nfl union is weak. Gene upshaw was in the owners pockets. The nfl is the most profitable sport yet the players get paid the worst. I think a lot of NFL players are stupid, probably more so than the other two leagues.
The next poster brings up a great point about how top talent is treated differently. I'll make a different point: say you're an average joe, your employer can fire you at any time in real life. But then you can also quit your job at any time and go work at a different company. So if teams can fire players any time and not pay them, the players should have the same right. Maybe Dwade decides in 2007 that he's tired of the heat, quits his heat job, and goes to work for the Knicks. Football's union sucks because they didn't build this into their CBA, the teams can fire players, but the players can't fire the team.
Which is why I think it's lame when players gets bashed for holding out "but but he signed a contract....". The labor agreement in the NFL is bad because the parties don't have equal power. On the flip side, even in the non-sports world, the top talent that have those golden parachutes and perks, you bet their Non-Compete clause is going to be extensive as heck.
A few points: Uh - yeah, you do. UNLESS you did something that warrants a firing (ie, voided the terms of your contract). Most contracts in 'real life' have some sort of clause about how much of your pay you receive if you get fired (ie - pretty standard is 1 months notice: smart bosses pay out the month at the time they fire the employee). This is simply untrue. As in 'real life' (for the record, I believe that professional sportsmen are actually alive) - NFL contracts contain the amount of pay they receive if they get fired. Further, smart agents plump for a 'sign on bonus' for their client, which is guaranteed money. The portion of the contract which is guaranteed depends on the negotiation, but (allegedly) is on the rise - a player might sign for 5 years @ $2million per year, with $1.5million in guaranteed money. The fact that Madden football doesn't report it accurately is insignificant to actual 'real life' On the NBA salary structure, it IS possible to sign a player to a non-guaranteed contract in the NBA. Look at Pops Mensah-Bonsu for Houston this year; Stackhouse's contract for this year; Dampier for next. The fact is that there are many less roster spots available in the NBA, and only 5 players on the court at any one time. This really gives the players the upper hand in negotiations - it's just not so simply to 'strongarm' them into signing a non-guaranteed contract. If you won't guarantee their money, and they are a 'rotation' quality player, then most likely somebody else will. Hence you see the good players getting paid, and the final few roster spots being filled up by minimum salary non-guaranteed contracts. The larger 'non-guaranteed' deals (Stack and Damp) are creative accounting by Cuban to offer an extra year over and above what the agent asks for in order to generate a humungous off-season trade asset for himself. As for Eddy Curry and Jerome JAmes - TOTALLY ridiculous to put them in the same sentence as a productive player like S-Jax, BUT - what do you expect them to do? Turn down guaranteed money? Blame the GMs who sign them, or give thanks for operators like Morey and Presti, who have the common sense not to hand out ridiculous contracts!!
To be honest I don't really understand the way NFL contracts work, like I said I just followed it this season, and based it on Madden as well (lol). The thing is, even if you're paying guaranteed money due to the "bonuses" or the escape clause, it makes roster keeping much more efficient. The way the NBA cap is managed, contracts become more valuable than the player. IMHO guaranteed contracts along with the cap are probably one of the biggest reasons why the NBA has one of the smallest collection of champions in the industry. You hire an incompetent manager, and he can set your team back for decades in a short span of time. Now I probably couldn't care less since it isn't my money, but if you're a knick or pacers or sac fan it must be terribly frustrating to pay sky high tix for such a lousy team. Sure you can build through the draft, and guys like Sac and the pacers have some nice pieces, but realistically how long will it be for them to even be considered contenders? Now to your points: *You do get paid when you get fired, but what you get is around a month's worth, while according to your contract you will be paid monthly until the company closes unless you are fired or resign. On the other hand you have players who still make full value on their contracts even if they're no longer with the company. I suppose the equivalent of this is you receiving a pension after the company fires you, except the pension includes the full value of your monthly salary, bonuses and allowances, company loans, healthcare and every other benefit the company offers. Oh, and you can still work at a rival company while receiving it. *You're right about guaranteed contracts existing, however most of those are only given to non-rotation players or as you said creative accounting practices. However the NFL also has superstars and multiple teams who can sign them, and yet you don't hear about the Vikings offering Tom Brady a guaranteed max contract deal. IMHO teams there probably had an agreement to not offer guaranteed contracts to anyone, and I don't see how something like that can be done in the NBA as well. The only reason why I brought it up is that the gap between the haves and have not in the NBA is rising, and teams are forced to do ridiculous trades just to keep in the green (see Richardson/Gasol trade). Either that or they go to the dark side, forget about winning and just focus on making cash (see Grizzlies). Of course all the rebuilding and the money making turns off the fans, so no one buys season tix anymore. I think in some teams the situation is so bad the league might have to take over lol.It'll be interesting to see what changes are implented in the next cba.
On your first point about getting paid after you get fired: http://www.marketwatch.com/story/gm-ex-ceo-wagoner-gets-big-retirement-package If you are (or at least perceived to be) the top .01% of your profession, the leverage you have in offering your services can get you those types of contracts, It's not just the NBA. The one month is just for average people (i.e. the 50th percentile). On your second point, take a look at the kind of contracts rookies like Matt Stafford gets. Top player still gets paid a ton of guaranteed money that does count against the cap. If you based on Madden then it's flawed in that the guaranteed money demands are low, real life superstars ask for a ton more guarantee money in their FA negotiations (try and see what happens to your cap size if you cut some of the players that are on contracts that are based on real contracts). To say that FA super stars don't get money due to collusion is dumb, Albert Haynesworth ring the bell? Last point on teams having need to stay in the green, that just the economy on one hand and owners greed on the other. A sports writer said it best, any owner that complain about losing money on a sports franchise is like someone owning a blue chip stock and complain about low dividends. Track the value of sports Franchises over time and you'll see that owners complaining about losing money are just being greedy. The deals you mentioned happened because you have cheap owners, not because there can't be parity under current system (Spurs). Even poorly run organization can be profitable (New York) and not desperate to make bad trades or complete turn around by drafting one player (Lebron, Dwight Howard).
Incorrect. According to your contract you will get paid while working at the company, or receive a months wages if terminated early. And if you get the sack, you actually CAN work for a rival within the month, and receive both the payout and a new salary. It's exactly the same - the 'guaranteed' portion is just 1 month. Like I said, it's all about competition. If you think the Rockets could've signed Ariza to a 5 year non-guaranteed deal, then good luck to you. It's not how it happens. Any new CBA won't change that NBA salary cap is one of the best in the world - more sports could learn a thing or 5 from it!
I actually believe that guaranteed contract is the source of a lot of evil in the NBA. I can't believe you as fans would support guaranteed money. A lot of money is wasted on unproductive players. We the fans are the customers. When an industry is wasteful and still gets a lot of business, guess who's paying the wasted money? Yes, the customers, directly or indirectly. While some money is wasted on underserved players, some players who deserve to be in the league got bumped. Every year at the end of preseason, we are hoping some promising young players can make the team only to see them get cut because some fat bum is riding on a guaranteed contract doing nothing.
Most real business contracts have some sort of "at will" employment clause that allows for you to be fired with or without cause, then additional clauses saying how much severance money you'll get. If you're fired with cause, then you don't get a severance. Virtually every NBA and MLB contract contains a clause protecting against "loss of skill" and injury, saying that neither of the two can be cause for termination without compensation. Honestly, I hate holdouts way, way more than I hate overpriced turkeys on the bench. Hell, non-guaranteed contracts and the right to renegotiate mid-contract basically started the monster that is TO. They always cause one of the top 10 rookies to basically forefeit his rookie campaign, have created a system so flawed that rookies get paid more than superstars and top picks cripple franchises rather than help them rebuild. The NBA has a much stronger union simply because you have far less players, and ever since Jordan, the NBA has become a league of stars. While football emphasizes what's on the front of the jersey for the most part, the financial success of professional basketball in America is largely dependent on having captivating, once in a generation legends that transcend their teams. Therefore, the players have a much greater negotiating position, not even mentioning the fact that American football is pretty much not played anywhere else competitively, while basketball is probably the second most international sport after football; with several very competitive, and rich European teams that would gladly scoop up players were there a prolonged strike, or if the CBA dicked over the players with non-guaranteed contracts.
I agree the NBA system is more "fair" than the NFL's but I do share the OP's sentiments that crappy players shouldn't be making tons of money for years on end. I think MAX contracts over a certain dollar amount (maybe $10mil/per year) should have a max length of 3 years. This would just keep the owners/GMs from being stuck in the mud over mistakes and it would motivate the top guys to play hard all the time for their next contract. There wouldnt be a mass exodus of players leaving their respective teams every year because Bird rights + the home team percentage raises would still make it more likely for players to re-up with their current team. **Also I think the current system of keeping rookies on the rookie contracts for 4 years is a little too in favor of the ownership. I think the 3 year system that was in effect is better. For 1st rounders 2 years guaranteed + 3rd year team option makes the most sense.
