Thursday September 27 6:17 PM ET Knicks Have 3 Days to Spend Money By CHRIS SHERIDAN, AP Basketball Writer NEW YORK (AP) - The New York Knicks have until Monday to spend a special $2.875 million injury exception, and they might offer the money to free agent center Marc Jackson. If, however, the Houston Rockets receive an injury exception worth $3.25 million from the league office before Monday, Jackson could end up manning Hakeem Olajuwon's old spot. The Knicks were granted the disabled player exception because of a career-ending injury to Luc Longley. The Rockets, meanwhile, are awaiting word from the NBA on whether they will receive a medical exception for the season-ending injury to Maurice Taylor. ``I thought we'd get ours when New York got theirs, but we didn't,'' Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson said Thursday. ``I guess they're checking with more doctors, but I don't know for sure.'' NBA rules allow a team that loses a player to a season-ending injury to sign a replacement player making up to 50 percent of the injured player's salary. Because Longley's injury - a degenerative ankle condition - technically occurred last season, the league-mandated deadline for signing a replacement is Oct. 1. Since Taylor's injury - a ruptured Achilles' tendon - happened during the summer, the Rockets will have 45 days to use their exception if the league grants it. Jackson finished third in the rookie of the year voting last season while playing for Golden State. But in one of the mild surprises of the off-season, Jackson has remained unsigned while other centers, including Todd MacCulloch, Calvin Booth and Evan Eschmeyer, have received lucrative long-term contracts from the Nets, Sonics and Mavericks, respectively. Golden State has the right to match any offer Jackson receives. But with Adonal Foyle, Danny Fortson and Erick Dampier ahead of Jackson on the depth chart, it's questionable whether the Warriors would be willing to match a large offer. The Indiana Pacers and Seattle SuperSonics were among the teams to show interest in Jackson early in the off-season, but were scared off by his asking price. The Rockets, however, have only Kelvin Cato and Jason Collier to play center and thus might be more willing to extend a large offer to Jackson. Olajuwon was traded to Toronto over the summer. The Knicks have centers Marcus Camby, Travis Knight and Felton Spencer on their roster, but Knight and Spencer were used sparingly last season. The Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinal reported Thursday that the Knicks have an interest in Cleveland free agent forward Chris Gatling. The Cavaliers have discussed a sign-and-trade deal with Miami that would send Gatling to the Heat for a draft pick. But if the Knicks were willing to offer their injury exception money to Gatling, they would outbid the Heat for the much-traveled former All-Star. Agents for Gatling and Jackson did not return phone calls Thursday. Miami, with its payroll already at $51 million, is willing to pay Gatling somewhere in the area of $2 million. Miami is reluctant to increase its payroll too much because teams spending in excess of $54 million will have to pay a dollar-for-dollar luxury tax on the overage. The Knicks have no hope of avoiding the luxury tax because their payroll for the upcoming season is already approaching $80 million. NBA training camps open next Tuesday.
Interesting -- is the league trying to steer Jackson to the Knicks by letting the Rockets twist in the wind? Meanwhile, Golden State waits and watches, apparently without much concern.
well....so much for the rule that teams can't gain exceptions for players retiring for medical reasons. Did NY apply for this exception in the Spring or something? I was under the impression they applied after Longley said he was going to retire in July. If they applied in July, I'd have to say this should have gone down like the Jayson Williams exception request. If they applied in Spring, then it is identical to the Charles Smith request in 1997, and they rightfully should get the award expiring on Oct 1st due to injury after Dec 1st. Note, however, that Charles Smith didn't actually retire until 1999. He got waived in 1998, but kept trying to play. something is fishy in NY on this one....the way they actually hold up the retirement announcement for word of the exception.....it is like NY is trying to double dip. They now are in position to be awarded salary cap relief to eliminate is salary from their cap in 2 yrs. just too convenient....and two New York for this to be totally kosher.
This is a little alarming. If the league wants to give NY an edge, all they have to do is drag their feet on the Rocket's case & give the impression that the Rockets aren't going to get it. Chances are that Jackson would get a little antsy & accept the Knicks offer. That'd sure be dirty politics if they did that, but not very surprising.
You want your conspiracy theory there it is right there. If the NBA wanted equal footing then they would have given the Rockets and the Knicks their's at the same time. But the fact that they gave the Knicks their's AND told them they had 3 days to use it tells me all I need to know about the NBA. I wasn't a big conspiracy buff, even though I was suspicious of the NBA, but this just raises a red flag. The only good that could possibly come out of this is if the Rockets are able to get Anthony Mason.
hey swopa, i have a question and you might know the answer because you are a GS fan. Is Marc Jackson really a good player like a lot of us here think? I've read a lot of places where he is thought of like another mo taylor...good for a 17ft jumper, but not a great rebounder for his size, and a sub par defender..etc., etc. I've heard that the warriors will probably only offer him like 1mil max because they think foyle and damp are better players than him and they are filled up at the 4,5 positions. What do you think?
hottoddie, so much for my 100% statement yesterday backing Marc Berman instead of the NYTimes...lol. and so much for underestimating the skills of the Knicks to hold-up retirement that was planned in July, yet still get the exception despite Coon saying retirement eliminates award of injury exceptions. sheesh! I am now on the oeilpere bandwagon that if we don't get this exception we are being screwed.
For those of you who think the Rockets are getting Mason, you can forget about it. Right now, both the Sixers and the Bucks--the two division winners in the East last season--are debating whether or not to offer Mason a multi-year deal with their $4.5 mil exception. Should either team sign Mason, they will immediately become the favorite to win the East this year. Why would Mase take LESS money to play on a low-seeded West team when he could just as easily make MORE and punch his ticket to the NBA Finals??? If you ask me, Mason is a pipedream. Give it up. Let's stick to going after Marc Jackson.
Hopefully the Rockets don't "give it up" and think "it's a pipe dream", because anything can happen. They've been debating about signing Mason for months now so obviously it's not going to be that easy. People talked about the Rockets being unable to get Mo Taylor, and look what happened, so anything is possible. And I thought the Bucks didn't have an exemption, that they were trying to work out a sign-and-trade and that is what is holding it up! You would think that if they had that exemption they would rush to use it. Mason is still available until further notice, and I say the Rockets go after him to since it seems that Marc Jackson probably end up being a Knick.
Something is rotten in Denmark (er wherever NBA League HQ is?). If we aren't granted a DPE prior to 10/1, then NY was just given the rights to cherry pick Mark Jackson at our expense. This is especially difficult to swallow given the relative importance of Mo Taylor to the Rockets versus Dork Longley to NY. We gutted part of our team this offseason because retaining Mo was considered crucial to our success. Needless to say, if we miss out on Jackson because of nasty league politics in favor of NY, and we thus end up with someone the likes of Shawnelle Scott I won't be at all pleased! Come on NBA front office boys make the right decision based on all the factors and do what is in the best interest of both the leagues players (ie Jackson gets a better contract) and the teams (ie Houston with the bigger loss isn't put at a competitive disadvantage) without playing favorites.
I think he's a good player, but not a great one. In the comparisons that were bounced around on GS fan boards during the year, the ones to Isaac Austin and Armon Gilliam (in their best years) sounded about right to me. On a really good team, at best he'd be the first big man off the bench. I have no idea if the Warriors will match the current Rockets offer. On purely basketball-related considerations, I would match it -- Jackson isn't as valuable as a healthy Dampier (because he doesn't provide nearly the defensive presence you want from a center), but he's definitely more valuable than Foyle, and he would represent a "health insurance" policy for a frontcourt where the top 4 C/PFs all missed at least 1-2 months of the season last year. But the Warriors may be concerned about whether Jackson will cause chemistry problems if everyone is healthy, not only coming off the bench to back up Dampier/Fortson but perhaps losing some of those minutes as Troy Murphy develops. In addition, GS already has several players earning significant salaries to come off the bench (Foyle, Chris Mills, Bob Sura), and may not want to add another one unless they know they can unload someone before the year is over. Otherwise, they could be in luxury-tax danger in '02-'03 when Jamison's and (presumably) Hughes's new contracts kick in.
