Well, no, it's a negotiated contract. If the league felt it undermined the salary matching rule and wanted a one-year ban instead of a one-month ban, they'd have to negotiate it with the player's union. In fact, the one-month ban is likely a compromise between the league wanting a longer ban and the union wanting no restriction on the player's choice.
OK, so salary matching is a "rule," but the 30-day ban is a loophole? They are both negotiated parts of the CBA, no? The 30-day waiting period is a clearly negotiated rule of the CBA. A loophole is using a player like Van Horn in a trade, because you never really officially had him retired. That's a loophole Stern can close with no negotiation. He can invoke the open-ended "No Trades that go against the spirit of the CBA are allowed" clause. but let's get off the semantics. As I said in my last post, the 30 days seems like a fine rule, simply because this won't happen that much. Desirable players with desirable contracts will get claimed by another team before they clear waivers. Guys like McDyess who are desirable but no their contract require you to find a team willing to buy him out. That penalty of buying him out is a strong disinsentive tied to salary matching rules. This scenario won't happen much as I explained in my previous post. Honestly, has this happened more than with Barry and McDyess, where the original team got him back? I don't recall.
maybe i can summarize my points better: <ol><li>A desirable player with a desirable/fair contract won't clear waivers. Detroit would lose him. <li>An undesirable player = who cares if Detroit gets a scrub back, happens all the time with players you waive in preseason or send to the CBA, but might want back <li>A desirable player with undesirable contract requires finding a team to buy him out and the player then not signing for another team</ol> Scenario 1 prevents this happening to good contracts. Scenario 2 = who cares Scenario 3 just doesn't happen enough to think the fabric of salary matching is in jeopardy.
Let's measure this in dollars. We can say for a fact, the Market thought he was not desirable enough to claim his $7m contract off of waivers. It didn't happen. Question back to you: if McDyess had a minimum salary contract when Denver waived him, do you think one of the 28 teams allowed to grab him off of waivers in 48-hours would have? or do you think he would have cleared waivers and became a free agent? What about if he had a $2m contract? $3m?
There was one team in the league that could claim him off waivers and that was Memphis (you need to have the cap room to swallow the contract). It's nowhere near as simple as saying "the market didn't think he was desirable". And there were clearly other offers made to him once he became a free agent.
back to my question: so you'd agree that if he was a minimum salary player at time of being waived, he never would have cleared waivers for Detroit to get him back? What about a $2m contract? $3m? btw: you can sign him using a Trade Exception, not just pure cap space. my point is simply to show how rare it is that a team can get a waived player back...based on my 3 scenarios above. i'm not trying to make any other point.
HP, it's just semantics. If you think if something is rare and hard enough to happen, then it's not a loophole, that's fine. But then the van Horn case wasn't a loophole either because I'd imagine that it's very difficult to find a retired player who is technically not retired. If all three parties, Detroit, Denver, and MyDyess all had agreed to this arrangement BEFORE the trade happened, then this is clearly a case of intentionally exploiting a "loophole" (or whatever you want to call it) to circumvent the matching salary rule. It is actually not as rare as you think. All you need are three things: 1. A desirable player with undesirable contract: lots of declining star players fall into this category. 2. Either (a) The said player's team and the player himself want to win a championship and are willing to pay a price, or (b) The said player wants to end his career with his current team. 3. A team that wants to dump big salaries. None of these three conditions is very rare. A hypothetical scenario: The Knicks want to get cap room to sign LeBron. Houston and McGrady want desperately to win a championship. The Knicks trade a few good role players to Houston for McGrady, then buy him out. TMac comes back to a much improved Houston team for a smaller contract. This probably won't happen because TMac probably won't want a pay cut. But it is entirely conceivable. And you can think of quite a few similar cases.
If I like it, it's a rule; If I don't, it's a loophole. I suppose what I don't like about the loophole is the collusion between the teams and the player. I don't know that they came to an understanding with McDyess beforehand, but I have to assume they did. If there was a veritable risk that Dice would have stuck with Denver or else gone to Boston after a buyout, I would fine with an ultimate decision to return to Detroit. But, I'm sure this was all arranged ahead of time.
Easy, The difference between the McDyess case vs the Van Horn case is Stern actually talked about closing the Van Horn "loophole." There is nothing in the CBA to force a player or team to retire someone, despite them having no intention to play again. Didn't Stern actually allude to possibly invoking the "Against the spirit of the CBA" clause on that or future attempts to do it. The McDyess case already has a 30-day clause in place. We can agree there is nothing wrong with Denver's part of the trade. They wanted to get rid of AI's contract, and a 50% buyout of McDyess (example) will save them ~$3.5m for each of the two yrs remaining on his contract. But note, it's the BUYOUT that makes this all work, where you can reduce salary cap equal to % of buyout. Maybe that's the "loophole" to fix, because if the player won't accept a buyout, Denver can't reduce salary (see Matt Maloney), and loses any added incentive to make the trade vs any other trade the reduces future cap via shorter contracts. Allowing a waived player to return to the original team after 30-days is not the problem with salary matching. It's the buyout. And I still don't think that's a problem. <b>It provides an ongoing means for new mgmt to purge ridiculous salaries inherited from prev mgmt...essentially an "Allan Houston" rule, but harder to use.</b>
Agreed that it is the buyone that makes this all work. And agreed that banning buyout is not the way to go. The "loophole" is not the buyout, though. The loophole is the three parties pre-agreeing the buyout in order to circumvent the matching salary rule. The 30-day period is just not enough to prevent this kind of deals, which I believe will be used more and more often if they don't close it.
OK, I see what you and JV are saying. You simply don't like teams negotiating a buyout as stipulation for making the trade. I still say the 30-day ban is fine, as not all of these are going to involve some pre-agreement. Maybe you could do a 1-year ban if the waived player signs a buyout. Without the buyout, few of these will happen, because the Denver side of trade has no incentive, and they have to fully match salaries by eating Dice's contract in its entirely...thus retaining the integrity of salary matching.
I just don't understand how this is a loophole. Teams and players can negotiate whatever they want. They can negotiate that Mcdyess has to wear a face mask for the rest of his career for all i care. Their buyout negotiations weren't part of the initial NBA transaction. The nuggets could have decided not to buyout Mcdyess if they didn't want to. I don't see any foul play. Maybe if there was some written document stating that the Nuggets must buyout Mcdyess i would feel uneasy. I just don't see how you could "close the loophole" without limiting a players' rights to sign with whatever team he wants to.
It is not about freedom of negotiation. It is about the intention of the salary rule in the CBA. This kind of deals are designed to get around the rule in a "legal" way. That's why it is a loophole. If you think it is just part of the game within the CBA, that's fine. Just like some people like the hack-a-Shaq tactic, some don't. But it is a "loophole" in the basketball rule that allows defense to do that to players like Shaq, which the fouling rule did not intent.
Easy, But they made a the Hack-a-Shaq rule. And when they did, it had to take into consideration that intentional fouls have always been part of the game of bball when teams are in desparation mode, making it hard to change the rules. Sometimes changing the rules is the worst thing you can do. pmac and I have a similar view on this: You see, the league and union agreed on a 30-day ban. I'm going to assume they knew "return to sender" agreements were possible. But, that said, how many scrub players are traded and waived, then return to their original team, because that was the only team that knew them well? Why should they be penalized just because they had to be tossed into a trade to match salaries. I can see a 1-yr ban if a buyout occurs, but why change the rules involving all waivers. Stern has the "Against the Spirit of the CBA" clause to invoke on a case by case basis. He's got a tool to use if he finds what he considers to be illegal agreements. I think patching "loopholes" with rule tweaks can cause as much harm as good. You have to weigh the frequency and harmfullness of what you are trying to effect. That's why there will never be a rule to stop the Van Horn loophole, because how can you put in writing when a player must retire, or say certain players can't be traded because they haven't played in awhile.
to add, the idea to impose a 1-yr ban if a buyout occurs after clearing waivers does not limit a player's right to go to any team he wants, because he chose the buyout out of free will. You can be waived without a say in the matter, but a buyout requires your ok.
HP, I like your idea of a 1-year ban for buyout cases. Nobody cares about waived scrubs. Their contracts normally aren't significant enough for serious salary dumps anyway. The real problems are declining star players who have big contracts nobody wants but can still play major roles on contenders. And for the record, I have no problem with the hack-a-shaq thing.
