ok just checking. insurance companies are smart but im sure the rockets' lawyers are also smart. the fact that there was a 41 straight game rule in the policy leads me to believe that tmac's salary is still being paid for by the insurance company; although it does seem a little haphazard on their part. why else have a 41 minimum game rule though?
You've got a couple of points wrong. If you have bird rights on a player you can indeed exceed the cap to resign the player. If you choose not to sign the player you don't get to exceed the cap to sign other players. If a team trades for McGrady and then doesn't sign him, then that team will be able to sign another team's FA for up to the amount that the team is under the cap. So, if all of your other salaries (besides McGrady ) leave you $5M under the cap then you can sign a FA for up to $5M. Otherwise, you can be that the Rockets would simpy hang on to McGrady, let him expire and then go free agent shopping this summer. The only way that McGrady could open up $23M in cap space for a team is if that team were already under (or at) the cap. Secondly, in order to retain McGrady's Bird Rights he still counts against a teams cap until resigned or renounced. This rule is in place to prevent the exact situation that you described. If you keep McGrady's Bird Rights then he's eating up your cap space. If you renounce McGrady to free up cap space, then you lose his Bird Rights. You can do either one, but not both.
ok ok ok after certain amount, 41 games, the insurance pays a large chunk of it. doesn't matter if he's healthy...
ah icic but how do LA and most of the contenders have such huge payrolls? Consistent wheeling and dealing?
they pay luxury tax. they have a lot of money in a desirable market so they can buy a championship team
But do you really think there is a policy out there to cover a 23 million per year contract if a team decides they don't want to play him? I would assume that the policy covers any injury kind of like an STD or LTD policy would cover your salary if you were disabled. With that assumption, the insurance company would stop paying once they have proof that he can play just like they'd stop paying if they thought you could go back to work. Since he was cleared by medical doctors to play and did play 7 minutes per game until the coach gave him the "don't come back" request, I think the insurance payments would stop. The Rockets would have to sue, and most likely lose, (he was cleared by their own team doctors to play) to get the insurance company to continue payments. I wish his policy was still inforce as it would be much easier to trade Tracy because not only he's an expiring contract, his contract is 80% paid by an insurance company.
I think you are the one that is being ignorant. I think what they meant was that they would pay for every game he misses due to injury or if he was not capable of playing because his knee was still not 100%. I doubt that insurance companies are paying for Tracy McGrady's contract because the Rockets want to go another direction and were not sure how he would fit in with this team.
Without giving a strict yes or no answer, let me provide some insight into the insurance business for those of you who may be totally speculating. High-end insurance is nothing like your car insurance, or even a million dollar life insurance policy. Major domestic insurers and foreign P&I clubs will insure nearly anything with what seem to be totally absurd terms. Models and stars insure anything from their hands to their asses. Let me give you one concrete example that I am familiar with personally, based on my line of work: Offshore oil companies always insure their platforms. It is a multi billion dollar industry with equipment worth in excess of hundreds of millions of dollars. Yet, they do not always elect for a straight dollar coverage with named assets. Another option, often referred to as a cat bond, or dubbed by people in the industry as "vegas insurance" provides coverage much like the idea of T-Mac's salary being insured even though theoretically he can still play. An offshore cat bond basically says, we will insure a big imaginary circle in the ocean. If a hurricane with winds above category three come anywhere within this circle, we will pay out the policy. So, if a cat 5 destroys every platform in the circle or a storm barely reaching category three goes into the circle for 2 seconds and changes course without even raining on the rig, the policy is paid in full. Long story short, it's a gamble. Anything can be insured for any price under any terms. We are talking about businesses that deal on a level outside of the norm and way beyond the car in our garage. I see no reason why Tracy's salary would NOT be paid by the insurers at this point. If the terms says they pay 80% of any game missed after missing 41 consecutive games, then he could have a hangnail, donut fetish, or simply not want to miss his daughter's dance recital, or we could be sick of looking at him. He's missed 41 games. The end.
^ Yes but how long do you think the writeup on that policy is? 1 page? The higher the dollar, the more the pages and the more the fine print - what they will pay and won't pay. Insurance companies draw lines and if you cross outside the line, they won't pay. They signed up for certain risks not unlimited reasons why you can't use the rig. Do you think if your rig was getting old and in disrepair and you decided to sink it, do you think they'd still pay? I'm sure it is insured against certain causes natural and maybe even some man-made (terrorist) causes. But the more loop holes in a policy, the more it will cost you because the more risk the insurance takes on. More risk in payout means much higher premiums. I doubt the Rockets opted for an open-ended policy that will pay the player's salary to go home because they don't want him around. I don't know the policy's loop holes or how it was underwritten, but really neither does anyone on this board. But I would make a Clutch tip wager that the insurance company stopped paying the policy.
That's pretty much it. Mostly it's: An over the cap team can use their exceptions which will further put them over the cap. Sign your own Bird Rights FA to bigger deals. This includes the ever popular strategy of trading for a guy in the last year of his deal and then once the deal expires use his Bird Rights to resign him.
The initial Yahoo! article was misleading. Tmac's contract was never 80% covered by an insurance company. It was 80% of a unknown percentage Im sure some insider can confirm this, but that basically makes the entire premise of this thread false.
I figured that, when Morey said that T-mac doesn't fit the style were playing without yao, but he fit when yao went out with injury and he help continue the streak and make the playoffs
the millions he's losing because he cant showcase himself is why he's pissed. when you have something, you soon lose sight of what it's worth and keep on wanting more.
If the stuff I read in here its true, I think morey doesn't want to trade Tmac, because why you won't you let other team look Tmac workout/trainning , unless he suck, but that's not the case since Tmac's trainer told the media, he is in terrific shape. Hopefully I'm wrong.
Are player contracts insured? There is a league-wide policy that insures the contracts of around 150 players each season. The five most expensive contracts for each team are included, and teams have the option of submitting additional names for coverage. The carrier has the right to exclude 14 contracts per season, such as when they consider a player with a very large remaining contract to be a medical risk. For example they excluded Luol Deng in 2008-09 because he had $71 million remaining and a history of back injuries. The list of excluded players changes each year, so a player who is not covered one season might be covered the following season. If an insured player is disabled, then there is a 41 game waiting period, after which the insurance company will pay 80% of the guaranteed portion of the player's base salary. Once a player is covered, the carrier can't exclude the player for the remainder of his current contract. If the player is traded, his new team receives the beneft -- for example, even though Cuttino Mobley's heart condition was discovered prior to his trade to the Knicks, the Knicks received the insurance payout. I think a lot of people dont understand what the insurance is saying. 41 consecutive games is half a season. For that time period the team is still paying his salary. The games after that the team would only pay 20 percent. this means if a player was out for a full season, the team would pay 60% and the insurance would pay 40%. Im guessing the insurance fee is probably 5 to 10% of the player salaries, even if it is on the lower end, 5%, the insurance only loses an amount of 35% of the salaries. However lets see how much they actually would have collected out of the top 10 paid players in the NBA 1. Tracy McGrady Houston $23,239,561 2. Kobe Bryant LA Lakers $23,034,375 3. Jermaine O'Neal Miami $22,995,000 4. Tim Duncan San Antonio $22,183,218 5. Shaquille O'Neal Cleveland $20,000,000 6. Dirk Nowitzki Dallas $19,795,714 -. Paul Pierce Boston $19,795,712 8. Ray Allen Boston $19,766,860 9. Rashard Lewis Orlando $18,876,000 10. Michael Redd Milwaukee $17,040,000 Tmac is the only one who has missed more than 41 straight games due to injury. 5% of all these guys salaries is around 50 mil total. That more than covers TMacs salary with enough to spare for Yao too. Out of the top 50 paid players only TMac and Yao qualify for insurance. As a matter of fact, I think the only other players in the league that qualifies is Catino Mobley and possibly Greg Oden (but he may have been excluded due to his injury history). Compare that to the number of players insured, top 5 of every team =150 players. That is barely less than 3 percent of them. I think the insurance company wins in the long run.
I just hope Mac gets traded before the deadline. It would be cool to see him get out of Houston to somewhere he will play.
I wouldnt be surpirsed if insurance is still paying. It seemed the Rox were deadset on that Nov 23 deadline and if Im correct it made the total straight games missed by Tmac dating back to last season at just over 41. Then when Tmac came back, the team was very careful in their wording about how he wasnt physically ready to participate fully in practice even though Tmac said he was already doing so. Then they also said how he wasnt ready to play more minutes even though Tmac claimed he was. Also, they were careful to call his time in Chicago a chance to continue to rehab. I not saying what Tmac says is the truth. Im just saying the team has seemed to carefully protect his "injured status" and maybe its for insurance reasons.
