Void the Contract

I'd imagine, that the only thing that would be needed, is for the player and team to agree that the contract should be voided. Though I can't think of a case where this happened.

I doubt that Garnett will sacrafice half (he will literally have to) of his yearly salary to be more tradable.

 

you can't do that in the NBA.

The NBA has a totally different set of contract rules than any other professional league I can think of.

It's the only league I know of where pretty much every contract (save a few minimum contract players) is guarunteed<sp?> whether the player gets cut or not. In the NBA, I guess a player COULD restructure his contract, but it would have absolutely no effect on his salary cap standing.

Lets say the Minnesota Timberwolves told KG that they were going to fold if they had to pay his entire contract and KG decided to be a nice guy and sacrifice half of his contract and they restructured it to where he only got paid half as much. Well, under the NBA rules, KG would make half of what he used to but the full amount of his old contract would still count towards the cap, thus making him just as hard to trade.

 

Here's what I posted in the Bat Cave thread:

Here's Larry Coon's explanation on what theoretically could be done with Garnett's contract (if he was wiling to reduce it)

Sometimes players and teams mutually decide to divorce each other. They do this by mutually agreeing that:

The team will waive the player;

If the player clears waivers, the compensation protection for lack of skill (see question 83 ) will be reduced or eliminated
For example, the Celtics did this with Dino Radja prior to the 97-98 season. They mutually agreed to reduce Radja's compensation protection to 50% of its value, then the Celtics waived him. When he cleared waivers he was paid the 50% he was owed, and he was then free to return to Europe.
But there's a twist, which needed an arbitrator's ruling during the 99-00 season to resolve. As detailed in question 84 , on January 10 all contracts become guaranteed for the rest of the season. Compensation protection insures the player against loss of salary after being being waived for lack of skill. But if he is waived after January 10, then he doesn't lose his salary, so the compensation protection does not kick in. Even though the team & player can mutually agree to reduce or eliminate the player's compensation protection, he is still owed his full salary if waived after January 10.

This was challenged by John Starks during the 99-00 season. Starks had been traded to the Bulls, and wanted to sever ties with the team after January 10. The arbitrator ruled that in the last season of a player's contract, the team and player could choose to eliminate the contract guarantee that kicked in on January 10. Starks and the Bulls where therefore free to agree to a divorce (with no money owed to Starks) as described above.

There is one other type of buyout described in the CBA. When a contract contains an option year, a buyout amount for the option year can be written into the contract. The buyout amount may be up to 50% of the salary for the option year.


Obviously, the first type doesn't apply here because Minnesota obviously won't waive Garnett.

If Garnett had an option year on the end of his deal (I don't believe that he does) and a buyout for that option year was written into the deal, then the TWolves could buy out his final year at up to 50% of the value. Of course, they wouldn't do this either because he would then become a free agent and they would get no compensation for him.

So, if the TWolves intend to get some compensation for Garnett, then a buy out doesn't apply.

Here's an excerpt Coon's explanation of contract renegotiations:

Contracts cannot be renegotiated downward (players can't take a "pay cut" in order to create salary cap room for the team). Contracts cannot be renegotiated to contain fewer seasons.


So, basically Garnett's contract will remain as is until 2004.

 

didnt barkley take less one year for us so we could sign pippin?

we only paid him $1 million. the difference was agreed to be paid back to him the next year, when he was paid $14 million.

 

My recollection is that Charles was a FA and the $1m was not a renegotiation of an existing contract. This did occur before the current CoBA so maybe there was a different rule?

 

In the NFL, if those players don't restructure their contracts, then the team is most likely to cut him.

As SCF said, NFL contracts are not guaranteed. Only the signing bonuses are.

Therefore, let's say Joe Blow has a 4-year 20 mill deal, with 5 of that 20 million being in signing bonus.

If the Cowboys or whoever has him, cuts him immediately, for some odd reason, the Cowboys would only be responsible for that 5 million in signing bonus.

What the Cowboys or other teams can do is, tell the player, that if he doesn't restructure his contract to help alleviate the salary cap, that the team will cut him. In the NFL, the teams have all the leverage because of non-guaranteed contracts. Also, I'm not sure if the NFL has a 10% rule, where the most a salary can increase per year is 10%. This means that balloon payments can be made. While in the NBA, multi-year contracts can't increase each year by more than 10%.

 

Gater is correct. In '97 Barkley was a free agent. He took the veteran minimum of $1M (even though we had his Bird rights), because he didn't want to cost us the cap space that we needed to sign Pippen. Kind of ironic, huh?

In the NBA, you are not allowed to renegotiate contracts for less money or fewer years.

A buy out, even if there were provisions for one in Garnett's contract, could only be for the final year of the deal and it would mean that Garnett would become an unrestricted free agent. Minnesota, of course, won't let Garnett go for no compensation, so he's going to play out his contract as is.

Even if Garnett could reduce his deal, it's unlikely that he would. Garnett's mega-deal was signed just before the current CBA was implemented. Even though his salary is nearly double the current maximum salary, he's granfathered in because his deal existed prior to the CBA. As long as he keeps signing extentions, then he's allowed to exceed the maximum NBA salary (in his case by about $11M a season). If Garnett agreed to a deal for less money, then he'd lose the ability to get a salary greater than the higher of his renegotiated salary or the NBA max. Garnett would have to want out of Minnesota pretty bad to give up anything close to $11M per season.