Re: keeping bird exception

["Jim Meninno" <jim_meninno@hotmail.com>]

Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu> Wrote:
>
>There are ways of reducing the salary growth of players without 
>disposing of the Bird exception (which I would like to see kept).  
>One possible compromise would be to eliminate the 20% annual raises 
>that are allowed in the contracts. Right now, a team with cap space
>can offer a 7 year contract worth 11 times (or 13 depending on who
>you ask) the first year value. If you get rid of the 20% raise, 
>teams can only offer 7 times the first year value, which would 
>drastically reduce the "market value" of free agents.

Another idea I don't see the players accepting.  However, it would 
reduce the incentive for a player to sign long term and also create cap 
room for teams as the cap increases but their major contracts stay the 
same.  Any way you present it, it ammounts to less money for the star 
players, and they (and their agents) aren't going to lie down for that.

>Another possibility would be to require all teams to sign or renounce
>their own free agents before signing any new free agents. That would
>prevent teams from making a big free agent signing and then taking
>advantage of the bird exception to re-sign their own free agents and
>go over the cap. Again this would reduce the "market value" of free
>agents.
>
>Alex

I believe this is already the case.  Remember all the free agents we had 
to renounce before signing "banana boy" Travis Knight.  According to a 
reply I got from Mishra a month or so ago, 1.5 times a free agent's 
salary counts against your cap.  So, right now, the Celtics have 1.5 
times Popeye Jones' salary counting against their cap.  They can 
renounce him to create cap space or even sign him to a lower amount.

Jim



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