Re: keeping bird exception

[Kim Malo <kmalo19@idt.net>]

At 05:37 AM 8/5/98 PDT, "Jim Meninno" <jim_meninno@hotmail.com> wrote:
>Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu> Wrote:
>>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.

>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.

It's not quite the case, if I read what Alex is suggesting correctly. We had
to renounce players specifically to free up cap room for the FA signing, and
would not have done so in all cases otherwise (e.g. Fox had a verbal
agreement on an extension). Alex is saying you must do it regardless of cap
needs. In other words, even if you had cap room to sign the FA without
renouncing your own FA (Mishra is correct on how they count, BTW), which can
occur, you would still have to do so. 
-Kim
Kim Malo
kmalo19@idt.net