Re: Owners now the problem?

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

If 10% of the players are signed under the Bird Exception, that means 
every team has one or two of them.  I'd say that's significant.  You 
make a distinction between Bird Exception players and second year 
extensions.  The problem is that it is exactly those players who are 
being given the Bird Exception.  If it were only ever used on the 
Jordans and Karl Malones of the league, then all would be right with the 
world, we wouldn't be having this discussion and we would be watching 
the Celtics right now (or at 7:05 tonight, anyway).

I'll accept your semantic point that what I am proposing is not a "hard 
cap".  Actually, I guess it's not a cap at all.  Let's call it revenue 
sharing, or some other warm fuzzy term.  The players are referring to 
any system which limits *league* salaries to a fixed percentage of 
revenues as a hard cap, even though rules may allow flexibility for the 
teams.  I guess I got caught up in their propaganda.

Jim

>Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 18:23:48 -0500
>To: celtics@igtc.com
>From: Kim Malo <kmalo19@idt.net>
>Subject: Re: Owners now the problem?
>
>Total disagreement. The Bird Exception is not the problem. It only 
affects
>about 10% of the players anyways, not all of which involve mega 
contracts
>although they're what people get worked up about. And most importantly, 
it
>involves paying out to experienced players, so you know pretty much 
what
>you're getting for the money. The rookie 2nd year extension exception 
is a
>much bigger problem, especially as players come into the league younger 
and
>younger and less polished as players (note that I'm not talking about
>talent, but game maturity). It means paying out the same sort of 
megabucks
>for relatively untested and unknown talent almost solely on potential 
that
>may never be realized, who are usually emotionally immature (meaning, 
among
>other things, more concerned about impressing than winning and being 
more
>likely to be impressed by what someone like their agent tells them is 
right)
>simply because of their age and limited experience. The sorts of
>disagreement there are over re-signing AW highlights the problem. Very
>rarely is there the same sort of disagreement on the whether one should
>re-sign a Bird player, simply debate over the net amount and that can 
more
>reasonably be left to the market on a known commodity. 


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