Fw: BIRD EXCEPTION

["ramani_rite"@lnmta.bentley.edu]

Thank you Dorine for answering my question on the Bird Rights... for anyone
lurking still clueless I hope this clears your understanding.

See below for Mourning's case. Why don't they enforce the "3 consecutive
seasons on the same team" rule. It seems the rule currently is "3
consecutive season in the league".  If a player is trade on his last year
of contract, his contract is automatically extended for another 3 years,
till regains his Bird rights.

For free agents, they have to play for the team for a set contract (e.g 5
mil/year for all teams) and once 3 years has past he can be signed under
the Bird Rights.
But as I wrote that, I think teams can take advantage by using a player for
3 years and when he set for his Bird Right, he gets traded again and has to
play for 3 years till he gets his rights. The cycle can go on and on....

Any opinions??

Ritesh Ramani
ramani_rite@bentley.edu


>Dorine,
>
>    The Bird exception works like this: A player must have played for
>the same team for 3 consecutive season in order to have "Bird Rights",
>the Bird exception was designed to give a players current team an
>advantage in retaining him in a free agent situation, this advantage is
>that the team can resign their current player and any price without
>regards to the salary cap, but this where its tricky. If a player is
>traded he currently keeps his Bird Rights, example Alonzo Mourning was
>eligible for Bird Rights in Charlotte, he made it clear his salary
>demands, The Hornets traded him to Miami for the final year of his
>contract, after which Miami was able to give him any contract amount
>they wanted, hence Zo got a $100 million deal over 7 seasons, the big
>catch is that if you have room under the cap, and want to sign a free
>agent, you must sign that player before you sign the deal with Zo,
>because although the Zo's contract dollar amount is not based on the
>cap, if after it is signed it exceeds the cap, you cannot sign any free
>agents unless they agree to play for the minimum. This is the owners
>problem, too many players get Bird Rights and expect the team to give
>every available dollar to them, and then in the following seasons they
>have no cap room to sign other players or have to force great players to
>play for minimum contracts. The absolute purpose of the salary cap is to
>creat an even, level playing field so that the small market teams, like
>Minnesota, Sacramento, Indiana, Orlando have the same revenue avaiable
>to sign players as the big market teams like New York, LA, Chicago. See
>in New York, a floor level seat goes for $1200 a game, and are always
>sold out, in Sacramento that same seat is $75 dollars, so the big market
>teams make a whole bunch more money from things like local TV deals,
>Advertisers in the arena, and just plain old ticket prices, on the
>average a Big market NBA team makes about $3 million a home game, a
>small market team may make $250,000 a home game. So in terms of who
>could just dig into their pocket and pay the most, obviously New York,
>could afford to pay more than Sacramento, so the cap was designed to
>make sure that each team could spend the same money, the Cap amount is
>determined by each teams share of the Major TV contract, currently each
>team gets $29.9 million dollars from the TV deal, that's the cap number,
>so the teams technically don't have to make 1 cent in order to meet
>players salary if they are at the cap, but whats happened with the Bird
>Exception, all of the teams in the league except for 4 teams (Denver,
>Vancouver,Toronto, Milwaukee, Clippers) were right at the cap level if
>not above it greatly (Chicago spent, $61,729,000 last season, thats $42
>million over the cap, New York spent $56,534,000) In a perfect
>situation, if the cap is $29 million, and you are a small market team,
>and it costs you say $5 million to run your team , you sign players so
>that you total salary package was $24 million, that way if you don't
>make a dime all year your costs are covered by the TV deal money, and
>thats how many of the basement teams like the Clippers stay in business,
>the players know that the owners are making money in the arenas, and
>they know about the TV deal, so they feel that the cap should be based
>on total revenue, and the owners are seeing that with the Bird
>Exception, that the big market teams are luring the players because they
>can afford to pay so much more once they get Bird Rights, because in
>those cities the teams are making so much more money. I like the ap
>system, I think the cap could be a bit more, because all of the teams
>have a significant revenue pool from clothing that is controlled by the
>league, which gets divided equally to each team and comes out to an
>additional $4 million a year, so the cap should be the TV deal plus $4
>million- The New TV deal pays $36 million per team. I hope this helps.
>BskBALL