Re: Capulations, diatribe

[Kim Malo <kmalo19@idt.net>]

At 10:26 AM 9/4/98 -0400, Adam Suchocki <asuchocki@wireless.tellabs.com> wrote:
>You are making some assumptions that are incorrect.  First and foremost,
Dino's contract was not bought out.

Well first, just to clarify, they aren't my 'assumptions'. When Cs
management speaks of buying out Dino's contract, who am I to cavil? And that
is the term they've used. Assuming the scenario as you lay it out is true,
it's either a matter of semantics or they saw no significant difference
between what occurred and a buyout according to a contract clause.

>You are correct, that when a contract is bought out that it only counts
against the cap for the year it was bought out, and for the amount paid that
year (buy out money plus any contract money paid).  This can only be done if
there is a clause in the contract allowing a buyout, and even then the
clause must specify a specific date and a specific amount at which the buy
out can occur.

OK, this bit -that there can *only* be an actual buyout if there is an
existing contract clause (and do we know there was no such thing for Dino)-
is news to me. Would you mind saying where you got it from?

>This, of course, must be agreed to by both the team and the player before
the contract can ever be signed.  You can never buy out a player who does
not have such a clause in his contract.  If you could, why
would San Antonio continue to pay Charles Smith, or for that matter, why
didn't the Celtics buy out Reggie Lewis' contract instead of continuing to
have him count against the cap for three years after he died.

First, the Cs made it clear that the buyout they said they did on Dino's
contract required agreement by both parties. And since a buyout usually
means a player getting less than the original contract, there has to be a
reason for him to agree -the team cannot just decide to do it to make
themselves happy. Reggie, of course, was dead and could not agree. Plus
there had been a league ruling on how that contract *had* to be handled,
since there was nothing in the CBA to directly cover it at that time.

<snip>
>I hope that helps clear things up,

Thanks for the interesting explanation. And it'll be interesting to see,
when the official cap figures are released, what is really the case. As I'd
said, I have heard CW & RP speak of a buyout and say that Dino was off our
cap after last season, but I've also heard Michael Holley speak of Wallace
and RP making other cap interpretation errors (notably re: Fox) too. Which
seems to leave both explanations about equally valid at this point. Would
you mind saying what your source was?

-Kim
Kim Malo
kmalo19@idt.net