Re: This is the mentality of Celtics fans

[Alex Wang <awang@mit.edu>]

> Joe Smith could just as easily be used as an example for Mercer about how 
> much he has to lose if he plays this wrong.  Bottom line is that at the end 
> of this year the few teams with any cap money will have better players to 
> spend it on than Ron Mercer.  There will be plenty of teams willing to part 
> with players that the Celtics can use for him in a sign-and-trade, though.  
> If Ron wants to spite the Celtics it's going to cost him millions of 
> dollars.

Absolutely. You hear a lot about players who threaten to spite their teams
this way ("I'll go to a contender for less") but I don't know if I can 
name any that actually go through with it. The potential problem with
waiting for a sign and trade next year is that you'll have to take back
players with salaries equal to his new salary. Since you're probably
not going to get a single high-salaries star player back (due to relative
lack of leverage) you're looking at taking back several moderate strategies
for a single player. You're not decreasing your overall salary level.
This year, you can get back those smaller salaries and even dump a few 
of your own, since Mercer's salary is still small.

> By the way.  What is the exact situation of post 1998 draftees like Pierce.  
> The fourth year is a team option, yes?  At what salary?  And, the fifth year 
> the team gets first refusal.  But, what if the player gets a long term 
> offer.  Does the drafting team have to match the duration too?  I think you 
> might still see teams like the Celtics signing players like Pierce after 
> their third year, if that's allowed.

I believe the team option is something like 120% of the third year salary,
or on that order of magnitude. It's quite small. And then the drafting team
gets right of first refusal in the fifth year; I heard that the player 
can only be offered contracts at least three years in length. So basically
it sounds to me like you get the player for at least seven years. I don't
know what happens if he gets no offers though.

Alex
> 
> Jim
> 
> 
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