Griffin's contract status for next year

[CeltsSteve@aol.com]

Awhile back, the question was raised about Adrian's contract status for next 
year. Below is an interesting tidbit from NBAtalk.com  which if I interpret 
this correctly, works in the C's favor in their ability to retain him next 
year.

It seems that the C's double checked with the league office before offering 
him a contract this year at the amount of $385K which is what a second year 
player would be offered as a minimum contract. The league ruled that because 
he was with Miami last year ('98 - 99) even for a brief stint, that counted 
as a year's experience.

Now read the fine print below and note the "very limited basis" available for 
restricted free agency and Adrian qualifies  on the basis of entering the 
league in '98 - '99 (with Miami even for a brief time) and the fact he would 
be up until his 3rd year in the league at that point in time.

So apparently, all the C's will need to do is make an offer to Old School by 
June 30, 2000 and they will have the ability to match another team's offer. 
Now I suppose if another team wants to take a risk and plant a "poison pill" 
in the hopes of the C's not matching that second team's offer, they could end 
up over-paying. I wanted to point this out because this seems to be at odds 
with earlier published reports that the C's offered Griffin a one-year deal 
with the team's option for a second year. Technically, they do have the 
option for the second year but that option is to match any counter offer so 
long as they tender him a qualifying offer first by June 30th.