Re: Herald on Best

["James A. Hill" <jahill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Peter shared with us these thoughts:

That said, it will come with a price. Best told the
Snip...
Indianapolis Star last night that he will ``absolutely
not'' sign for minimum money, which in this case would
be $890,000 for a nine-year veteran.

<snip>

 Anything over the minimum would push the team into
luxury tax range. Best would like to earn the $1.4
million figure he was paid by Miami last season.

Snip...
------------

Hmm, is Best worth paying the tax for? And if so, how
much? Let's say they split the difference and paid him
$1.1 million. Would the Cs only be paying $210K worth
of tax? Plus missing out on $210K worth of
reimbursement from the league for going over the cap?
Or would it be a heavier tax hit?

Or, could they give Best what he wants and get under
the tax threshold by letting Bremer or Hunter walk or
trading Bruno to the Cedar Rapids River Raiders?

**Isn't part of this consideration how much the "team" actually pays for the
player?

I thought that if a player was signed at the "minimum", the league/player
taxes paid something like half of the salary so that the team is only
out-of-pocket for the other half, though the full amount counts towards the
team payroll.

Might this be part of the issue for players?  Is there being a stigma
starting to be applied to being a "minimum salary" player within the players
circle and how the income distribution affects the other players?  May this
be why players are saying "I won't sign for the minimum" but do sign for
just a couple bucks more?

<Jim

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