Pray for an Amnesty Clause and no MLE

I think a lot of the fans and media have been somewhat assuming there’d be an amnesty… including me. Last I read was where the players wereagainst it which doesn’t make sense because the amnesty players still get paid… at least last time they did

Not sure what the owners position is… likely the sucesful owners are for it and the cheap azzed Donald sterlings of the world are against it

That the poor Kncks only have Balkman to use it on is a god thing and using it on Balk is definitely a god thing

The real benefit to NY will be the players available at greatly discounted rates because those players will still be paid by their former teams

but wouldn’t necessarily make Paul any more inclined to stay. The Hornets also have Ariza and Jack, both bad contracts, so hey, there’s hope!

Without any MLE as an option players don’t have much to negotiate in a contract. In the current system, the players can ask for the MLE because it exists… that screws over the teams because think about it, if you’re haggling with somebody and you know that they have $20, you most likely won’t settle for $5 or $10…. but if it doesn’t exist they can’t ask for more than the minimum. It would pretty much help teams prevent stupid decisions like they always do (by overpaying). When you eliminate the money factor in a players decision, other aspects become more important in his decision. Mostly the city of the team and the situation of the team (is the team a lottery team, borderline playoff team or a contender). Also, when you think about how many FAs there are per summer, only so many of them can go to a team with cap space (and those teams with cap space can offer less due to lack of competition), that leaves many FAs left and with no MLE they either re-sign with their current teams (not an option or a good one for all) or go to the team of their choice for the minimum. When it comes to that, we become one of the most attractive destinations. It’s a simple idea. If you reduce the amount of assets a team can give, then the players have to adapt to how much they can accept.

And about the amnesty:

I know that we don’t really have a player to use it on. I said that. But my point is, as a result of an amnesty clause around 20 or so players would instantly become FAs. Many of which could help us out. Guys like Brendan Haywood, Andris Biedrins, Rip Hamilton, Baron Davis, Ron Artest, Brandon Roy, Andrea Bargnani (or Jose Calderon or Amir Johnson), Drew Gooden, John Salmons (or Francisco Garcia), DeSanga Diop (or Matt Carrol), Al Harrington (or Chris Andersen), Emeka Okafor (or Trevor Ariza), Joe Johnson (or Marvin Williams), Richard Jefferson and Hasheem Thabeet would all most likely be amnesty’d (my assumptions of who). That list alone is probably better than the FA list for the summer, but you wouldn’t be replacing this coming FA class. You’re adding that entire list of players (or whoever ends up getting amnestied) to this coming FA class. Also, the amnesty rule last time prevented teams from re-signing the players they amnestied, so that means all of those players HAVE to find to new teams. When that happens, NY becomes one of the best destinations (probably top 3 IMO, along with LA and Miami) for these guys to sign. Most of them would take extreme pay cuts because they’ve all earned a lot of money from their last contracts. Add in my last point about eliminating the MLE to this situation, and we get to add two or three big time FAs for close to nothing.

Of course, this is all speculation and hypothesization by me. But you have to admit it’s all very plausible and extremely awesome for us.

- Totally agree regarding the MLE. The NBA would lose a lot of talent.
- Last time around, teams saved a combined $212 million in tax payments by waiving 18 players under the amnesty clause. We didn’t use it on Houston because we predicted that he’d retire.

I guess you’re right that it’s not exactly fair to eliminate the main source of income for the mid-tier players and make them bring in the same amount of cash as the lower-tier players. But the way the MLE currently exists can’t remain IMO. It’s way to flawed and it’s not the players fault. It’s the GMs and owners. They’re given this exemption to improve teams over the cap, but what happens 80% of the time is a team overpays for a talent. Maybe they can change the MLE so it’s either less money or less years. Maybe only allow for 3 year MLE deals. Maybe change the MLE’s value to something like $3-4 million. Maybe make it a bi-annual thing where a team gets it every other year.

They signed Michael Finley for penny’s on the dollar

But I agree the cheap and bad teams will not use the clause because they are too cheap. And then spend the next several years whining and making excuses about cap costs and luxury taxes and why they can’t and won’t invest and commit to team improvement.

Hell, even if there is an MLE, that’s one, maybe two (most likely 1) FA. That still leaves a lot of good FAs for us. And almost all of these amnestied guys will have made huge bucks in their careers already so playing time and winning would help us a lot (although maybe not against Miami).

Miami has just as much flexibility as us. The only difference is we plan on keeping 2012 cap space by not extending any long term deals. But Miami can really only give one player a long term deal (and that’s if there’s still an MLE).

And there will be a lot more than 3 players being amnestied. I guarantee that. I promise you that if there is an amnesty, you can bank on these players being amnesty’d: Baron Davis, Gilbert Arenas, Rashard Lewis, Brandon Roy, Drew Gooden, DeSanga Diop (or Matt Carrol or Maggette), Richard Jefferson, Brendan Haywood, Josh Childress and RIP Hamilton (or Ben Gordon). All of those guys are good players and even if we don’t get our 1st and 2nd choice, the rest are still good. Then there are also some guys who might get amnesty’d: Biedrins, Harrington (or Andersen), Artest (or Walton), Marvin Williams, Salmons, Bargnani (or Amir or Calderon), and Thabeet.

You’re trying to tell me that we wouldn’t benefit from all those guys being FAs? Seriously, odds are we get at least 2.

Now it’s actually viable for a player that teams in the NBA would still look at would opt to sign instead over in Europe like Nenad Kristic did just now. Buyouts are much more costly and there’s some actual competition.

There are still clubs out there who have trouble making payroll, or God help you if you’re a visiting fan/team and you actually win the game in Greece, but then again…LA Dodgers. Broke teams aren’t the sole province of the overseas. It’s been fascinating to see the world catch up.

The market and talent level is so much smaller in Europe than in the NBA. Maybe in a decade or two when teams in Europe can at least match up to some NBA teams and have a fighting chance. But right now the Cleveland Cavaliers would rip the best teams in Europe like Barcelona or Olympiakos a new asshole.

If it wasn’t for the travel (price and inconvenience) it would probably get done soon. Just because the game has really grown overseas and the NBA knows they’d make a lot of money.