FanPost

Pray for an Amnesty Clause and no MLE

The new CBA can greatly change this team's outlook and future. In a huge way.

I made this point in a comment, but I honestly think it's worth a fanpost.

You may be thinking, why pray for an amnesty contract when we have no bad contracts? Why want to eliminate the MLE?

The answer, after you jump.

The advantage of eliminating the MLE:

Anyone else realize that if there is no more MLE than we could end up adding multiple MLE type talents for cheap. IF there is no MLE, that means players start choosing teams for the actual team instead of money. That leaves them with the option to either re-sign w their current team, go to a team w cap space (only so many and most aren’t good) or sign for cheap w the team of their choice. That would put us in one of the most favorable situations in the whole NBA. Maybe only Miami in a better spot, but some FAs would choose NY over Miami. Also NY’s market would allow them to get more money from endorsements to compensate for their lower salary. So those free agents who aren't good enough to warrant big contracts from teams with cap space are set up with really two options: re-sign with their current teams (option for a lot of them, but not all) or take a major pay cut and join the team of their choice. Also, by eliminating the MLE it allows the teams avoid making those massive mistakes by over-paying with long 5 year deals. (Seriously, look at most the bad contracts, a lot of them are full, 5 year MLE deals).

One major issue is a lot of the players would oppose eliminating the MLE because a lot of them make there money from it. Without it, it greatly limits their options.

The next point, the advantage of adding an amnesty clause:

Also, another thing that could greatly help us in some way is an amnesty clause. Sure, we’d be kind of screwed over because we really have no one to use it on and probably waste it on Balkman…. BUT that rule would make many good but overpaid players FAs. I’m talking guys like Biedrins, Rip Hamilton, Artest, Arenas, Lewis, Davis, Roy, Bargnani or Calderon, Gooden, maybe Garcia or Salmons, possibly Joe Johnson or Marvin Williams, Haywood, Thabeet, Okafor or Ariza, and Richard Jefferson. That list is just pure awesome, especially when you consider that each player would be getting a lot of money from their old contracts (amnesty still makes the owners pay the players, just remove them from the books) so they’d almost all take discounts (and if there’s also no MLE, it’s even better for us). But wow, just look at that list. Imagine adding Biedrins or Haywood along with Rip or Roy. That changes our outlook completely.

But unlike eliminating the MLE, this is something that both the player and owners would love to add. For the players, they still get all that money, but they also get to have the option to choose their own teams and add another contract. For the owners, it allows them to clear their cap of mammoth contracts of undeserving players. Sure they still have to pay for them, but most owners won't mind because it allows much more flexibility to their teams. But the biggest winner of this, is the fans IMO. It would eliminate many of those trades that are made purely on financial incentives and allow the FA market to be greatly improved. There are also multiple reports saying that both sides of the CBA negotiations would love to add an amnesty clause, so this is very realistic. There are even reports of both sides wanting to add an amnesty clause that a team can use every "X" years.

Please, leave thoughts, opinions in the comments.