Poison Pill question

[supaflash]

Is this not available in the current CBA? Could someone offer a ballooning deal to LeBron or Mello?

[Smitty731]

It is generally done with RFAs as a way to dissuade the original team from matching the deal. You can structure deals in anyway that is legal under the CBA. Considering James and Anthony are UFAs, there isn't a lot of reason to structure their deal this way.

[giberish]

The 'Arenas' rule only applies to restricted FA's after their 2nd (or perhaps 1st) year in the league (obviously only for 2nd round picks and undrafted players).

Otherwise there are maximum raises allowable (as well as the maximum contracts allowed overall).

[Knosh]

It is generally done with RFAs as a way to dissuade the original team from matching the deal.

It's done because the CBA says so and the CBA says so to give the original team a better chance to match.

[MarkDeeks]

The Arenas rule and the Poison Pill provision are not the same thing, despite a bizarre number of people and replaces reporting them to be so in the two years since the Lin/Asik/Landry deals that utilised the former. Which were you referring to, OP?

[DBoys]

The Arenas rule and the Poison Pill provision are not the same thing, despite a bizarre number of people and replaces reporting them to be so in the two years since the Lin/Asik/Landry deals that utilised the former. Which were you referring to, OP?

I understand the nuance you're trying to make. But....

1 To my recollection, the term "poison pill" has never been in the CBA. Right? As I recall, it was always just a slang term.
2 Originally, it was used of a cap situation where the cap hit, in a certain situation, didn't mirror the salary and could cause difficulties as a result. And when applied to the result of the Arenas rule, the same thing is true - it's being applied to a situation where the cap hit doesn't mirror the salary and could cause difficulties as a result.
3 FWIW the faq references both of them now as poison pill, because that's how the term is being used.
4 Because the slang term is now being used to speak of the Arenas situation too, and because it's a slang term with no specific CBA reference, I think we have to accept that Arenas rule is now one particular "Poison Pill" situation.

[MarkDeeks]

The Arenas rule already had its own name. <- It's that one right there. On points of endless, unrelenting pedantry, you are right. But the CBA needs to be made clearer, not weirder, and reappropriating terms needlessly is not going to get that done.

[supaflash]

I was referring to the Lin/Asik deals. From what I understood it was a provision that was added for the players to give them a little more potential to fight the RFA if they and another team wanted to mutually move on.

[Knosh]

I was referring to the Lin/Asik deals. From what I understood it was a provision that was added for the players to give them a little more potential to fight the RFA if they and another team wanted to mutually move on.

It's the opposite, the point of the provision is to give the originl team a better chance to hold on to the RFA.

[giberish]

I was referring to the Lin/Asik deals. From what I understood it was a provision that was added for the players to give them a little more potential to fight the RFA if they and another team wanted to mutually move on.

It's the opposite, the point of the provision is to give the originl team a better chance to hold on to the RFA.

Hence the reason why it's called the Areans rule. He was taken in the early 2nd round and given a 2-year contract. When it came up he was a RFA - but because GS was over the cap and only had early Bird rights they could only match up to MLE offers. When Washington offered more than an MLE contract GS had to let him walk despite his RFA status.

With the Arenas rule in place, Chicago and NYK had the option of matching the offers given to Lin and Asik but decided not to.

[MarkDeeks]

Always wondered why it wasn't called the Boozer rule, to be honest.

[Smitty731]

I was referring to the Lin/Asik deals. From what I understood it was a provision that was added for the players to give them a little more potential to fight the RFA if they and another team wanted to mutually move on.

It's the opposite, the point of the provision is to give the originl team a better chance to hold on to the RFA.

I know there is no real way to prove it, but I feel it has the opposite impact. Using Asik or Lin as examples, Houston offered them deals that provided an even cap spread for them, but the balloon payment in the final year. Had NY or CHI matched, my understanding is their cap hits would have been the actual payments.

Assuming what I wrote is correct, and I am almost positive it is, how is that beneficial for the team trying to retain the rights? No original team would have wanted Asik or Lin on their books for ~15 million this year. This is why I feel it gives the RFA a better chance of actually moving on.

[giberish]

I was referring to the Lin/Asik deals. From what I understood it was a provision that was added for the players to give them a little more potential to fight the RFA if they and another team wanted to mutually move on.

It's the opposite, the point of the provision is to give the originl team a better chance to hold on to the RFA.

I know there is no real way to prove it, but I feel it has the opposite impact. Using Asik or Lin as examples, Houston offered them deals that provided an even cap spread for them, but the balloon payment in the final year. Had NY or CHI matched, my understanding is their cap hits would have been the actual payments.

Assuming what I wrote is correct, and I am almost positive it is, how is that beneficial for the team trying to retain the rights? No original team would have wanted Asik or Lin on their books for ~15 million this year. This is why I feel it gives the RFA a better chance of actually moving on.

As I stated earlier, without full Bird rights under the old rule, Chicago or NY wouldn't have even had the option of matching. Now they still get a choice.

[Smitty731]

It's the opposite, the point of the provision is to give the originl team a better chance to hold on to the RFA.

I know there is no real way to prove it, but I feel it has the opposite impact. Using Asik or Lin as examples, Houston offered them deals that provided an even cap spread for them, but the balloon payment in the final year. Had NY or CHI matched, my understanding is their cap hits would have been the actual payments.

Assuming what I wrote is correct, and I am almost positive it is, how is that beneficial for the team trying to retain the rights? No original team would have wanted Asik or Lin on their books for ~15 million this year. This is why I feel it gives the RFA a better chance of actually moving on.

As I stated earlier, without the rule, Chicago or NY wouldn't have even had the option of matching. Now they still get a choice.

I agree that they have a choice, but the way the contracts were structured made it highly prohibitive to match. I guess we are all saying sort of the same thing. Teams at least have the chance to match now, but structuring the contacts as they did in the example of Asik and Lin, it discouraged them from doing so.

[giberish]

That all goes back to the early bird rules. Contracts are structured that way because the players current teams can't match anything over MLE money, so they have to be at MLE money (then they're limited to slightly over MLE money for the 2nd year to keep the players from getting huge money before their 5th year- when players on 1st round pick deals could also get huge money) the extra cash gets shoved into the 3rd (and 4th if necessary) years.

The downside of the big last year salary is countered by a bargain 1st two years, so the net cost to the teams is a wash (though pushing the money around could be good or bad depending on the team in question's cap/tax plan).

I really don't think that the salary distribution is as damaging as people think, it's really just a matter of whether the team wants to pay more than MLE money for the players. Back in the day, GS would have payed $9M/yr (even in a 5/5/13/13 split) for Arenas, while I'm sure Chicago just had no interest in paying their backup C over $8M/yr, regardless of how it was arranged.