Early Bird Rights

[ranger001]

Do the Knicks have early bird rights on Jeremy Lin? He had a 2 year contract with the warriors, waived and claimed off waivers by the rockets, then waived by the rockets and claimed off waivers by the Knicks.

[DBoys]

Do the Knicks have early bird rights on Jeremy Lin? He had a 2 year contract with the warriors, waived and claimed off waivers by the rockets, then waived by the rockets and claimed off waivers by the Knicks.

No. He does not meet the definition, which is below.

“Early Qualifying Veteran Free Agent” means a Veteran Free Agent who, prior to becoming a Veteran Free Agent, played under one or more Player Contracts covering some or all of each of the two (2) preceding Seasons, and who either exclusively played with his Prior Team during such two Seasons, or, if he played for more than one Team during such period, changed Teams only (i) by means of trade, or (ii) by signing with his Prior Team during the first of the two (2) Seasons.

[HartfordWhalers]

Do the Knicks have early bird rights on Jeremy Lin? He had a 2 year contract with the warriors, waived and claimed off waivers by the rockets, then waived by the rockets and claimed off waivers by the Knicks.

No. He does not meet the definition, which is below.

“Early Qualifying Veteran Free Agent” means a Veteran Free Agent who, prior to becoming a Veteran Free Agent, played under one or more Player Contracts covering some or all of each of the two (2) preceding Seasons, and who either exclusively played with his Prior Team during such two Seasons, or, if he played for more than one Team during such period, changed Teams only (i) by means of trade, or (ii) by signing with his Prior Team during the first of the two (2) Seasons.

He may be mistaken, but I believe after looking into this Larry Coon weighed in that a waiver claim was officially counted as a trade for these purposes, and thus early bird rights do indeed exist.

Early-Bird, which is 104.5% of this year's avg. RT @Jonathan_C88: If Lin keeps up this level of play, The Knicks can only offer MLE or Room?

See:
https://twitter.com/#!/LarryCoon/status ... 7998883841
https://twitter.com/#!/LarryCoon/status ... 2874484736

[DBoys]

interesting, because Coon's FAQ says otherwise.

"If a player is waived and is claimed by another team before he clears waivers, then his Bird clock resets."
https://webfiles.uci.edu/lcoon/cbafaq/salarycap.htm#Q26

[HartfordWhalers]

interesting, because Coon's FAQ says otherwise.

"If a player is waived and is claimed by another team before he clears waivers, then his Bird clock resets."
https://webfiles.uci.edu/lcoon/cbafaq/salarycap.htm#Q26

Yea, the old faq is crystal clear on it. That said he has since revised his take, and now seems both uncertain and leaning in the opposite direction. Here's an expanded comment from a chat after the tweet:

It was a waiver claim, so he didn’t re-sign as a free agent. The league treats waiver claims as changing teams by assignment — i.e., like a trade.

But, of the people I’ve talked to about it, nobody is 100% sure. You can interpret it either way, depending on how you read the CBA. I think this exact situation has never come up before, so the league may not have made a formal ruling on it yet. I’m still trying to get to the bottom of it.

http://www.hoopsworld.com/salary-cap-ch ... -coon-2812


Somewhat more general, the revision of the MLE would seem to have dramatic implications on the Gilbert Arenas provision, and any 2 year non bird RFA. It would appear that this protection would only exist if a team is under the cap, unless there was some fine print tinkering. Anyone have any info on that?

[DBoys]

To be clear, while changing teams via waiver claim and via trade are both in the category of "changing teams by assignment," those two types of transactions do NOT have the same rules in other areas. For example, if you receive a player via trade assignment, you can trade them again immediately, whereas if you receive them by waiver assignment, you cannot do so for 30 days.

The league is certainly free to interpret its rules any way it wishes, of course. But the "only by means of trade" wording would seem to be definitive without having to be further delineated.

And this is not something that has changed from the 2005 CBA to the current one. The definition I cited earlier for an Early Bird player is the same, word for word.

[HartfordWhalers]

To be clear, while changing teams via waiver claim and via trade are both in the category of "changing teams by assignment," those two types of transactions do NOT have the same rules in other areas. For example, if you receive a player via trade assignment, you can trade them again immediately, whereas if you receive them by waiver assignment, you cannot do so for 30 days.

The league is certainly free to interpret its rules any way it wishes, of course. But the "only by means of trade" wording would seem to be definitive without having to be further delineated.

Agreed fwtw.

[ranger001]

Yeah the language in the cba seems to be clear but there is some confusion out there.

Knickerblogger says Coon's FAQ is incorrect:-

Lin is also an Early Bird Player. Initially, I thought that he was not because of the following quote from Larry Coon’s invaluable Salary Cap FAQ, “If a player is waived and is claimed by another team before he clears waivers, then his Bird clock resets.” However, that turns out not to be the case. My apologies. The player has to clear waivers for his Bird clock to reset.

http://knickerblogger.net/the-contract- ... ry-fields/

[HartfordWhalers]

So, not to hijack the discussion, but does anyone know if teams without the full MLE now have any new form of Arenas protection on restricted free agents, or if this protection has been diluted?

[DBoys]

Yeah the language in the cba seems to be clear but there is some confusion out there.

Knickerblogger says Coon's FAQ is incorrect:-

Lin is also an Early Bird Player. Initially, I thought that he was not because of the following quote from Larry Coon’s invaluable Salary Cap FAQ, “If a player is waived and is claimed by another team before he clears waivers, then his Bird clock resets.” However, that turns out not to be the case. My apologies. The player has to clear waivers for his Bird clock to reset.

http://knickerblogger.net/the-contract- ... ry-fields/

I would be curious as to how knickerblogger ascertained his new point of view on the topic, because he doesn't elaborate. His old stance was from Coon's FAQ. Is he merely parroting Coon's latest swerve in direction?

[DBoys]

So, not to hijack the discussion, but does anyone know if teams without the full MLE now have any new form of Arenas protection on restricted free agents, or if this protection has been diluted?

On the Arenas Rule, they've specified that the 1st year limit is the non-taxpayer MLE, giving added incentive to avoid being a taxpayer. If you have a valued youngster who will be a restricted free agent and who won't have Early Bird options for matching offers, you must have cap room or a full MLE, or risk losing him.

[HartfordWhalers]

Thanks!

[HartfordWhalers]

Another weigh in on New Larry Coon versus Old Larry Coon

Incidentally, re: Jeremy Lin: even though he was waived twice, he was claimed off waivers twice, so his Bird clock never reset.

http://twitter.com/#!/MarkDeeksNBA/stat ... 6848873472

[DBoys]

Frankly, the more I look at it, the more I think the "experts" are merely echoing what they hear from each other, and in so doing are creating a mistaken consensus.

A move from one team to another via waiver claim is clearly NOT to be considered the same as a trade. In fact the CBA goes out of its way to make that point by stating the following:

"“Traded Player” means a player whose Player Contract is assigned by one Team to another Team other than by means of the NBA waiver procedure (including the waiver procedures set forth in Article VII, Section 12(i))."

Therefore, when it says "only by trade" in the Early Bird definition, shouldn't we consider such wording to be intentional? If not, why not? They clearly go to pains to make a distinction between trades and waivers, so why should we assume they lumped the two together under the phrase "by trade" in this definition?

Of course, maybe I'm just being stubborn. But I fail to see where there's a lack of clarity, other than in a predisposition that has ASSUMED that a waiver claim and a trade are equivalent (because they both involve player movement with contract assignment from one team to another), and then being puzzled when discovering the CBA doesn't actually say such a thing at all.

[ranger001]

Well DBoys looks like knickerblogger has retracted its story and now states that the Knicks do not have early bird rights on Lin. Source is Howard Beck of the NY times(didn't realize he's apparently an authority)

http://knickerblogger.net/finally-a-def ... ct-status/

since he was waived by the Warriors, as soon as he was waived, his Bird Rights reset. Therefore, Lin counts only as having played for the Knicks for one single season.