RealGM

I am trying to find out how the maximum contract duration has changed over the last few CBAs. Could you please confirm if i have the following right?

Before 1995: No limit
1995 CBA: 8 years for Bird Free Agents, 7 years for rest. 8 years for extensions, including remaining seasons of current contract.
1999 CBA: 7 years for Bird Free Agents, 6 years for rest. 7 years for extensions, including remaining seasons of current contract.
2005 CBA: 6 years for Bird Free Agents, 5 years for rest. 6 years for extensions, including remaining seasons of current contract.

I also do not quite inderstand the implications of a Bird player extending a contract, rather than waiting for it to finish and signing a new one. The way i see it the player just loses years from his new contract, since the extension counts the remaining years of his current contract.

I would also appreciate it if you could point me to an online source of information, especially for the 1995 CBA, as i do not seem to be able to find a good on line source.

Thank you very much for your help.

I think and I could be wrong here, but the implication of a Bird player extending a contract rather than waiting for it to finish and signing a new one was to get their salary in line with that of the role they played compared to the remainder of the league.

For example, Player A is a bird player getting paid $5,000,000 per year. Player B is worse but the market demands he get paid $8,000,000 per year. Player A can extend to match or better the contract.

IIRC Scottie Pippen was underpaid comparatively speaking for several years and they re-did his contract because of it. Sorry but I can't help on the links.

Pippen's contract was not restructured in any way, and he played for a desperately low price for so many years. Reinsdorf's argument for this was "we're not allowed to renegotiate deals when they're toob ig, so why should we do it when they're too small?", which seems fair if a bit callous.

I would imagine there are several reasons why a player and team would choose to extend vs. wait and re-sign at the end of a contract, even though the player might lose additional years in an extension. Some might include:

1. Long-term financial security received by the player upfront (i.e., in case of an injury or decline in production)
2. Commitment to both the team and player secured upfront (i.e., easier to build around a player who is definitely going to be there)
3. CBA considerations (i.e., player can avoid re-signing under new and potentially less favorable contract terms for as long as possible)
4. Differences in financial payouts (i.e., James/Wade/Bosh would make more money in 2010/11 by extending vs. opting out and signing a max contract, but less money each year thereafter)