Renegotiating amount of guaranteed money

[Three34]

I know for a fact that Patrick O'Bryant signed a two year minimum salary contract with the Celtics that saw his second year be only $500,000 guaranteed if he was waived within 48 hours after the end of the team's last game this year. And that necessary waiving didn't happen.

Toronto beat writer Doug Smith said that, despite the above information, O'Bryant is still not fully guaranteed for next season. And that's a conflicting report.

There's three possibilities here. One, I'm wrong. Two, he's wrong. Three, we're both right, and the Raptors negotiated O'Bryant's guarantee conditions when they traded for him.

So is number three a possibility?



The only time I've ever heard of an amount of guaranteed salary being renegotiated was with the Nuggets and Bobby Jones. As far as I remember, Jones's contract called for a $200,000 guarantee with a full guarantee date of early December, but the Nuggets renegotiated it so that he instead got $225,000 in guaranteed money with a slightly later fully guaranteed date.

However, it might be important to note that the amount of guaranteed money to Jones went up there, and that if the above O'Bryant scenario actually happened, the amount of guaranteed money would have gone down. So if renegotiating amounts of guaranteed money works in any way like renegotiating contracts, then it wouldn't be possible.

Which is it?

[d-train]

I remember the Blazers trading Dixon for Fred Jones a couple years ago on the condition that Jones waived the final year of his contract, which would have been a player option. I would consider that the same as renegotiating guaranteed money.

[Three34]

That's not really renegotiating the terms of a contract, though. That was just asking Fred to decline his option presumptuously early. Rare indeed, and perhaps a tad dumb on Fred's part considering what happened afterwards, but I'm not convinced that that is the same vehicle. If it is, though, then yeah that would suggest that it's possible.

[d-train]

A player option is a player benefit. If the benefit prematurely goes away by mutual agreement, that is a renegotiation.

[Dunkenstein]

There's three possibilities here. One, I'm wrong. Two, he's wrong. Three, we're both right, and the Raptors negotiated O'Bryant's guarantee conditions when they traded for him.

My sources indicate "Two" is the correct answer.

[Three34]

Boom rastafari.

[Dunkenstein]

A player option is a player benefit. If the benefit prematurely goes away by mutual agreement, that is a renegotiation.

Your definition of renegotiation is correct under the terms of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. However, under the terms of the CBA, agreeing early (whether it be one day or one year) to either exercise or not exercise a player option is not considered a renegotiation since no terms of the contract are being changes.

Changing the amount of a guarantee or the date that guarantee goes into effect would be considered a renegotiation since you are changing the terms of the contract between the team and the player.

[FGump]

As I recall, by mutual agreement they are allowed to negotiate a delay of the guarantee date. Per Dunk, that didn't happen here ...but I clearly recall the situation (but not the player) where that has occurred in the past. Why the team does it is to get more time to make a decision. Why the player does it is to keep from getting cut immediately from the team being pushed into a corner.

[Three34]

In this instance, supposing that had happened, there seems to be very little in it for O'Bryant.

[d-train]

A player option is a player benefit. If the benefit prematurely goes away by mutual agreement, that is a renegotiation.

Your definition of renegotiation is correct under the terms of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. However, under the terms of the CBA, agreeing early (whether it be one day or one year) to either exercise or not exercise a player option is not considered a renegotiation since no terms of the contract are being changes.

Changing the amount of a guarantee or the date that guarantee goes into effect would be considered a renegotiation since you are changing the terms of the contract between the team and the player.

Basically, you are saying the CBA allows some renegotiation but not all renegotiation.

[Dunkenstein]

A player option is a player benefit. If the benefit prematurely goes away by mutual agreement, that is a renegotiation.

Your definition of renegotiation is correct under the terms of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. However, under the terms of the CBA, agreeing early (whether it be one day or one year) to either exercise or not exercise a player option is not considered a renegotiation since no terms of the contract are being changes.

Changing the amount of a guarantee or the date that guarantee goes into effect would be considered a renegotiation since you are changing the terms of the contract between the team and the player.

Basically, you are saying the CBA allows some renegotiation but not all renegotiation.

no

[d-train]

Your definition of renegotiation is correct under the terms of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. However, under the terms of the CBA, agreeing early (whether it be one day or one year) to either exercise or not exercise a player option is not considered a renegotiation since no terms of the contract are being changes.

Changing the amount of a guarantee or the date that guarantee goes into effect would be considered a renegotiation since you are changing the terms of the contract between the team and the player.

Basically, you are saying the CBA allows some renegotiation but not all renegotiation.

no

Then you probably wrong. Any mutually agreed major modification to an agreement is a renegotiation regardless what the agreement calls it.

[FGump]

I remember the Blazers trading Dixon for Fred Jones a couple years ago on the condition that Jones waived the final year of his contract, which would have been a player option. I would consider that the same as renegotiating guaranteed money.

The NBA doesn't care what YOU think. In their world, they obviously DON"T consider that to be renegotiating. And their definition is what applies to their world.

[d-train]

I remember the Blazers trading Dixon for Fred Jones a couple years ago on the condition that Jones waived the final year of his contract, which would have been a player option. I would consider that the same as renegotiating guaranteed money.

The NBA doesn't care what YOU think. In their world, they obviously DON"T consider that to be renegotiating. And their definition is what applies to their world.

Thanks for that enlightening information. I'm sure David Stern is here seeking your guidance.

[FGump]

Stern is not seeking ANYONE's "guidance" here on what constitutes renegotiating. So whether you consider what they are doing to be renegotiating, it's completely irrelevant when they clearly think otherwise. You can call it renegotiating, you can call it whatever you want, but what they see as "not renegotiating" is, for their purposes, going to be "not renegotiating." Whether you like it or not.

[Three34]

Well this went down the sh***ter quickly.

[FGump]

I know for a fact that Patrick O'Bryant signed a two year minimum salary contract with the Celtics that saw his second year be only $500,000 guaranteed if he was waived within 48 hours after the end of the team's last game this year. And that necessary waiving didn't happen.

Toronto beat writer Doug Smith said that, despite the above information, O'Bryant is still not fully guaranteed for next season. And that's a conflicting report.

There's three possibilities here. One, I'm wrong. Two, he's wrong. Three, we're both right, and the Raptors negotiated O'Bryant's guarantee conditions when they traded for him.

So is number three a possibility?

You're frustrated by the odd turn in the discussion. But to go back to your original query, we have it on good authority that 2 is the answer to this situation. And based on past history with other players, yes 3 could have been a possibility.

[Three34]

Bryan Colangelo just said in a press conference that the Raptors will have $8.9 million in cap space, or $10.1 million if they waive their non-guaranteed contracts. Considering that Quincy Douby and O'Bryant are both on the books for $855,189, his statement makes perfect sense if Douby is fully unguaranteed and O'Bryant only $500,000 guaranteed.

Therefore, are we sure that they didn't renegotiate it?

What I've always said about O'Bryant's amount of guaranteed money, and the conditions behind it, certainly used to be true, and I'll fight to the death anyone who disputes that. But the fact that Colangelo has come out and said this publicly seems to confirm that they did push the date back after all. So this is a quandry.

[Dunkenstein]

How can Colangelo know how much cap space he has when the cap numbers haven't come out yet?

[Three34]

Well, quite, but he at least seems certain of the idea that there's $1.2 mil of unguaranteed money on his roster. If Douby is $855,000 of it, and O'Bryant is $355,000 of it, then that's $1.21 mil, so that figures. And this would suggest (well, less 'suggest' more than it does 'outright state') that that portion of O'Bryant's contract is still unguaranteed.