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Post by St. Louis Sting on Jan 6, 2021 16:15:43 GMT -5
The last couple of free agency periods I have been more closely monitoring bidding to ensure that reasonable bids are being made. It is generally frowned upon to severely backload the final year of a contract compared to the other year(s) in the offer, with the intent likely being to use the free contract drop provision in the future. That provision is meant to be a fail-safe, NOT something that an owner should plan on using on any particular player. While there is no formal, written rule forbidding it at this time I believe it goes against the spirit and competitive integrity of the league when the provision is abused. If you have a legitimate reason that you believe backloading the contract is reasonable I am happy to listed
Between the NBA and NHL free agency periods I have notified 4-5 owners of potential red flags on this matter. I figured now is a good time to get the message to everyone before it gets out of hand. If you have a legitimate reason that you believe a backloaded offer is appropriate I am happy to listen. But, for the most part, these situations are "I know it when I see it".
On another note, I am currently working on re-writing the league rules to be more clear and explicit. This will be one item that is addressed during that re-writing, with the potential for some limiting language if the issue is not resolved. I try to avoid explicit limitations when possible and allow the league to police itself to maintain competitive balance.
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Post by Jimmy (Desperados) on Jan 7, 2021 9:50:54 GMT -5
In my opinion, it is something that has been going on since the beginning. I was not backloading contracts until recently. But I have noticed that it has helped some win a championship and I’m tired of not winning. There is no rule against it, and I watched as there were some backloaded contracts in NBA and NHL. So if to get the players I need to win a ship I have to do it and there is no rule against it, and others have done it, and there is quite a few contracts still on peoples books from the past that are helping them now but will become a problem down the road, then what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Until there is a rule, which I believe should be voted on not just instituted, and I’m not sure how that could be structured, I think people can and will do it to get a competitive advantage.
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Post by Las Vegas Strips on Jan 7, 2021 10:54:49 GMT -5
Jimmy, I completely see your point and there is nothing illegal about it, however there is a difference between structuring a deal like 10/20/30 and doing one 3/42. What's to stop me for going 1/100 to ensure myself of getting a stud for a 1 year title run for pennies.
I think if its balanced, its fine. But loading all of it into the final year to get a year or 2 super cheap doesn't feel like something we need to create a rule to avoid. If you look the offer and it looks ridiculous and that no real player would ever take an offer like that based on our league structure, then it shouldn't be done.
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Post by St. Louis Sting on Jan 7, 2021 10:56:44 GMT -5
In my opinion, it is something that has been going on since the beginning. I was not backloading contracts until recently. But I have noticed that it has helped some win a championship and I’m tired of not winning. There is no rule against it, and I watched as there were some backloaded contracts in NBA and NHL. So if to get the players I need to win a ship I have to do it and there is no rule against it, and others have done it, and there is quite a few contracts still on peoples books from the past that are helping them now but will become a problem down the road, then what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Until there is a rule, which I believe should be voted on not just instituted, and I’m not sure how that could be structured, I think people can and will do it to get a competitive advantage. I agree that some degree of backloading has been going on since the beginning, and the idea of backloading contracts in general is not the problem. When contracts are backloaded in a more gradual fashion, particularly for younger players that can reasonably be expected to improve over time, it makes a lot of sense to do that. My main concern has been the extreme backloading in the final season, especially on older players. For example, the initial bids on LeBron had reasonable salaries in the first two years and then a significantly higher salary in the final year. I don't think anybody truly believes that LeBron will be more valuable in 3 years than he is now, and it was a pretty obvious attempt to inflate the AAV with the expectation of using the Free Contract Drop in that final year. The owners making those bids were notified, and you can see a dramatic shift in the bid structures. Particularly in the most recent NBA and NHL free agency periods I have been keeping a closer eye on bids even for players that I am not personally interested in. I have sent private messages to 4-5 different owners in just the last two free agency periods, so sending a league message to ensure a level playing field going forward seemed the best course of action. Glancing through the payrolls I am not finding too many instances of contracts with severely backloaded final seasons, and it seems to be a more common practice here recently as owners look for any competitive advantage they can get. I also agree that any rule change would need to be approved by the league. As I consider various ways to go about this, I will say that the most obvious solution would be to implement the previously proposed Bid Calculator. That Bid Calculator weights the values of the early seasons of an offer more significantly than the later seasons, so even if the AAV is more in a backloaded contract it may not necessarily be the most "valuable". |
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Post by Jimmy (Desperados) on Jan 7, 2021 11:04:22 GMT -5
I am all for something being implemented to prevent it, but I’m not as high on the bid calculator. I would be in favor of getting rid of the free contract drop, and in its place have one contract buyout. Not sure how much of original contract you would have to pay maybe 50% but I think if it wasn’t just straight free drop it would eliminate a lot of the problem.
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Post by DC Patriots on Jan 7, 2021 11:28:41 GMT -5
If we really need to institute a rule, perhaps simply stating any contract where the last year is more than $10 greater than any other year of the contract is not eligible for use of the free drop. Means at least some of the contract weight has to be felt and it isn't a major change to the entire contract structure process.
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Post by Clayhounds Dawgs on Jan 7, 2021 13:41:15 GMT -5
Simple just drop the one Free drop in each sports and problem solved.
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