How Much $ Would It Take To Get Kobe?

[George O'Brien]

One of the sources of confusion in the debate on signing Kobe relates to assumptions as to how much money he would need first year to sign. My assumption has been $12 to $15 million first year on a $90 million contract would be minimum.

Some people think that he might sign for $10 million first year. What does everyone else think?

 

[Chaplin]

Originally posted by George O'Brien
One of the sources of confusion in the debate on signing Kobe relates to assumptions as to how much money he would need first year to sign. My assumption has been $12 to $15 million first year on a $90 million contract would be minimum.

Some people think that he might sign for $10 million first year. What does everyone else think?

It's a crapshoot. There are too many variables, especially with Kobe.

1) The trial--will the pending trial have any bearing on how much money teams throw at him?

2) This is the first real time that Kobe Bryant has been able to test free agency--we have no idea whatsoever what he wants to do.

3) How much will the Lakers throw at him?

4) How much does he want to stay in Los Angeles?

 

[George O'Brien]

Re: Re: How Much $ Would It Take To Get Kobe?

Originally posted by Chaplin
It's a crapshoot. There are too many variables, especially with Kobe.

1) The trial--will the pending trial have any bearing on how much money teams throw at him?

2) This is the first real time that Kobe Bryant has been able to test free agency--we have no idea whatsoever what he wants to do.

3) How much will the Lakers throw at him?

4) How much does he want to stay in Los Angeles?

Assuming all those are dealt with, is $10 million likely to be enough if he is cleared of the rape charges and the Lakers don't offer $20 million?

 

[Chaplin]

Re: Re: Re: How Much $ Would It Take To Get Kobe?

Originally posted by George O'Brien
Assuming all those are dealt with, is $10 million likely to be enough if he is cleared of the rape charges and the Lakers don't offer $20 million?

I don't know. Normally, I would say not, due to the prevailing attitude of the NBA and the greed that dominates it. But Kobe is a different kind of player.

 

[elindholm]

Assuming all those are dealt with, is $10 million likely to be enough if he is cleared of the rape charges and the Lakers don't offer $20 million?

You need to spend some time with the CBA. The Lakers can't offer him a first-year salary of $20 million.

The maximum first-year salary for a free agent is based on some percentage of the salary cap, and there may also be a consideration for the number of years that the player has been in the league. I don't know the number -- someone else on this board surely does -- but I think last summer it was something like $11 million. Of course the new team has to have that amount of money under the cap to be able to offer it. Then the raise allowed each year is restricted by another set of complicated formulas.

If the player is staying with his own team, that team can offer him a raise over his previous salary, even if that means a new contract with a first-year salary larger than the "normal max" figure. But the amount of the raise is still restricted, again according to a bunch of formulas. I believe that larger annual raises are also possible if a player is remaining with his original team.

So:

If Bryant becomes a free agent and re-signs with the Lakers, they can offer him a larger first-year salary than any other team would be able to, but it won't be as high as $20 million a year.

If Bryant becomes a free agent and signs with a different team, the largest possible first-year salary he could receive is set by league rules -- something like $11 or $12 million next summer, I'd guess.

 

[elindholm]

Ah: Elton Brand's salary this year is just under $11 million. Since my understanding is that Miami signed him to a max offer sheet, that would tell us what the maximum first-year salary for a team-changing free agent was last summer, or at least one with Brand's tenure in the league.

 

[Chaplin]

So then a question would be, does 1-2 million dollars make a difference to Kobe?

Could be the difference between a 12-13mil contract with the Lakers and a 10mil contract with us.

 

[fordronken]

Brand's offer was also heavily front loaded in an attempt to scare off the Clippers, but I think it was more in the ways of signing bonuses than total first year dollars.

 

[JCSunsfan]

My understanding is that Kobe's court case won't even go to trial until June.

That's the worst possible timing for him. I cannot imagine him opting out while he is in the middle of a court case. That doesn't seem like it would be a good business decision at all.

The only way Kobe even is a consideration for the Suns is if the charges are dropped or there is some sort of plea deal struck that does not include prison time.

If I was betting, I sure be betting against Kobe ending up in a Suns uni--too many unlikely things have to happen.

Colangelo can be a gamblin man. I suppose he could sign Kobe with a strict morals clause. If Kobe goes to jail, the contract is void and we've got our cap room back. The Suns could protect themselves.

Anyone know if Kobe's contract could be voided by the Lakers if he goes to prison? I would think there would be some boiler plate language to that effect.

 

[Chaplin]

There's got to be some general clause in all contracts about jail time or incapacitation. The league owners have to have some way of protecting themselves.

 

[capologist]

There is a provision for terminating contracts in the case of eggregious moral turpitude. The limits of this have never really been defined. The only attempt, as far as I can recall, is when Golden State attempted to terminate Sprewell’s contract after he choked PJ Carlesimo. That was overturned on arbitration.

However, I’m pretty confident that a rape conviction would qualify.

 

[JCSunsfan]

Originally posted by capologist
There is a provision for terminating contracts in the case of eggregious moral turpitude. The limits of this have never really been defined. The only attempt, as far as I can recall, is when Golden State attempted to terminate Sprewell’s contract after he choked PJ Carlesimo. That was overturned on arbitration.

However, I’m pretty confident that a rape conviction would qualify.

If Kobe is convicted and sentenced to, say, 18 months in jail, I would think the Lakers could suspend him for 18 months. There might even be a league suspension for that period of time.

They could then retain his rights if they want.

 

[capologist]

Originally posted by JCSunsfan
If Kobe is convicted and sentenced to, say, 18 months in jail, I would think the Lakers could suspend him for 18 months. There might even be a league suspension for that period of time.

They could then retain his rights if they want.

Suspension or no, he would not be performing during such period the services he is contractually obligated to perform, and therefore would not be entitled to payment.

 

[fordronken]

I can also imagine that the league could very easily suspend him after his imprisonment.

 

[capologist]

Certainly would, now that you mention it. Suspensions are not considered served when a player is unable to play. You hear this come up every now and then when an injured player gets suspended; the suspension doesn’t start until he is medically cleared to play.

It begs the question, how long would the suspension itself be? There’s really no precedent for this sort of thing.

I think it would be difficult to make the case that a rape conviction merits less of a suspension than Sprewell received for choking Carlesimo. (Stern initially imposed a one-year suspension; arbitration reduced it to 68 games.) It’s sort of an apples-and-oranges comparison, since Kobe’s transgression wasn’t directly related to his duties as an NBA player the way Sprewell’s was, but can you imagine David Stern trying to deal with the outrage of women’s rights advocates demanding that he explain how Kobe deserves less of a suspension than Sprewell? I think they’d probably just make it a one-year suspension.

IINM, the minimum sentence is four years in prison anyway, so he’d be out of action for at least five years. For all intents and purposes, his career would be over.

 

[cly2tw]

So, in nutshell, wherever Kobe were undercontract, were he ever convicted, the team would not have to pay him. In this case, his only concern for not opting out is that the teams he wants to join would not offer a contract in fear of image damaging, not in fear of direct financial damage from his potential inability to fulfill his contract obligation due to imprisonment.

In this sense, the Suns is currently in a good position to gamble on his acquittal. If Kobe be convicted, say, one year within the signing, his contract gets off the book and the Suns still hold the same amount of cap space. It's like Denver and Utah right now, we just have to wait one more year. If he get acquitted, we get a loyal and grateful superstar, who welcomed him with open arms in difficult times.

See, this is actually a no-risk bet.

 

[capologist]

The big risk, I think, is that Kobe gets off but comes out of it looking extremely guilty, á la OJ.

While there are some vocal people on each side, I think that most reasonable observers are currently of the opinion that we don’t really have enough information at this time to know. That may change as the process continues.

So I don’t see it as a simple situation of two possible outcomes, conviction and acquittal. I see the possibilities of: conviction; exoneration (i.e., convingly established as having been wrongly accused); Simpsonation (acquitted, but clearly a guilty man who got away with it); uncertain (acquitted, and we still don’t know whether he did it or not); ambiguous (technically innocent but sort-of-guilty); etc. Legally, all the acquittal scenarios may be the same, but in terms of whether we’d want him on the team, the differences are huge.

A plea bargain may also be a possibility.

 

[cly2tw]

A plea that admits some wrong-doing but not rape, I guess?

I don't think it's gonna to be comparable to OJ's case, since the "standards" for rape are supposely different among different states while murder is murder. So, once acquitted, people will forget it soon enough. In particular, Kobe has been a model citizen and can do a lot to make people believe that he wants to make good for his 'mistakes'. It's also not that easy to sell for the Colangelos. Even with this stigma, he is a lot easier to be forgiven and accepted by the fans than say Patterson, due to his good image and demeanor all these years.

 

[capologist]

I retract my prediction of a long NBA-imposed suspension in the event of a conviction. There are precedents that I was forgetting. DeShawn Stevenson is one. (See my post in the "Predictions on the Googs trade" thread.) Ruben Patterson is another.

Precedent says the NBA doesn’t do much.

 

[George O'Brien]

I should have called this thread the "what if Kobe gets convicted" thread.

I think it is generally conceded that the Colangelos would never sign a convicted rapist or even one that was strongly under suspicion of rape. This has nothing to do with the NBA and everything to do with no repeating the disaster of the drug scandals of the late '80's. They routinely avoid players who have problems with the law. Kidd still believes the reason he was traded was because of the wife beating incident.

 

[Joe Mama]

Originally posted by George O'Brien
I should have called this thread the "what if Kobe gets convicted" thread.

I think it is generally conceded that the Colangelos would never sign a convicted rapist or even one that was strongly under suspicion of rape. This has nothing to do with the NBA and everything to do with no repeating the disaster of the drug scandals of the late '80's. They routinely avoid players who have problems with the law. Kidd still believes the reason he was traded was because of the wife beating incident.

Exactly George. This is all interesting the hypothetical because there is no way the Colangeli will even attempt to sign Kobe Bryant unless he is acquitted AND public opinion is that he was probably not guilty of rape.

I would think there's actually still a very good chance that Kobe Bryant decides not to opt out of his contract. I mean it would make sense that if the case might stretch through the summer, there's a good chance he will be found guilty, or he feels the trial has really hurt his value and even stick with his current contract.

Joe Mama