WTF?

[Nikolokolus]

But not in combination with other things to raise the salary of the player coming back. It could have been used in trade for someone making $3.3 million or less. While there are plenty of players on rookie contracts in that window, it's not a given that you can make such a deal make sense for the other team. Very few teams want to dump players making that little to save salary...and anyone who's actually worth the salary, either in terms of potential or current value, that team would probably prefer to keep.

That's it in a nutshell. If the exception had been 8+ million dollars in value then I think the market of available players would have expanded considerably. As it stands not a lot of teams are scrambling to dump cheap or cheap and productive talent.

 

[MARIS61]

That's it in a nutshell. If the exception had been 8+ million dollars in value then I think the market of available players would have expanded considerably. As it stands not a lot of teams are scrambling to dump cheap or cheap and productive talent.

We bought Rudy for $3 mil.

 

[Nikolokolus]

We bought Rudy for $3 mil.

During the draft, which is a day for deal making. Mid to late December? Teams usually aren't quite geared up for cost cutting mode, that comes in February.

 

[jlprk]

I remember that another team got one the same day we did, about 3 weeks ago. I posted at the time that we'd have to hurry. Did the other team use theirs? If not, that backs up the theory that this league "gift" is a sham.

Here's the answer. We'll see in 5 days whether this "disabled player exception" stuff is an unachievable sham, with the league allowing way too little time.

Miami's exception is valued at $1.75 million, half of Haslem's $3,500,000 salary, and expires Jan. 6.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=5907147

 

[Minstrel]

Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's truly this hard to use the exception, given the 3 weeks Cho had. If so, the league's policy of granting the exception to replace a missing player is a sham, since that exception will usually turn out worthless.

I wouldn't say that it's a sham. The exception is there as a desperation measure in case the player a team loses leaves the team dangerously thin at a position. I doubt it was ever meant to enable the team to sign a really good or valuable player. It's meant to give the team some flexibility to get a warm body as a replacement.

Cho could have signed a warm body. But Portland's position isn't so tenuous that it needs a warm body to stay viable to play NBA games. Another Sean Marks wouldn't change the team's outlook one way or the other. Maybe some would have liked to see Cho sign a random guy out of the D-league, just to prove his phone works. I can't say I care...I think it's likely that his phone works and I can't get worked up over not signing a scrub out of the NBADL.

 

[jlprk]

I call it a sham because I suspect--but I haven't compiled a list--that most teams awarded a "disabled player exception" don't use it for lack of time. We won it Dec. 10, and were given only 20 days till the Dec. 30 deadline. The Marc Stein article I cited explains the deadline as

The 45-day clock for using such exceptions starts when the team reasonably knows that the player's injury could potentially be season-ending.

I'm guessing the league later decided we had considered it for about 15 days before we applied, and the league considered our application about 10 days. Add the 20 days they gave us and you have 45 days. There just isn't time to start negotiating a new trade. All you can do is 1) sign a D-Leaguer, or 2) complete a trade already in the works, accelerated with your new advantage of taking in $3M more in salary than you send out.

That's why I posted in this thread, "This certifies that Sean Marks is better than every player in the D-League."

 

[Ed O]

I think he's just really inept at evaluating basketball talent. I've never read anything to suggest he has even personally spoken to an actual NBA player before, other than the ones on his team. Nice that he does the usual nerd-tracking of stats, but that leaves him a step behind most of us in the GM qualifications department. Nothing in his bio or his few statements to the press indicates any past accomplishments of note or even a deep knowledge of the game.

He appears to be nothing more than an affirmative action hire.

I really hate to EVER restrict my response to this, but:

Lol.

Ed O.