question on MBenga's contract?

[bricklayer]

You have to see this guy play live to believe the hype, he deserves it. But let's say he doesn't develop into the next great center, and becomes a quality back up that you can depend on to give you solid 10-15 a game. For the price I still call him a bargain.

[FineCubanCigar]

ok well thats all great, can we extend his contract?

[Evilmav2]

To the best of my knowledge, the only thing we will be able to offer DJ after his two years are done is all or part of either the MLE or LLE. If another team that's under the salary cap wants to outbid us, I imagine we will be screwed unless the salary structure of the NBA changes under the next CBA. Someone else may know better than I do (are you out there lurking Poindexter?), but I think that's where we stand right now...

[FineCubanCigar]

so i take it we cant simply extend his contract

[dirno2000]

You can's extend a rookie contract until after year three...otherwise it would be pretty easy to skirt the rule. Plus, why would he sign an extension? He's making penuts and if he signed an extension his raises would be limited to 12.5%.

...that's why Sam Cassell is underpaid...he keeps signing extensions instead of waiting until he's free.

[FineCubanCigar]

so basically if a team is over the cap, they can't resign ANY rookie if he doesn't have a garunteed 3 year deal, that needs to change.

[Poindexter Einstein]

THE MBENGA CONTRACT SITUATION

The General Background - Teams over the cap have to use an exception of some sort, if they want to add more players (and money) onto their payroll. That is how a CAP ON SALARY works.

There are a variety of exceptions a team has available to work with, at various times.

Mbenga's case - When the Mavs wanted to get him, Mbenga was a total free agent. To sign him, they had only two exceptions left available at that point: minimum salary, or LLE (or part of it). The minimum was too small to entice him, so they used the LLE. Reports (and hoopshype) said it was the full LLE plus a max raise, but I have it on incredibly good authority (within the Mavs organization) that the numbers are significantly wrong as reported. My guess is that the numbers are much smaller. But it would still have to be an LLE based deal, which is limited to two years. Hoopshype and the newspapers often run with educated guesses, when they print contract amounts, because league rules prevent a team from giving out ANY contract numbers (it is a fineable offense).

After the 2 years are up, what will the Mavs do?

UNDER THE CURRENT CBA - They will have to use an exception, if they want to keep him and sign him to a longer deal once the two years are up. They are not allowed to offer him an extension before the current deal ends.

Their exception choices will be Early Bird (which is similar to MLE), MLE, LLE, and minimum contracts. With two years already behind him, they could possibly try to get him to agree on a one year deal using an exception, and then the next year they would have full Bird Rights (allowing a deal up to the maximum.)

After these two years, even though the Mavs won't have Bird Rights, they will have Restricted Free Agency with Mbenga, allowing them to match offers using whatever cap room or exceptions they have available (similar to the position they had with Daniels). Unlike Daniels, they could opt to use Early Bird rights on Mbenga, which is the same first year salary as a MLE deal (plus bigger raises than the MLE). If they did so, they would not use up the MLE itself.

THE CURRENT CBA FACTOR - Keep in mind that the whole system expires next summer. So any or all of the above rules might change completely. When looking at deals that are going to be on the table two years from now, the analysis is unreliable, because you have to put stock in rules that are subject to being modified or eliminated.

[Poindexter Einstein]

(system hiccup, duplicate deleted)

[FineCubanCigar]

thanks, great info, so if the the current rules stay in place we can tag him with early bird rights and put a pretty nice package together without being stuck just offering the mle.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by: V

Please see here

Originally posted by: Fidel
Let´s see if Mbenga still averages those kind of numbers 20 games into the regular season. I´d be happy if he does, but let´s not go overboard just yet.

And also please see here. LOL couldn´t resist. He still got three games till 20. Anythings possible. Well maybe not.

[V2M]

Originally posted by: Fidel

And also please see here. LOL couldn´t resist. He still got three games till 20. Anythings possible. Well maybe not.

Nellie's lost all credibility if you ask me. The way Nellie's hyped up MBenga and Harris during the preseason only to diss 'em later on is pathetic. He's way too experienced to be acting on players' minds, games and thus their careers in this form. Now I wonder if AJ would ever turn out to be a good coach as he's got Nellie's "kiss of death" too.