Schilly

...keeps coming up, wanted to know 2 things.

1) Have you heard this rumor in Indy?
2) Does it make sense to you?

Rumor is Indiana wants a physical backup PG with an expiring contract, for Jonathan Bender. Portland apparently has the target piece in Antonio Daniels. The rumor is the 2 teams are working on it.

In my mind it maybe isn't a fair deal talent/potential for talent/potential, but for needs it does make sense.

Bender appears to be buried behind Artest and Harrington, both of whom are still young and at this point miles ahead of Bender.

CaronOwnsU

I am not from INDY and this is just my opinion. But, Donnie Walsh is begging for expiring deals right now to free up more cap space for next summer. So, on that note, the deal makes sense to me; especially since with the Pacer's depth, I view Bender as one of the more expendable pieces.

BTW, have you heard a rumor that Damon Stoudimire has agreed to a contract restructuring with Trader Bob in order to facilitate a trade out of Portland?

Schilly

There was a quote in the local paper about it, only one hitch Damon is not willing to take a cut in pay. Now the word is that Damons agent has talked to Bob and has informed Damon that there has appaerently been no interest from other teams and Damon has accepted that is accepted his role as the highest paid end of the bench player in the NBA.

CaronOwnsU

Wow! Thanks for the info. And to think that I thought he was the next Iishia Thomas when he first started with the Raptors. LOL!

Absynth

id rather keep bender...also his contract is real hard to move. "poison pill" i think ive heard it called.

CaronOwnsU

Bender's contract has a "poison pill" in it?

MikeDC

Yup... it's kind of like BYC status, if you know that term.

Basically, it means that he's hard to trade. Under league rules, incoming and outgoing salaries have to be fairly close to each other, and because he signed a contract extension this season, Bender's contract counts more "going out" than it does "coming in".

Basically, a team that acquires Bender would have to take on more salary than the Pacers would have to give up... which makes a two way deal pretty difficult.

Example, Bender's "going out" value is $5M and his "coming in" value is $2M. The team Bender's going to has to move $5M (approximately) in salary to make room for him, but the Pacers can take back no more than $2M. Since the Pacers can't take it back, it's hard for the acquiring team to make enough room.

One way to do it is that salaries don't have to match exactly. They only have to be within 15% plus 100k of each other (I think). Hence, the more players you trade, the larger 15% of the salaries become, and therefore the more leeway you have to trade Bender off to the other team. In principle, they could do something like this with Croshere, but I don't even know where to begin working out the actual numbers.

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CaronOwnsU

Thanks man... I am generally pretty good with cap matters and the CBA. But, I wasn't familiar with the term "poison pill."

But, when you said the term BYC (base year compensation), I understand now what he was speaking of.

So, the Pacers only take back 115% plus $100,000 of Bender's BYC value.

Therefore, all the Pacers have to do to avoid BYC ("poison pill") issues is find a third team sufficiently under the cap that can absorb the remainder values. Or, as allowed under the CBA, the third team could simply have a trade exception.

I agree that this makes things harder in shifting a base year player like Bender but not impossible.

Hey, I have a question in the CBA forum about Laphonis Ellis' new contract status that no one has been able to answer. Could you take a look at it.

BTW, cool signature..... nobody can fight about tastes. LOL!

MikeDC

Thanks!

One small additional point - I think somehow the "poison pill" is even worse than the regular BYC provision, but I don't know how or why

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CaronOwnsU

Thanks man... I bet you are right about the "poison pill" being worse than the BYC provision. I'm at boarding school now, but my father is a lawyer familiar with all this stuff and I will ask him this coming weekend for an answer. I'll also ask heatfan again what it means.

BTW, thank you for taking a crack at the question about Ellis' contract that I posed in the CBA forum.

Each day that goes by without news about, I get more happy with its legality.

CaronOwnsU

heatfan:

Could you tell us what the poison pill provision is when you get a chance?

Thanks!

CaronOwnsU

Okay, I think I figured it out... HeatFan, please tell me if I am wrong.

Bender makes X amount in current season and next season with extension that starts the following year. Under the CBA, the League takes the average of this total contract (which includes base line amount of next year) and counts this as his salary cap value due to violation of the 12.5% raise rule.

Therefore, for the Pacers to trade Bender, they would have to take back his full salary cap value in salaries while only giving up close to his base line amount.

I can definately see now how this makes Donnie Walshes' job more difficult in shopping Bender when he wants sufficient cap space next summer to sign O'Neil, Miller and Miller.

Absynth

i wouldn't even know however that sounds right. all i know is that bender is extremely difficult to trade, due to his contract being what i have heard termed "poison pill." Beyond that I don't know the specifics, however what you and mikedc say makes sense.

Jamel Irief

Physical backup PG? What's wrong with Erick Strickland?

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peejay2288

I can see Bender blossoming if he's traded from the Pacers. He will probably eventually get a starting role and be more exposed to show his talent. About a point guard, we really need one. Erik Strickland isn't going to help us win a championship and Jamaal Tinsley is too young. I say we get an experienced, proven point guard such as Eric Snow.

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