2013-2014 Rule 6 (EBA Rights) Draft

[recte44]

No, it's not illegal. It's happened before. There IS precedent. There's also precedent for a player signing in the first FA sim.

But, hey.....if there's going to be any controversy and some folks feel like they haven't had the ample chance to screw me over, I'm going to go ahead and re-release him into the wild tomorrow morning.

[Al-Hoot]

I'm with Recte on this. Chacon was available in FA sim #1. Every MBBA GM had a chance.

[aaronweiner]

I'm not.

Here's what I think: if you're in the MBWBA, you can't match an EBA offer. That's not reasonable, considering they work on vastly different financial systems with computer owners in an entirely different league. Either he should go back to the EBA on the contract he signed (fine) or he gets signed by an MBWBA team (fine) in which case Recte can match, or nobody signs him in which case he gets the minimum from Vegas.

But the idea that you're allowed to match an EBA offer is ridiculous on the face. It's also kind of ridiculous that you can spend $5 million and 20 PPT to draft a player from the EBA and he can then go ahead and sign with the EBA.

[aaronweiner]

To put it another way: the highest payroll in the EBA is $15 million and the average payroll is close to 11 million, 1/10th of our salary cap.

I'm okay with the idea of Recte matching a five year, $33 million dollar deal (ten times the number he signed in the EBA). That doesn't bother me at all. But for him to have the right to match an EBA deal is like suggesting that if a franchised NFL player wants to play in the CFL, the NFL team can match the CFL contract. Or that an NBA team has the right to match a contract that a player gets in Turkey if they're a restricted free agent. Or if a minor leaguer wants to sign in some Chinese baseball league, the team that drafted him has the right to pay him the same money. It's obvious nonsense.

[trmmilwwi]

At first I thought the match of the EBA contract was fine... then I read the constitution;

"Each player selected in this draft enters the upcoming MBBA free agent pool. As such, any MBBA team may sign any of these players. However, the team that drafted a player in the EBA Player Rights Draft retains the rights to accept said player on his team, along with the exact contract that he signed as a free agent. As such, once a contract has been finalized with a player selected in the EBA Player Rights Draft (assuming by some other team than his drafting one), his drafting GM will be notified by the League Director and will be given 48 hours to state whether he will exercise his right to the player and have him join his team under the contract terms. If he declines to exercise his rights to the player, or does not give an answer within the 48 hours, the player is retained by the team that signed him."

The bold part essentially mandates that the contract be within the MBBA. I think Aaron is right.

[aaronweiner]

Plus there's that whole absurd thing. But legally speaking I think Tim's correct.

[trmmilwwi]

Plus there's that whole absurd thing. But legally speaking I think Tim's correct.

Al and I can both be classified as "Lawful Evil" I guess;)

[Al-Hoot]

I think it depends on the intent of the Rule.

As for: legally speaking, or syntactically speaking, a number of arguments could be made (which is why codified law and contracts tend to be extremely wordy and try to cover any and all situations). It seems clear the Rule as written does not take all possibilities into account.

One could say that the intent of the rule is clear: The player is bought out of the EBA so that an MBBA team gets to sign him. I will agree with that this is the intent of the rule. And that this is what should have paramount importance here. On the other hand, some could argue over the "intent."

One could also argue that all the MBBA GMs chose to pass on him. Did anybody bid on him?

In other words, how long do we wait before the player is signed? I think we had a situation with this last year, when no one (not even the drafting team) signed a drafted player. So we had to have an ad hoc decision about that. On the other hand, I do not think we have had the precedent of an EBA team signing one of the drafted players (which I will agree is not the intent of the rule). Anyway, a check of the past EBA drafts would confirm this.

[recte44]

Julio Chacon, C, Amsterdam (ATC, 3 yrs, $21,180,000; matched by LV)