There's too much of a chance that Boston drafts a center or signs a free agent. If McGee gives up control of next season, he should be looking for the team where he is least likely to end up as a healthy third string center. I'd argue that the Celtics aren't that team.
Valid argument for sure, but what are his options now? It's not like teams are banging down his door and he probably won't be the first call when free agency begins this offseason. I agree that team options hurt players because they can get cut well after teams have assembled, but it seems he has fallen that far - which is funny, since it seems he could be a very good back-up center in this league (if put in the right situation).
The Cs are the perfect team for him to settle in and possibly get a little exposure for a playoff push. We haven't been amazing these past couple of years, but a guy like Turner will agree that the Cs current situation is a million times better than his last two.
Options have to be exercised by a certain date in June before free agency starts, so a player can't have his option declined after a team has been assembled.
He has the height and talent that you'd think that he could get a minimum salary job for next season, since it sounded like more than half of the playoff contenders would have been happy to give him a one-year deal with a team option. A team option is almost certainly going to be a minimum salary plus a minimum raise, at most, so he's giving up whatever prorated part of a contract he could earn now plus the chance that someone gives him more than the minimum.
His ideal scenario may be to get something like what Turner got: a guaranteed multi-year contract for more than the minimum, perhaps in the neighborhood of the biannual exception. Get enough of a contract so that the team feels obligated to try harder to make it work instead of giving up after a month, but short enough that he can cash in if he makes good.
Oh, I guess I am mistaken. I thought that guys like Babb and Johnson (and also Pressey) from last year were so valuable because we were able to hold on to them or trade them until just before the season when their contracts became fully guaranteed. I assumed since it was for the minimum and it was a team option that this was the kind of contract McGee was signing.
Before this year, I believe he still had some value - not the value of his contract, but he was still though to have 'potential'. While the light might have flipped [off] on what he could offer a team, I agree that he should still be able to find a home and maybe the 20 game pro-rated vet minimum just isn't worth his while.
You're both right. There are team options, and there are non-guaranteed years. Non-guaranteed years can become partially or fully guaranteed at later times in the summer, fall, or even into January. This is what Pressey, Babb, Johnson, and Bogans all had last summer. Pressey guaranteed July 15th, whereas the other three had no guarantee date, and would be owed nothing if released before the season began (as they all were). Options are decided June 30th (or earlier if the contract stipulates). It is likely that in this case, the "option" was a non-guaranteed year that guaranteed somewhere between June 30th and August 1st. Team options are pretty rare on non-rookie deals, because of the availability of non-guaranteed years.
Basketball media tends to report the two interchangeably to make the concept easier and/or due to laziness, but they are treated quite differently by the CBA. In addition to different dates as to when the decision to keep or release a player must be made, a player with a team option is not tradeable after his final guaranteed year until his option is picked up, whereas a non-guaranteed player can be traded at any time after the season. In other words, if McGee signed something with a player or team option, he could not be traded until after the July moratorium ended. If he signed a non-guaranteed second year, he could be traded draft night, even if the guarantee date was June 30th.
Topic: C's close to signing Javale McGee (not no more!) (Read 46418 times)