Conspiracy Theory about Rasheed's contract

[steve]

I don't know if this has already been discussed but...

Sheed barely wanted to play this past season, we had to talk him into.  So why would Danny sign him to a multi year deal?  I think Danny wanted this contract knowing that he'd retire after 1 year.  And Sheed went along with it, knowing the same thing.  Now Danny gets what he wants, an expiring contract.   

[Mike-Dub]

I don't know if this has already been discussed but...

Sheed barely wanted to play this past season, we had to talk him into.  So why would Danny sign him to a multi year deal?  I think Danny wanted this contract knowing that he'd retire after 1 year.  And Sheed went along with it, knowing the same thing.  Now Danny gets what he wants, an expiring contract.   

I don't believe this at all.  I think when Sheed signed he wanted to play out his contract, but after this year he knows he doesn't have much left in the tank so he just decided to call it quits.

[greg683x]

I agree with Mike-Dub.  I'm too lazy to find a link but it wasnt until midseason at the earliest, Doc said Sheed was talking about this being his last year bc he just doesnt have it anymore.

[guava_wrench]

I don't know if this has already been discussed but...

Sheed barely wanted to play this past season, we had to talk him into.  So why would Danny sign him to a multi year deal?  I think Danny wanted this contract knowing that he'd retire after 1 year.  And Sheed went along with it, knowing the same thing.  Now Danny gets what he wants, an expiring contract.   

No, we did not have to convince him to play. We had to convince him to play with us and not another team.

[greg683x]

yeah I believe our biggest competitor was the Spurs

[twinbree]

I've been wondering the same thing myself. Whether they knew Sheed was retiring in a year after they signed. Everyone was so nonchalant about it when I'd have expected them to at least be mildly surprised.

Doc did say Sheed had been telling his teammates during the season he was retiring so maybe they found out after he signed. But it must have been very early in the season. IIRC the first time I heard him say he was glad he was almost out of the NBA was in December after our first game with Toronto I think. In retrospect it would seem that he'd been looking forward to retirement at the end of this season for a while.

[Roy Hobbs]

I don't think anybody was anticipating Rasheed's retirement this early.  If Danny wanted an easily tradeable contract, and Rasheed only wanted one year, then the second year would have been non-guaranteed, I think.

[bobdelt]

This couldnt be more wrong.

Even if Rasheed knew he'd retire after one year, negotiating a 3yr allows for him to get a bigger buy out.

And really ,it'll be hard to buy him out due to retirement. He is still owed like 13+mil. So how much is the buyout going to be? I think it'll be hard to trade his contract because he's owed so much! He could easily not retire, and show up out of shape and "injured" and just collect.

So it's not a done deal, and the remainder of hit contract is his leverage in getting a bigger buyout, which means no conspiracy theory.

[Chris]

I don't know if this has already been discussed but...

Sheed barely wanted to play this past season, we had to talk him into.  So why would Danny sign him to a multi year deal?  I think Danny wanted this contract knowing that he'd retire after 1 year.  And Sheed went along with it, knowing the same thing.  Now Danny gets what he wants, an expiring contract.   

Honestly, I wouldn't be shocked if there was some truth to this. 

[nickagneta]

Wyc Groubek did state that there was a scenario by which the Celtics would be able to sign a max level free agent this summer. I don't remember if that was before or after he signed Wallace but clearly I think he had a feeling Pierce would opt out early. So perhaps they did think Wallace would retire after a year.

I doubt if when he signed the contract they(Wallace and the Celtics) thought he would retire but clearly by after the trading deadline they had some idea. They cleared out an extra roster spot getting rid of Marcus Landry and then signed two CBA guys to contracts that in 2010-11 would be over the league minimum(hence counted in over the salary cap trades) and non-guaranteed. Why?

Obviously they did it to boost the amount of salary they could send in a trade that a team could use to wipe salary off their books as they looked to reduce salary or get under the luxury tax or get further under the cap for a free agent. So now the Celtics can package Oliver Lafayette, Tony Gafney and Rasheed Wallace in a trade for as much as $9.9 million in salary and the other can can completely wipe all of those contracts off the books for next year clearing space.

[bobdelt]

Wyc Groubek did state that there was a scenario by which the Celtics would be able to sign a max level free agent this summer. I don't remember if that was before or after he signed Wallace but clearly I think he had a feeling Pierce would opt out early. So perhaps they did think Wallace would retire after a year.

I doubt if when he signed the contract they(Wallace and the Celtics) thought he would retire but clearly by after the trading deadline they had some idea. They cleared out an extra roster spot getting rid of Marcus Landry and then signed two CBA guys to contracts that in 2010-11 would be over the league minimum(hence counted in over the salary cap trades) and non-guaranteed. Why?

Obviously they did it to boost the amount of salary they could send in a trade that a team could use to wipe salary off their books as they looked to reduce salary or get under the luxury tax or get further under the cap for a free agent. So now the Celtics can package Oliver Lafayette, Tony Gafney and Rasheed Wallace in a trade for as much as $9.9 million in salary and the other can can completely wipe all of those contracts off the books for next year clearing space.

That scenario is a sign and trade? Is it not?

[nickagneta]

Wyc Groubek did state that there was a scenario by which the Celtics would be able to sign a max level free agent this summer. I don't remember if that was before or after he signed Wallace but clearly I think he had a feeling Pierce would opt out early. So perhaps they did think Wallace would retire after a year.

I doubt if when he signed the contract they(Wallace and the Celtics) thought he would retire but clearly by after the trading deadline they had some idea. They cleared out an extra roster spot getting rid of Marcus Landry and then signed two CBA guys to contracts that in 2010-11 would be over the league minimum(hence counted in over the salary cap trades) and non-guaranteed. Why?

Obviously they did it to boost the amount of salary they could send in a trade that a team could use to wipe salary off their books as they looked to reduce salary or get under the luxury tax or get further under the cap for a free agent. So now the Celtics can package Oliver Lafayette, Tony Gafney and Rasheed Wallace in a trade for as much as $9.9 million in salary and the other can can completely wipe all of those contracts off the books for next year clearing space.

That scenario is a sign and trade? Is it not?

It could be but it could be just a regular trade.

And I don't get this whole buyout talk about Rasheed's contract. If he files retirement papers he is giving up all the money and walking away from it. There is no buy out.

At least that is my understanding of reading the retirement section of the CBA.

[Roy Hobbs]

Wyc Groubek did state that there was a scenario by which the Celtics would be able to sign a max level free agent this summer. I don't remember if that was before or after he signed Wallace but clearly I think he had a feeling Pierce would opt out early. So perhaps they did think Wallace would retire after a year.

He said it before the Rasheed signing and the Rondo extension, I believe.

I think people are over-thinking Danny's foresight with the Rasheed deal.  If the team's plan was to trade Rasheed's contract in the second year all along, why give him a third year (which was fully guaranteed?)  Why not just make the second two years non-guaranteed?   The reason is because Rasheed and his agent bargained for those extra years, because at the time they thought Rasheed might want to extend his career.

They cleared out an extra roster spot getting rid of Marcus Landry and then signed two CBA guys to contracts that in 2010-11 would be over the league minimum(hence counted in over the salary cap trades) and non-guaranteed. Why?

Both Gaffney and LaFayette have contracts for the minimum for guys with a year's experience.  As for them being counted in trades, even minimum contracts can be counted for salary cap purposes if they're needed to make salaries match.  (On the other hand, they can also be traded to teams without cap room, etc.  For instance, a team can trade ten minimum guys for one guy making around $6 million, or they can trade ten minimum guys to a team for nothing.)

I do think, though, that there's a benefit to having two non-guaranteed deals at the second year minimum, rather than on rookie minimum deals.  It adds roughly $750k or so in flexibility.

[nickagneta]

Wyc Groubek did state that there was a scenario by which the Celtics would be able to sign a max level free agent this summer. I don't remember if that was before or after he signed Wallace but clearly I think he had a feeling Pierce would opt out early. So perhaps they did think Wallace would retire after a year.

He said it before the Rasheed signing and the Rondo extension, I believe.

I think people are over-thinking Danny's foresight with the Rasheed deal.  If the team's plan was to trade Rasheed's contract in the second year all along, why give him a third year (which was fully guaranteed?)  Why not just make the second two years non-guaranteed?   The reason is because Rasheed and his agent bargained for those extra years, because at the time they thought Rasheed might want to extend his career.

They cleared out an extra roster spot getting rid of Marcus Landry and then signed two CBA guys to contracts that in 2010-11 would be over the league minimum(hence counted in over the salary cap trades) and non-guaranteed. Why?

Both Gaffney and LaFayette have contracts for the minimum for guys with a year's experience.  As for them being counted in trades, even minimum contracts can be counted for salary cap purposes if they're needed to make salaries match.  (On the other hand, they can also be traded to teams without cap room, etc.  For instance, a team can trade ten minimum guys for one guy making around $6 million, or they can trade ten minimum guys to a team for nothing.)

I do think, though, that there's a benefit to having two non-guaranteed deals at the second year minimum, rather than on rookie minimum deals.  It adds roughly $750k or so in flexibility.

So minimum contracts work both ways.....hmmmm...that's interesting. All I ever knew was that that didn't count in trades for teams over the cap. So that's an optional thing? They can and they can't dependent upon whether the team wants it to count or not?

Yeah, and I wasn't sure about the timing of Wyc's comments. The more I think about it the more I think they may have happened during 2009's Finals. Still, I think the signing of LaFayette and Gafney was premeditated to add salary to a retiring Rasheed's contract. The signing of two guys that late in the year to do nothing but watch the team in the playoffs and to sign them to deals that make their contracts non-guaranteed the following year is just pretty unusal not to have been done for just this reason.

[BballTim]

Wyc Groubek did state that there was a scenario by which the Celtics would be able to sign a max level free agent this summer. I don't remember if that was before or after he signed Wallace but clearly I think he had a feeling Pierce would opt out early. So perhaps they did think Wallace would retire after a year.

He said it before the Rasheed signing and the Rondo extension, I believe.

I think people are over-thinking Danny's foresight with the Rasheed deal.  If the team's plan was to trade Rasheed's contract in the second year all along, why give him a third year (which was fully guaranteed?)  Why not just make the second two years non-guaranteed?   The reason is because Rasheed and his agent bargained for those extra years, because at the time they thought Rasheed might want to extend his career.

  Just my opinion (not based on anything I heard) but I think it was kind of like circumventing the cap. Sheed plays a year at the full MLE, retires, and gets a buyout, so he gets an extra few million for that one year. If he plays 2 years he does the same thing. I don't think either Danny or Sheed thought there was any way he'd play in year 3.