Rip turned down trade to Cavs, who would have bought him out

[Moranis]

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=6161438

Cavs would have received a first from Detroit as compensation.  Bulls would have been the front runner for Rip, but Celtics were right there in contention for his services.  Rip decided he wouldn't accept a buy out now or in the future, so the trade died.

[barefacedmonk]

I posted this in another thread....I hope he doesn't get bought out. No team deserves such an unprofessional player.

I'm glad we didn't sign Rip Hamilton.

About a week prior to his banishment to the Detroit Pistons’ bench in January, Richard Hamilton berated coach John Kuester in a jarring and expletive-filled diatribe on the practice court, league sources told Yahoo! Sports.

As stunned coaches and teammates watched, Hamilton bellowed at Kuester that he had been a failure in his two seasons in Detroit, blown the opportunity the franchise afforded him and was nothing more than a career assistant coach, sources said. Despite Hamilton yelling within inches of him, Kuester didn’t respond.

Several of the team’s younger players were mortified watching it and privately told agents and associates they wished they had the courage to stand up, confront Hamilton and try to take control back from the disgruntled vetera

Link

[Rondo_is_better]

He's in a bad place mentally, right now. Also, he and Ray Allen can't co-exist on a team. They are redundant, except Ray is at this point 1000x better.

[xmuscularghandix]

I don't know that RIP is unprofessional. The coach's approach to this has been pretty bad as well... it's just a bad situation.

[Jon]

If he is bought out, he isn't coming here.  I don't know why anyone would think he would.  He could start for the Bulls.  And the argument that Boston has a better chance at a title doesn't work either because he already has a ring.  He doesn't need to play 10 mpg behind Ray to win another. 

And he isn't being bought out anyway. 

[Fan from VT]

Don't know what Rip is thinking. Sounds like he wants everything:
-won't take a fairly reasonable buyout offer to leave his team.
-won't listen to his current coach and do what is asked of him to fulfill his current contract.
-Basically wants 100% of his current contract and wants to 100% control where he plays, how he plays and how much he plays. Can't really have it all.

[More Banners]

Don't know what Rip is thinking. Sounds like he wants everything:
-won't take a fairly reasonable buyout offer to leave his team.
-won't listen to his current coach and do what is asked of him to fulfill his current contract.
-Basically wants 100% of his current contract and wants to 100% control where he plays, how he plays and how much he plays. Can't really have it all.

I guess he thinks he's Melo?

[Fafnir]

Don't know what Rip is thinking. Sounds like he wants everything:
-won't take a fairly reasonable buyout offer to leave his team.
-won't listen to his current coach and do what is asked of him to fulfill his current contract.
-Basically wants 100% of his current contract and wants to 100% control where he plays, how he plays and how much he plays. Can't really have it all.

Have they said how much of a haircut the Cavs wanted him to take?

[Roy H.]

Don't know what Rip is thinking. Sounds like he wants everything:
-won't take a fairly reasonable buyout offer to leave his team.
-won't listen to his current coach and do what is asked of him to fulfill his current contract.
-Basically wants 100% of his current contract and wants to 100% control where he plays, how he plays and how much he plays. Can't really have it all.

Have they said how much of a haircut the Cavs wanted him to take?

Reportedly, around $7 million.  They offered him $17 million of the approximately $24 million he's owed over the remainder of his contract (this season, plus two more).

[Josh88]

That seems like a pretty reasonable number to me, I'm surprised he didn't take it if he is in fact set on a buyout.

[BudweiserCeltic]

Don't know what Rip is thinking. Sounds like he wants everything:
-won't take a fairly reasonable buyout offer to leave his team.

Why should he bail them out? The current situation wasn't of his making. He took an extension because he believed in keeping the winning ways, just for Dumars to turn pretty much immediately around and start the youth/rebuilding movement. Understandable, but why extend Hamilton then particularly when you go after players like Gordon and then bring Tracy?

-won't listen to his current coach and do what is asked of him to fulfill his current contract.

Seems to me that no one in there is happy with the coach, and he would fulfill the contract if he was being played. Sorry, it's like sitting Ray Allen in order to develop Giddens/Walker.

Remember, Hamilton was the odd man out of the starters when Iverson was brought here and they wanted to develop Stuckey. Which still makes little sense to me. Though he wasn't happy with it, he was a trooper through it.

-Basically wants 100% of his current contract and wants to 100% control where he plays, how he plays and how much he plays. Can't really have it all.

From what I read Cleveland was going to give him 16 million buyout. A negotiation with the team needs to happen, and if they don't come to an understanding, he would be stuck with the lowly Cavs. That's 8 million. What if he gets injured and can't get another contract, he would be 8 million out. So it's not that simple particularly in a few days of negotiations.

The only reason Kuester is still in place is because of the ownership problems in the Piston's organization.

The dude has lived through years of team sacrifice and sharing for a coach suddenly to come in and stop playing him cold turkey with some dubious reasoning, which I'm not sure if there was some ownership pressure to kip Hamilton from playing so that they could trade him and him not get injured (remember when he stopped playing was coincidentally when trade rumors of Hamilton were going around).