We've seen a lot of weird contracts in our day, and you learn that the fine print contained within these documents are limited only by the greed-mongering imagination of the agent.
Most of these provisions -- incentives, they call them -- pertain to team goals (victories, playoff achievement, etc.), which is fine, especially if a player has a history of injury. Baron Davis, for example, gets $1 million just for playing 70 games and leading his team to victory in at least 30 of them.
Really, what's better than going 30-50, and then watching Donald Sterling's head explode by forcing him to hand over an extra million as a reward for this grand achievement?
Then there are some GMs who are still short-sighted enough to give a guy incentives for individual numbers that can put him in direct competition with a teammate.
But here's one example of an oddball incentive: Matt Bonner of the Spurs gets $100,000 if the sum of his field goal percentage, free throw percentage, and his 3-point percentage matches or exceeds 169 percent. What sabermetric whiz came up with that one?
Some are designed to keep a kid from turning into a fatbody -- the Heat, for example, give Mario Chalmers $19,580 just for showing up for summer league, and for going through a team "skill/conditioning program." Actually, Riles -- who advocates running until you puke all 12 months of the year -- gave a half-dozen of his players that very incentive. Which means Micky Arison is the only owner cutting checks in June and July.
Some incentives are bizarre. Consider Nick Collison of the Thunder -- nice player, probably worthy of anybody's power rotation. He gets $100,000 if he wins -- wait for it -- MVP.
MVP? If he wins MVP, someone ought to anoint him king.
Adonal Foyle gets $500,000 if he wins MVP, and another $500K if he wins MVP of the NBA Finals. Wonder how many gin and tonics the GM and agent went through before they came up with those. Or how many times did the guys pass the bottle around before they figured that Luke Ridnour would merit an extra $1.5 million for winning Defensive Player of the Year?
Here's something the Knicks might want to know: If Carlos Boozer plays 65 games, averages more than 32 minutes, and finishes in the top 12 in boards (total or average), he gets $333,333. To which we say, the guy is getting $12.6 million, fercryinoutloud, why should his team expect anything less than top 12 in boards?
peaking of the Knicks, here's another knee-slapper: Larry Hughes gets a $1.6 million bonus if his team -- whatever team he's on in '09-10 -- wins 55 games or more. Once again: This guy makes $13.6 million base salary. Shouldn't he be expected to lead his team to 55 wins, aside from the fact that he's, you know, mediocre?
Anyway, this is just a long-winded lead-in to introduce the new guys in town, and the incentives they're chasing.
Rafer Alston has a base salary of $5.25 million, but he also has some add-ons. If he wins Player of the Week, he'll get $15,000 -- and he can keep winning them and get $15K a pop, with a max of $120,000. If he wins Player of the Month, that's $50,000. And if he makes the All-Star team, he'll earn an additional $325,000.
Tony Battie (base: $6.06M) has some odd incentives. He gets $100,000 if he plays in 50 games AND averages eight rebounds. He pockets another $100,000 if he plays in 50 and averages five free throw attempts per game. And he'll bring home an extra $100,000 if he is just active for 50 games and the team reaches the second round of the playoffs.
Oddly, no other Nets player has incentives built into his contract, which should tell you how sober this team's management is compared to others.
http://www.nj.com/nets/index.ssf/2009/0 ... tives.html
