We don't know that that's true either. Roy could very easily be asking for 5 years with a player option.
Apparently he is, or at least was. That still doesn't change the fact that the Blazers are offering a max of 4 years though.
Canzano said if the Blazers agree to Roy's player option, and Roy declines that fifth year option when the time comes, then he becomes a UFA. Is that true? Does a player option change the status of whether Brandon will be a UFA or RFA after a four-year contract that the Blazers are offering?
Nope. Whenever this contract ends (through completion, ETO, team declining option, whatever) he becomes an UFA and we retain his Bird Rights.
Well, then, that makes it more obvious why the negotiations aren't going so smoothly. A player option is purely to the player's benefit, zero benefit to the team. It's basically a four year deal or a five year deal, and which one it is depends purely on which benefits the player more at the end of four years. I can definitely see why the Blazers would negotiate to remove a player option. I can also see why Roy would want one, but he's certainly not automatically entitled to a completely risk-free add-on. He can ask for one, but it's totally reasonable that the team would negotiate hard against it.
So he becomes a UFA regardless of whether it's an fifth-year option contract that he declines when it's time to decide for him, or he finishes out a four-year guaranteed contract? But since we have his Bird rights, we can sign him to much bigger money than any other team if the current CBA's rules are in effect by that time. Is there any scenario that Roy would become a RFA after his next contract?
No. RFA is a mechanism that teams can keep their good rookie-contract players. There's no way to lock a player up indefinitely. Player's Association probably wouldn't go for that. The Clippers, technically, could then just keep matching Blake Griffin's contracts and he'd always be in basketball hell. LBJ would never be able to leave CLE, for that matter.
And the Bird Rights don't guarantee much bigger money, b/c the starting max salaries are the same from any team. What POR can offer is an extra year and 10.5% raises vs. 8% raises.
Hmm.. good point. Thanks for the clarification. You're like the resident Tom Penn around these parts.
Yeah, I guess that's what I meant. We can offer more money per year. But to me as just a normal working person, that's a lot of money.. a 2.5 percent raise for me at an NBA player's rate is big time.
So I'm still trying to grasp this situation. Brandon can choose the four-year guaranteed contract, and will negotiate a new one anyway after that. If he gets his option and then he declines that fifth year, then we're left negotiating a new contract anyway after the fourth year. The only way I see it being a benefit to the team is if we're so paranoid about Roy getting some catastrophic injury after four years, then we're stuck with him for a year at whatever his max salary would be. Seems like a lot of ego involved, and Vulcan or whoever just wants to be in control rather than giving the players, no matter who it is, any control. It's certainly a negotiable thing but nothing too big to me now. I still don't think it's worth it to drag it out if it means pissing off the franchise player. Just pay the guy his money if you expect him to be here for a long time.
