Brian Butch

Brian Butch - The oft-overlooked Butch continues to do this thing - stretching the floor and putting up vast rebounding numbers. Thus far this season for the Bakersfield Jam, Butch is averaging 15.6 points and 13.4 rebounds in only 33 minutes a contest, shooting 40% from three. Defensive concerns are valid, but production is production.

Exhibit 9 of the Uniform Player Contract is applicable only to those summer contracts fully unguaranteed and for only one season in length. Its purpose is to reduce a team’s liability in event of injury to a player it intended to sign only for training camp. It states thusly:

…if the player is injured as a direct result of playing for the team and, accordingly, would have been entitled but for this Exhibit 9 to compensation, the team’s sole liability shall be to pay the Player $6,000 upon termination of the Player’s Contract./

The operator ‘sole liability’ is vital here. Without an Exhibit 9, the Uniform Player Contract normally calls for teams to pay any ‘reasonable hospitalization and medical expenses’ for players injured whilst directly participating in team activity, whilst also guaranteeing the payment of their compensation, however unguaranteed it was, until such time as they are fit to return to play, up to a maximum of the end of that season.

Put more simply – if you’re injured in training camp without an exhibit 9, you’re paid until you are healthy again, unless your contract incorporates exhibit 9, in which case you only get $6,000.

That financial disparity can be enormous, and the effects palpable. Players injured in training camp in recent seasons who ended up being paid money their teams didn’t wish them to be included Jason Richards, signed by the Miami Heat after the 2008/09 draft and who suffered what was ultimately a career ending injury that paid him $442,114, enough to put the Heat into luxury tax territory and force them to trade Shaun Livingston to Memphis to get under it again. Such can be the repercussions of an otherwise innocuous deal.

Long time fringe NBA player Brian Butch has somehow been in this situation twice. Butch was signed for the final few years of the 2009/10 situation with an unguaranteed deal through 2010/11 – because the deal was signed mid-season and thus called for guaranteed compensation at that time, it could not utilise Exhibit 9. Butch subsequently appeared for the Nuggets in the 2010 summer league, but suffered a serious injury in the second game and was ruled out indefinitely. Without an exhibit 9, he therefore had his contract of $762,195 guaranteed until he was healthy, which in the end proved to be the whole season. The following season, he signed a fully unguaranteed deal with the New Orleans Hornets, but one with a second option season (thereby making an Exhibit 9 impossible), yet again got injured and received a further $436,418 until he was healthy. That is over a million dollars received for zero time on the court. On Exhibit 9 deals, he would have earned $12,000 combined.

Brian Butch

Butch remains just outside the NBA, and just did his fourth stint in the D-League, hoping to bridge the final gap. In 47 games with the Bakersfield Jam, he averaged 12.7 points and 10.9 rebounds in only 29.7mpg, shooting 44%, 33% and 68%. More importantly, he stayed healthy for the full season. It is true that he can't be a stretch big of all that much effectiveness when scoring so inefficiently, but it's also true that that's one hell of a rebounding rate. He doesn't need athleticism to do it in the D-League and he won't need it to do it in the NBA either.

Players who would otherwise be listed, but who are not due to long term injury, include Mike Taylor, Jeff Pendergraph, Darington Hobson, Da'Sean Butler, Stephane Lasme, Brian Butch, Chris Hunter and Magnum Rolle.

In his second summer league game, Nuggets big man Brian Butch took a bad fall during the third quarter, dislocated his knee cap, and ruptured his left patella tendon. It's a serious injury that puts Butch's career on hold just as it was hitting its highest point; the positive from this extremely painful negative is that he was under contract at the time.

Brian Butch

Butch, a jumpshooting big man, is signed for this season to an unguaranteed minimum salary contract. Because these posts are not quite the previews that they were designed to be - sorry - Butch has already gotten hurt in this summer league tournament, dislocating his kneecap. The rule with unguaranteed contracts is that, if a player is injured while playing under contract, the contract is guaranteed until they are able to play again. (This is why Mike Wilks spent the 2008/09 season on the Magic roster, despite being unable to play.) So even though Butch is no doubt in a lot of pain, and suffering a serious career setback, it could well be a bit of a financial windfall for him, unless some hitherto unknown technicality is in place that saves the Nuggets money. (Or if summer league just isn't insured.)

Positive from a negative. And quite a big positive at that.