Travis Outlaw

Additionally, seated behind us was a young child, clearly still learning the game, who was asking his father on every possession whether now would be a good time to shoot a three pointer. Later, in overtime, he made the burn of the night: "Daddy, Travis Outlaw can't play." Ouch.

[...]

As astutely observed by the little boy, Outlaw did struggle on the night, being largely invisible until the third overtime. He didn't rebound, score, look to score, handle the ball, or have any noticeable impact defensively.

[...]

New Jersey looked for Sasha Vujacic on every possession, and, if they couldn't find him, opted to drive wildly into traffic instead. Had they not already traded their first round pick, I would assume they were tanking. (Maybe they were. Maybe they were tanking in the second round instead. Maybe they really wanted to draft 32nd instead of 37th. Then they can trade that pick for cash again.) When Sasha was unavailable, the Nets took it in turns to throw up airballs, dribble into traffic and throw the ball away. But like Toronto, they made enough shots. Sasha was hitting clutch jumpers and missing layups; Deron was able to create any shot he wanted but unable to hit them. And then in the surprise of all surprises, Outlaw (who had already shot one airball in OT) was fouled on another one, and stuck two clutch free throws, in the loudest, most vociferous, Outlaw-hating crowd he will likely ever experience in a home game. Those two free throws ended up winning the game for New Jersey.

He certainly shut that child up.

Salaries for option years in contracts cannot be for a lesser salary than the salary of the previous season. But no such stipulation applies to unguaranteed years. One such example of this is with the recently expired contracts of Steve Blake and Travis Outlaw. Blake's contract paid $4.25 million in its first two seasons, dropping to $4 million in the final one; Outlaw's contract was $4 million for two seasons and then $3.6 mil for the third. By making the final seasons for the duo unguaranteed, even though they had June 30th guarantee dates that made them basically team options, the Blazers were able to use the lower salary trick.