Did Milwaukee pick up Gustavo Ayon’s option? Yes. Will they have to do so again in a week? Also yes.
July 15th, 2013
Gustavo Ayon, thinking of victims A month ago, it was widely reported via all media outlets (though seemingly originating from Mexico) that the Bucks had picked up Gustavo Ayon’s team option for next season. This week, the story’s doing the rounds that the Bucks need to pick up his option. This, on the surface, rather counters the former. In reality, both are right. The confusion stems from the terminology used. Only one is actually an option – the other just functions much like one. An explanation follows. As explain in a couple of blog posts, but firstly this one of 2010, no one really gives out team options any more. All rookie scale contracts have two of them, but very very few other contracts do – indeed, headed into this offseason, there were only six in total in the entire league (Francisco Garcia, Dante Cunningham, Jodie Meeks, Mario Chalmers, John Lucas III and Ayon). With all of those having been decided upon this summer, we see then that, unless only fresh ones were given out in this summer’s contracts – and none have as of yet – there will be no non-rookie scale team options in the league at all. That’s how rare they are. Ayon, though, was one of the rare few to have one. Yet his case is itself a further exception. You’d think that team options gave you a year. They do, pretty much – a team option is a decision at the team’s discretion as to whether they wish to extend the contract for one season at prearranged terms. And they can only ever be for one year – not two, nor three, or part of one, but for one whole year. In saying yes and exercising the team option, the team validates the year’s contract, […]
Orlando's TPEs
July 26th, 2012
Before the sign-and-trade of Ryan Anderson to New Orleans, Orlando had one TPE, totalling $4.25 million, created in the Glen Davis/Brandon Bass trade of last offseason. That $4.25 million TPE is set to expire on December 12th. Orlando used some of that TPE in the Anderson deal to absorb the returning salary of the criminally overlooked Gustavo Ayon, who is to earn $1.5 million this season. The Bass TPE, then, is now $2.75 million big, and thus can be used between now and December 12th to absorb incoming player salaries of $2.85 million (as $100,000 leeway is allowed with TPE’s). By absorbing Ayon with the Bass TPE, Orlando were essentially trading out Anderson with no incoming salary. This then meant another TPE was created equal to the amount of Anderson’s outgoing salary. The issue is what that amount is. Anderson signed a deal that will pay him exactly $8.7 million next season – however, whilst the concept of Base Year Compensation (which now isn’t called that, or indeed call anything, but which term will suffice here) was largely eradicated in the latest CBA, it does still apply to sign-and-trade deals. The basic principle of BYC is that, if a team signs and trades a player using Bird or early Bird rights, and the player receives a raise in the first year of the new contract greater than 20% in the first year of the new deal over the last year of his previous one, then his outgoing salary is deemed to be only half of his actual salary. Anderson earned only $2,244,601 last year, so he easily earned more than a 20% raise, and thus is BYC-eligible. His actual salary of $8.7 million was therefore assessed to be $4.35 million for the purposes of the trade calculations, and thus that, […]
