Posted by iain on 5/5/2012 11:58:00 PM (view original):
Can we all agree that the highest single season salary (exclusive of signing bonus) should be the MO season?
Does that not fundamentally make contracts backloaded?
I wouldn't necessarily agree with the first sentence.
When you offer a contract with a mutual option that you fully intend to decline, you are making an explicit decision that you are throwing away 25% of the final season contract value. So for example, if it's $12m for the final season . . . you're eating the $3m buyout, essentially saying "I'm willing to accept that I have a $182m budget in Sx."
I'm not saying that that's necessarily a bad thing, but it should not be an automatic thing. It all depends on the both your immediate circumstances, and what you anticipate to be your future circumstances in Sx.