For all the damage Gilbert Arenas did to his reputation by carrying firearms into the Washington Wizards’ locker room for a showdown with a teammate, that wasn’t the reason that his name came up in the last few weeks during a negotiating session between owners and players.
It was because of the Magic veteran’s bloated contract.
Coming off a career-worst season in which he averaged only eight points in 22 minutes per game, and looked as if he was on his last legs, the one-time All-Star guard still has three years at $62.4 million remaining on his deal.
So it was not surprising that when an amnesty clause was discussed between owners and players – a salary-cap lifeline for teams looking to shed a terrible contract – Arenas was viewed as the poster child for such a provision. Although he still doesn’t turn 30 until this coming January, who would want to pay him in excess of $19 million this coming season, almost $21 million next season and $22 million for 2013-14? Probably not his own team, for starters.
In these negotiations, which have broken down indefinitely over the money split, Arenas has taken the place of Allan Houston, whose name was linked to a similar clause in the previous collective bargaining agreement. Once suspended 50 games for his illegal and reckless use of guns with Javaris Crittenton, Arenas has replaced Houston as the face of bad contracts.
But a Knick could still be represented in a new rule, as owners are demanding a “Carmelo Anthony rule.” Such a rule would make it harder for stars like Anthony to force their way out of town and still be rewarded for it by signing a mega-deal extension with a new team, as Anthony did with the Knicks. The proposed rule would wipe out a player’s so-called “Bird rights,” which entitles him to a lucrative extension, if he didn’t get traded by a certain date. In other words, players like Anthony wouldn’t be able to get his cake and eat it, too.
Those proposed clauses are still to be worked out, along with scores of B-list issues, as the all-important A-list money issues continue to stand in the way of a settlement. There’s no end in sight to the impasse. For only the second time in league history, regular-season games will be lost Monday, as the owners’ deadline for canceling the first two weeks expires. Owners and players broke off talks last Tuesday when players rejected a 50-50 split of the $4.3 billion in revenue.
When the two sides on Friday failed to reach an agreement on the terms for returning to the bargaining table Sunday for one last shot at saving the first two weeks, that all but guaranteed the cancellation of the first 100 games, starting with the Nov. 1 season-opener and continuing through Nov. 14.
-Mitch Lawrence, nydailynews.com
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