Marty Burns: No pay, no foul

[kingskings!]

1) JJ was the PRIMARY piece New Orleans tried to pick up. A veteran to help fill Mashburn's shoes.

BS. NO was trying to move a player off their roster (Wesley).

2) if it even matters, he is only moving a couple of hundred miles.

Please tell me how happy you'd be to move "a couple of hundred miles" to keep your paycheck and how little it would disrupt your personal life.

3) yes, the difference is that Chris Webber reported. That is why he is BETTER than JJ.

No, it does not make Chris Webber better at all. He whined and posed the whole way. And if you missed it the first time, he replayed it in living color for us all during his last contract negotiations. It does make him want the paycheck more. Kinda reminds me of an old joke that has a punchline something like "we've already established the fact that your mother and sister are whores, now we're negotiating the price."

4) Chris Webber was traded from a team he wanted to play for, on the coast he wanted to play on, and away from one of his his best friends in the league (Howard).

See above.

5) you are paid millions of dollars to bounce a stupid ball. That comes with reponsibilities. Suck it up and play.

Wrong. At this moment in time JJ is being paid NOTHING to play basketball because he's not playing BB. There are any number of players who ARE being paid to play NBA ball who either aren't playing or aren't playing up to their capabilities, would you like to discuss them because they ARE getting paid unlike JJ.

6) JJ is eating up New Orleans cap room. He is embarrassing them as a franchise. He is saying they are not good enough for him and potentially throwing further doubt on their status as a destination franchsie for future FAs. . If such conduct were commonplace, NO bad team would have any hope of getting better. He is a PROFESSIONAL, in theory. Such conduct is not only unprofessional, it is just flat out wrong.

JJ is only eating up room because NO chose to complete a trade where they knew the player they were trading for would not report (again, they had the option to rescind the trade when he didn't report for his physical and they CHOSE to complete the trade anyway).

7) If you can't deal with trades, drafts and other rules for player movement, then you should go watch college ball. They are some of the absolute pillars around which pro sports leagues are built and the only hope for competitive balance. If Webber (or Richmond before him) had gone as far as JJ, the Kings would probably be playing in another city now. Luckily, as unhappy as he was he didn;t decide he was bigger than the game, the league, the CBA.

WTF? College ball is dirtier than the NBA by nine miles...and I love college ball. I can't believe that you brought up college ball and Webber in the same argument. Isn't that Webber's first known mis-step? I agree with you that college ball is more exciting and the talent is more equally spread out, but come on? Is college ball the pure and shining pinnacle the NBA should strive for? Your hypothesis on Webber's motivation is wrong (in my opinion) he is the epitome of a hired gun (but that's my bias showing).

Getting back to your original point..if you can't deal with trades etc...then get out of the NBA and I suspect that, inadvertently, you've made my point...I suspect that JJ is a firm believer in your philosophy and that he can't, personally, take the rigors of #7 any longer.

8) Marty Burns writes crap like this all the time because his team, his franchise, never faces these problems. Its like the Yankees pooh-poohing the salary disparity in baseball. Its selfish hypocrisy.

Whatever....

 

[slugking50]

Please tell me how happy you'd be to move "a couple of hundred miles" to keep your paycheck and how little it would disrupt your personal life.

I and 99% of people would shut their pieholes and play for such an inconvenience and getting only 2.4 million in return.....He can very easily work out any problem he had. I sure wish I was in his position.

Poor lil JJ

Crocadile tears....

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

... Please tell me how happy you'd be to move "a couple of hundred miles" to keep your paycheck and how little it would disrupt your personal life...

Oh please... Spare me. It's a job; What do you think might happen to me if I told my CO that I didn't feel like going on this deployment because I'd be too far from my son? I'll bet that'd go over real well... Sorry, but you won't ever hear me taking pity on someone who wants to be a punk and not live up to the terms of his contract; blame it on a military upbringing, if you must... Jackson signed a contract which stated that he will accept being traded; that means that he doesn't get to refuse the trade.

And no, the Hornets do not, in fact, get to replace Jackson with someone from the CBA, because they are only permitted to have a limited number of players on their roster, and Jackson, regardless of whether he plays or not, is on theirs. Which means that they can't replace him because, as far as the NBA is concerned, he's still occupying a roster spot, and they can't just add another spot just because Jackson wants to be a little *****.

... Getting back to your original point..if you can't deal with trades etc...then get out of the NBA and I suspect that, inadvertently, you've made my point...I suspect that JJ is a firm believer in your philosophy and that he can't, personally, take the rigors of #7 any longer...

I call bull****; I'll bet dollars to donuts that, whatever rigors he can no longer take, he will somehow magically find a way to suck it up if he gets traded to a playoff team... which not only makes him a whiny *****, but also makes him a ****ing hypocrite.

Like I said before, if he's sincere about being fed up with the NBA, and if he has an ounce of integrity in his body, he'll retire and never come back. If he accepts a trade to anywhere, it will just serve as further proof of how big a punk he is.

 

[Alacron]

There is nothing New Orleans should have had to "risk" -- THEY played by the rules. Rules negotiated between the league, the teams and the players union. Rules which JJ has agreed to abide by, except when it doesn't suit him apparently....
New Orleans traded away the longest tenured member of their franchise to get him. Traded away a guy who was in many ways their Doug Christie -- veteran combo guard leader that has meant a lot to the franchise. You can't just rescind that mid-season trade. Oh yes, "sorry about that David, come on back and give us your best". Right.

But David is also a veteran professional who has agreed to abide by the rules. He should come on back and give his best, right?
~~

 

[mcsluggo]

Oh please... Spare me. It's a job; What do you think might happen to me if I told my CO that I didn't feel like going on this deployment because I'd be too far from my son? I'll bet that'd go over real well... Sorry, but you won't ever hear me taking pity on someone who wants to be a punk and not live up to the terms of his contract; blame it on a military upbringing, if you must... Jackson signed a contract which stated that he will accept being traded; that means that he doesn't get to refuse the trade.

That is plain and simply wrong. He signed a contract which stipulated that he may be traded: since he has been traded, this means that he can no longer demand that houston pay him. That is all. However, he ALWAYS has the option to withdraw his services entirely.

The military is the ONLY job where you are not allowed to withdraw your services at a later date, except in cases where payment for the services has already taken place.

 

[Bricklayer]

That is plain and simply wrong. He signed a contract which stipulated that he may be traded: since he has been traded, this means that he can no longer demand that houston pay him. That is all. However, he ALWAYS has the option to withdraw his services entirely.

The military is the ONLY job where you are not allowed to withdraw your services at a later date, except in cases where payment for the services has already taken place.

No actually, that is simply wrong:

Jim Jackson is, or was, an asset.

He is also among the most ridiculously overpaid people on the planet. Now how do they get so overpaid? Well, they play in a fabulously successful sporting league. And how does the fabulously successful sporting league get so successful? In significant part because it has developed a set of rules, bargained for between the owners and players, which allow both sides to benefit, and critically also allow for competitive balance among the various teams. Fans in Sacramento care as much about the league as fans in New York because their team has hope as long as players follow the rules. If players do not follow the rules, do not get off that plane to the bad franchise, THE ENTIRE LEAGUE suffers from their conduct.

Now to the punchline.

Jim Jackson has committed at least 4 wrongs in the course of his selfishness:

1) he is guilty of fraud. He signed a contract with an explicit stipulation that he could be traded to any team, and obviously never had any intention of honoring that clause. He should have to pay back not only the remaining years on the contract, but some percentage of the last year and a half as well. He could NOT have signed that contract for as much money if people knew that he was including an absolute trade veto/be a little ***** clause. Nobody would have wanted to pay him that much money if they knew they were stuck with him. He may have still been able to sign A contract, but almost certainly for less money or a shorter term. He signed his contract under false pretenses. If he wanted total control of his future he should have signed one year deals at most.

2) he is guilty of breach of contract. Obviously. That, by the way, is illegal in case you did not know. If people cannot be trusted to live up to the written agreements they enter into, then the whole economy goes to hell as nobody can be trusted to do anything that they promise to do. More specifically in the NBA setting, the entire bargained for structure of player movement, bargained for BTW precisely to allow small markets/struggling teams like New orleans to compete and recover, collapses. Of COURSE nobody wants to go to New Orleans. But that is not relevant. If everybody actually starts refusing to do so then the Hornets franchise is dead and can never recover, just as Sacramento would have been dead and likely relocated if Mitch or Webb had taken the next selfish step from unhappiness to outright refusal to play for a dregs team. Without hope, the fans go away. JJ is a minor player at this point, but that's irrelevant. He has hurt the entire league through his actions. If he were a superstar, it would be a huge problem. As it is, it is still a problem.

3) He owes New Orleans some amount of money for services not rendered. You see, while JJ does not seem to feel he is bound by the CBA, everybody else in the league is. Thus New Orleans is now lacking a player they were depending upon, and have no option to replace him beyond the rules set down in the CBA. Thus instead of a steady veteran player in Wesley, or an equally steady veteran player in Jackson, at best they can pick up a crappy player sitting on the waiver wire. That is NOT what they intended or deserved. If it were, they would have traded Wesley to a team for somebody with an expiring contract or somebody injured rather than for another aging vet with another year left on his deal who just happens to play a position where they lost their starter for the year. Any money saved does New Orleans very little good this year, as there are simply no players left to use it on. JJ has left the Hornets high and dry in the midst of an historically bad season and helped make it even worse. If Mike Bibby stormed off tommorow and refused to play anymore this year we would NOT be just as well off getting the money back from his contract as we would be with him playing. We would have no one to spend it on. NBA players are not freely replaceable assets. Everybody but JJ is bound by the CBA and can only replace players at certain times in certain ways according to vastly detailed bargained for regulations. This is NOT a free market. NOT a for hire economy.

4) He has irrevocably harmed the Hornets franchise. Not only has he cost them wins, or at least competitiveness this season to help hold together their fanbase, but he has effectively slandered the franchise by declaring it beneath him. He leads by example. And that latter charge is especially serious because not only does it further damage the Hornets fanbase -- nobody wants to play here so what's there to cheer for? -- but it also is a black mark that must be overcome in future player transactions. What player wants to go play for a frachise that nobody else wants to play for? That players will in fact breach their contracts to avoid? Must be something really awful about the place. Through his actions JJ relegates the Hornets to second class franchise status with a smaller pool of available talent to choose from in putting together their team. The Lakers get to pick from every player in the league. The Hornets only get to pick from every player in the league willing to play for them. As mentioned above, longtime Kings fans know this syndrome. We've been there.

The Players Union should feel no compulsion to intervene on his behalf. He is, after all, breaching terms of a standard NBA contract that the union has negotiated for. And in doing so he has hurt one of the franchises in the league, and thus the league itself, and through the league the players. It certainly does not benefit the remainder of the players who still honor their contracts and intend to continue playing in the league to have one of its franchises damaged and fans potentially lost. Every viable NBA franchise provides another 12-15 jobs to members of the union worth about $50 million in salaries on average. Besides which, by doing all of this is JJ is effectively no longer an NBA player.

The League should bar Jackson from ever playing in the NBA again if he persists. He has blatantly violated the terms of the CBA, and thus the terms to which all players agree before being allowed to play in the NBA, and damaged a franchise. Furthermore he has shown a lack of respect for the sanctity of an NBA contract and should never be allowed to have the opportuinity to do so again. Competitive balance is destroyed if you allow a player to simply unilaterally breach his contract whenever he does not want to play for a particular team and then return to play for the team of his choice.

 

[4cwebb]

Jim Jackson has committed at least 4 wrongs in the course of his selfishness:

1) he is guilty of fraud. He signed a contract with an explicit stipulation that he could be traded to any team, and obviously never had any intention of honoring that clause. He should have to pay back not only the remaining years on the contract, but some percentage of the last year and a half as well. He could NOT have signed that contract for as much money if people knew that he was including an absolute trade veto/be a little ***** clause. Nobody would have wanted to pay him that much money if they knew they were stuck with him. He may have still been able to sign A contract, but almost certainly for less money or a shorter term. He signed his contract under false pretenses. If he wanted total control of his future he should have signed one year deals at most.

This is more of a half truth with some spin than the entire truth, imho. To impute an intention to JJax that he would not have honored the trade clause under any circumstances is incorrect. It doesn't make JJax's actions right that he would have honored the clause had he been traded to any team with a shot of making the playoffs (I'm presuming he would have reported and participated on any team with a shot at the postseason for argument's sake), but it does mean that we cannot impute to him an intention to not honor his contract when he signed it. I do agree that his contract would have been reduced (or probably never executed) had he bargained for a clause allowing him to approve of any trade -- JJax doesn't have that type of leverage as a player.

And I'm not entirely certain, but I don't think that JJax has been paid his contract up front, so he has no obligation to refund money which he has not yet been paid. As for refunding money, I'd agree with the argument that he wouldn't have received as high a contract had he been upfront about his demands, but since the contract was executed and he performed according to its terms from a provision of services perspective, I think JJax would have a good argument that the money he has been paid has been properly earned under the contract.

2) he is guilty of breach of contract. Obviously. That, by the way, is illegal in case you did not know. If people cannot be trusted to live up to the written agreements they enter into, then the whole economy goes to hell as nobody can be trusted to do anything that they promise to do. More specifically in the NBA setting, the entire bargained for structure of player movement, bargained for BTW precisely to allow small markets/struggling teams like New orleans to compete and recover, collapses. Of COURSE nobody wants to go to New Orleans. But that is not relevant. If everybody actually starts refusing to do so then the Hornets franchise is dead and can never recover, just as Sacramento would have been dead and likely relocated if Mitch or Webb had taken the next selfish step from unhappiness to outright refusal to play for a dregs team. Without hope, the fans go away. JJ is a minor player at this point, but that's irrelevant. He has hurt the entire league through his actions. If he were a superstar, it would be a huge problem. As it is, it is still a problem.

The point of contracting, though, is to set forth remedies in the instance of breach. Due to JJax's actions, which previously were considered to be such a minor risk due to the large amounts of money being paid to players for playing a game, NO has exercised it's various remedies. Some view these remedies as inadequate, but that is something to remedy in the next contract. In this instance NO just has to live with the "inadequate" remedies. And I think you are overstating the effect of JJax's actions, but that is largely due to JJax's standing as a player in the NBA. I do believe that if any superstar caliber player pulled this type of move, there would be much more uproar.

3) He owes New Orleans some amount of money for services not rendered. You see, while JJ does not seem to feel he is bound by the CBA, everybody else in the league is. Thus New Orleans is now lacking a player they were depending upon, and have no option to replace him beyond the rules set down in the CBA. Thus instead of a steady veteran player in Wesley, or an equally steady veteran player in Jackson, at best they can pick up a crappy player sitting on the waiver wire. That is NOT what they intended or deserved. If it were, they would have traded Wesley to a team for somebody with an expiring contract or somebody injured rather than for another aging vet with another year left on his deal who just happens to play a position where they lost their starter for the year. Any money saved does New Orleans very little good this year, as there are simply no players left to use it on. JJ has left the Hornets high and dry in the midst of an historically bad season and helped make it even worse. If Mike Bibby stormed off tommorow and refused to play anymore this year we would NOT be just as well off getting the money back from his contract as we would be with him playing. We would have no one to spend it on. NBA players are not freely replaceable assets. Everybody but JJ is bound by the CBA and can only replace players at certain times in certain ways according to vastly detailed bargained for regulations. This is NOT a free market. NOT a for hire economy.

Again, NO's remedies under the contract are stipulated, and JJax paying them for not performing is not one of them (I presume). Perhaps the league should look into this when the CBA is renegotiated to give players more incentive to show up and play for teams that they would otherwise not like to play for. I'm sure if the CBA called for a player like JJax not just to forfeit his salary, but to also pay some sort of measured penalty due to his actions, then he might reconsider. Since that is not currently the case, I think NO is up a creek without a paddle, so to speak.

4) He has irrevocably harmed the Hornets franchise. Not only has he cost them wins, or at least competitiveness this season to help hold together their fanbase, but he has effectively slandered the franchise by declaring it beneath him. He leads by example. And that latter charge is especially serious because not only does it further damage the Hornets fanbase -- nobody wants to play here so what's there to cheer for? -- but it also is a black mark that must be overcome in future player transactions. What player wants to go play for a frachise that nobody else wants to play for? That players will in fact breach their contracts to avoid? Must be something really awful about the place. Through his actions JJ relegates the Hornets to second class franchise status with a smaller pool of available talent to choose from in putting together their team. The Lakers get to pick from every player in the league. The Hornets only get to pick from every player in the league willing to play for them. As mentioned above, longtime Kings fans know this syndrome. We've been there.

Whether or not a player like JJax carries this much weight I've no idea. I wonder if other NBA players were polled how they would react to JJax's decision. I know if I were a player I'd call him crazy for turning down that much money to play a game, but that's just me. My guess would be that while plenty of players would not be thrilled to be traded to the Hornets, they would take Slim's view of sucking it up/being a man and just play out their contracts because they'd be crazy to forfeit the ability to earn that much money and financially secure the future not just for themselves, but for their entire family.

The Players Union should feel no compulsion to intervene on his behalf. He is, after all, breaching terms of a standard NBA contract that the union has negotiated for. And in doing so he has hurt one of the franchises in the league, and thus the league itself, and through the league the players. It certainly does not benefit the remainder of the players who still honor their contracts and intend to continue playing in the league to have one of its franchises damaged and fans potentially lost. Every viable NBA franchise provides another 12-15 jobs to members of the union worth about $50 million in salaries on average. Besides which, by doing all of this is JJ is effectively no longer an NBA player.

The League should bar Jackson from ever playing in the NBA again if he persists. He has blatantly violated the terms of the CBA, and thus the terms to which all players agree before being allowed to play in the NBA, and damaged a franchise. Furthermore he has shown a lack of respect for the sanctity of an NBA contract and should never be allowed to have the opportuinity to do so again. Competitive balance is destroyed if you allow a player to simply unilaterally breach his contract whenever he does not want to play for a particular team and then return to play for the team of his choice.

I don't disagree with this last portion all that much. If the league and player's union want to disown JJax, that is a risk he has taken, and I don't see that he would have much of an argument otherwise.

 

[4cwebb]

Text of an article from ESPN.com below: The part I wanted to comment on is the first paragraph -- if Jackson wanted the right to be consulted before being traded, then he should have bargained for that right. Not being consulted is not a worthy excuse in this situation. I still maintain that his response, while not admirable, doesn't really bother me since he is willing to forfeit his contract.

Jim Jackson said he was never consulted before the Houston Rockets traded him to the New Orleans Hornets last month and added he has no intention of joining the New Orleans squad.

The Toledo native and former Ohio State standout told The Blade of Toledo, Ohio that he is not interested in moving to New Orleans, which would be his eleventh NBA team in 13 seasons.






Jackson said he was surprised and disappointed by the news of his trade and he isn't interested in starting over.


Jackson was suspended by New Orleans for failing to report following the Dec. 27th trade. He has lost $220,000, or $27,500 per game, for the eight games he has missed. Jackson is scheduled to earn $2.4 million this season.

Jackson said he hopes to be playing for another team soon, although he would not discuss specifics.

 

[VF21]

Text of an article from ESPN.com below: The part I wanted to comment on is the first paragraph -- if Jackson wanted the right to be consulted before being traded, then he should have bargained for that right. Not being consulted is not a worthy excuse in this situation.

I think we're going to see more and more situations where players do insist on "trade approval" clauses in their contracts. The days of trusting that a team will do the "right thing," whatever the "right thing" might be, are long gone. In fact, I think they went out the door the same day collective bargaining came in.

 

[Rockmeister]

I mean, who would want to be stuck in New Orleans for the next three years?

I would love to play basketball for millions of dollars, even for a team that had the worst basketball record.

 

[Gargamel]

Seeing Payton cause the restructuring of a trade because he felt "diss'd" for being sent to an undesirable team makes Gargy not too sympathetic to JJ's plight. In a perfect world, he either retires or acts like a man and reports. I'm also not surprised that JJ would do something like this being that he held the Mavs hostage for months while "negotiating" his rookie contract.

Here's an article on him from 11/03. Doesn't really elucidate anything new, but he makes quotes suggestive of being willing to play the hand that's dealt him.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=bucher_ric&id=1659315