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Today, I would like to point out a possible loophole in this “one time, no penalty” buyout.

What if a team decided to buyout a player in order to renegotiate their contract? Think about it. That would be a very affective way to get Roberto Luongo to a more tradeable contract, or bring Lecavlier’s cap number more inline to his talents.


Example-

Vancouver owes Roberto Luongo roughly 50 million over the next 10 seasons. Now everyone knows that this is likely to be a 6-7 year deal, with a buyout.

Say, Vancouver decides buyout Luongo. Under the old formula it would be 2/3 of what is owed to them, so I would imagine it would be the same for this one time buyout period. Since there is no cap it involved in this one time buyout for teams there is no need to factor in what the cap hit will be.

Step 1- Luongo is bought out for 33million (roughly)
Step 2- Vancouver re-signs Luongo to a 7-year deal worth somewhere in the ballpark of 2.5-3 million per.

Vancouver gets Luongo’s cap number and total salary number down. And you can’t tell me that a Luongo that is making less than 3 million and being owed a lot less money isn’t going to be attractive to a lot of teams.

Luongo gets a touch more money than he would under his old contract.

It really is win-win for both parties providing that Luongo would go along with it.


Other Examples- (factoring in a estimate on money players have lost this season)

Lecavalier

Owed- 8yr/50 million
Buyout- 33 million
Signed- 6yr/18 million = 3 million cap number

Horcoff

Owed- 3yr/14 million
Buyout- 9.25 million
Signed- 4yr/12 million = 3 million cap number

Vanek

Owed- 2yr/11 million
Buyout- 7.25 million
Signed- 5 yr/ 22.5 million = 4.5 million cap number

Nash

Owed- 6 yr/44 million
Buyout- 29 million
Signed- 6 yr/ 27 million = 4.5 million cap number

Kesler

Owed- 4yr/18 million
Buyout- 12 million
Signed- 4 yr/ 10 million = 2.5 million cap number


The biggest complication would be being able to trust that the player would go along with it, but there may be a hole there for teams to exploit.


What do you think?


That’s a wrap

Ian





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