CelticsStrong
Around the League => Around the NBA => Topic started by: stb on April 14, 2017, 08:42:30 AM
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https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/04/13/blazers-player-secures-500-000-bonus-by-not-taking-3-pointer-in/22038844/?ncid=txtlnkusaolp00000058&
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they should start adding this clause into other contracts - like sully should have been given a bonus if he attempted less than 50 3's per year - haha.
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He went several games without attempting a three. That's putting stats and money over winning. I understand if a guy does it for one meaningless game, but Harkless didn't try one the last 4 or 5 games of the season.
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Proof & point that these incentives can be double edged swords for teams.
Seeing how some of these incentives has seen teams screw over players over the years (in a variety of sports), it's tough to have sympathy when the reverse happens for once.
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I'm glad we don't have guys like that playing on the Celtics.
Enjoy your money dude but don't expect to get many offers the next time you're a FA.
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Who say basketball players are dumb?
I personally applaud the man for defying stereotypes.
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I'm glad we don't have guys like that playing on the Celtics.
Enjoy your money dude but don't expect to get many offers the next time you're a FA.
He just signed a four-year deal, so I think he's good.
Furthermore:
1) His team made the playoffs, and had clinched a spot by the time his final two games rolled around (he didn't take a 3 the final three games, not five.)
2) He went a combined 4-17 from 3 the ten games prior to the three he eschewed 3-pointers, so perhaps the incentive was getting to him, and he served his team best by not taking them.
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I'm glad we don't have guys like that playing on the Celtics.
Enjoy your money dude but don't expect to get many offers the next time you're a FA.
He just signed a four-year deal, so I think he's good.
Furthermore:
1) His team made the playoffs, and had clinched a spot by the time his final two games rolled around (he didn't take a 3 the final three games, not five.)
2) He went a combined 4-17 from 3 the ten games prior to the three he eschewed 3-pointers, so perhaps the incentive was getting to him, and he served his team best by not taking them.
He stopped shooting with four games left, at which point the Blazers making the playoffs was very much in jeopardy.
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I can't say I'm all that bothered for a couple reasons....one is that the incentive was clearly to hit a reasonable percentage of threes, which he did.
Another was that essentially he settled for higher percentage shots and shot well. I'm not sure I see the problem there.
Another was that no harm was done and they made the playoffs.
I'd take this problem with Smart in a heart beat.
I'm not sure it makes sense for a team to be like "Well. You met this incentive all season but in the last few days if you could just totally ignore that we'd really prefer that."
If it means so much to them amend the contract or write a new one and agree he met the incentive.
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I'm glad we don't have guys like that playing on the Celtics.
Enjoy your money dude but don't expect to get many offers the next time you're a FA.
He just signed a four-year deal, so I think he's good.
Furthermore:
1) His team made the playoffs, and had clinched a spot by the time his final two games rolled around (he didn't take a 3 the final three games, not five.)
2) He went a combined 4-17 from 3 the ten games prior to the three he eschewed 3-pointers, so perhaps the incentive was getting to him, and he served his team best by not taking them.
He stopped shooting with four games left, at which point the Blazers making the playoffs was very much in jeopardy.
My mistake. He didn't play the final regular season game. So he didn't take any his last three games played.
That said, he was still 4-17 over his prior ten games. So a) he wasn't shooting them well, and b) he hadn't been taking a large quantity of threes per game in some time. Post All-Star break, he took 1 or fewer 3-point attempts in 15 of his 24 games. He only attempted 35 3's post-ASB.
Did he not take a 3 his final three games because of the incentive? Probably. Was that decision bad for his team? That's the part I think is questionable. He cut his attempts in half during the period the Blazers were playing his their best basketball, while shooting a higher percentage, and on the season, took about 1 fewer attempts per game in a win than a loss.
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I'm glad we don't have guys like that playing on the Celtics.
Enjoy your money dude but don't expect to get many offers the next time you're a FA.
He just signed a four-year deal, so I think he's good.
Furthermore:
1) His team made the playoffs, and had clinched a spot by the time his final two games rolled around (he didn't take a 3 the final three games, not five.)
2) He went a combined 4-17 from 3 the ten games prior to the three he eschewed 3-pointers, so perhaps the incentive was getting to him, and he served his team best by not taking them.
He stopped shooting with four games left, at which point the Blazers making the playoffs was very much in jeopardy.
For some, money is everything...$500,000 is a lot of everything :)
Rak
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The Blazers offered him the incentive - and we're supposed to criticize him for responding to it? That just doesn't make sense.
The whole point of incentives is that they change behavior. If the Blazers didn't want that to happen, and/or didn't understand that nearly any incentive contract might create a conflict of interest between the two parties, they shouldn't have offered the deal.
Not that they should be upset. He shot 18% and 28% on 3s in the previous two years, on lower volume. It looks like the deal achieved what they wanted, in terms of overall performance for the year.
And as SL points out, if he was in a slump he *shouldn't* have been taking those shots, even from the team's perspective.
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I mean, Harkless probably should've ignored it and not changed his approach, but it takes two to sign a contract. Maybe the Blazers should've thought through giving a player a direct financial incentive to play differently in a way that might be detrimental to the team.
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The Blazers offered him the incentive - and we're supposed to criticize him for responding to it? That just doesn't make sense.
The whole point of incentives is that they change behavior. If the Blazers didn't want that to happen, and/or didn't understand that nearly any incentive contract might create a conflict of interest between the two parties, they shouldn't have offered the deal.
Not that they should be upset. He shot 18% and 28% on 3s in the previous two years, on lower volume. It looks like the deal achieved what they wanted, in terms of overall performance for the year.
And as SL points out, if he was in a slump he *shouldn't* have been taking those shots, even from the team's perspective.
There's an implicit responsibility to help your team to the best of your ability.
Let's say IT had a clause in his contract rewarding him for 90% FT%. He's at 90.1% with 5 games left.
Are you cool with him refusing to drive to the basket, and immediately getting rid of the ball in end of game intentional foul situations?
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I can think of a few players on the Celtics for whom we should offer an incentive not to shoot 3-pointers.
Mike
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The Blazers offered him the incentive - and we're supposed to criticize him for responding to it? That just doesn't make sense.
The whole point of incentives is that they change behavior. If the Blazers didn't want that to happen, and/or didn't understand that nearly any incentive contract might create a conflict of interest between the two parties, they shouldn't have offered the deal.
Not that they should be upset. He shot 18% and 28% on 3s in the previous two years, on lower volume. It looks like the deal achieved what they wanted, in terms of overall performance for the year.
And as SL points out, if he was in a slump he *shouldn't* have been taking those shots, even from the team's perspective.
There's an implicit responsibility to help your team to the best of your ability.
Let's say IT had a clause in his contract rewarding him for 90% FT%. He's at 90.1% with 5 games left.
Are you cool with him refusing to drive to the basket, and immediately getting rid of the ball in end of game intentional foul situations?
If he'd been shooting 65% from the line in his last 10 games? I don't think I could reasonably criticize him.
If his decisions had no material impact on the outcome of the game? Same.
If he did do this in a meaningful situation, then IT himself would suffer consequences, both in reputation and future contract dollars. I suspect those considerations would be dispositive - IT simply would not do what you're suggesting, for all kinds of reasons.
And, it appears, neither did Harkless. His coach and GM know about the contract. If he'd done something truly adverse from a team perspective, he'd suffer the consequences either now or in the future.
Players face conflicts between individual goals and winning all the time. But we recognize that. We didn't criticize Bird's teammates feeding him the ball to get 60, because it probably didn't MATTER (though even there, that game wasn't a blowout). And until I hear something more conclusive about what Harkless did, I'm reserving judgment, because on the face of it this falls into the same category.
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Moe didn't attempt a trey in the last 4 games of the season (although he sat one of those games).
The best case scenario would be for the agent to contact the team after that 4th to last game (first of zero attempts) and say, "Hey, my guy is at 35.1% on the season with 3 games left. Can we agree right now to get that money? Or should I advise him to stop shooting 3's over the next few games?" Or can we settle on $400k right now regardless of his end %?
In which case, I think it's the team's responsibility to say "Yeah, you basically held up your end of the agreement, so let's just pay you for the benefit of the team since we are fighting for a playoff birth if we can mutually agree to not discuss this publicly."
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Moe didn't attempt a trey in the last 4 games of the season (although he sat one of those games).
The best case scenario would be for the agent to contact the team after that 4th to last game (first of zero attempts) and say, "Hey, my guy is at 35.1% on the season with 3 games left. Can we agree right now to get that money? Or should I advise him to stop shooting 3's over the next few games?" Or can we settle on $400k right now regardless of his end %?
In which case, I think it's the team's responsibility to say "Yeah, you basically held up your end of the agreement, so let's just pay you for the benefit of the team since we are fighting for a playoff birth if we can mutually agree to not discuss this publicly."
Agreed. It would surprise me if a conversation like this did not take place, if not between the agent and team, then at least between the player and coach or GM.
I mean, if he ended up at 34.7% because he was trying to get the Blazers into the playoffs, and they didn't pay up, they'd lose more than the value of the bonus in damaged relationships.
Also, in the last two games of the season the Blazers rested their best players.
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The Blazers offered him the incentive - and we're supposed to criticize him for responding to it? That just doesn't make sense.
The whole point of incentives is that they change behavior. If the Blazers didn't want that to happen, and/or didn't understand that nearly any incentive contract might create a conflict of interest between the two parties, they shouldn't have offered the deal.
Not that they should be upset. He shot 18% and 28% on 3s in the previous two years, on lower volume. It looks like the deal achieved what they wanted, in terms of overall performance for the year.
And as SL points out, if he was in a slump he *shouldn't* have been taking those shots, even from the team's perspective.
There's an implicit responsibility to help your team to the best of your ability.
Let's say IT had a clause in his contract rewarding him for 90% FT%. He's at 90.1% with 5 games left.
Are you cool with him refusing to drive to the basket, and immediately getting rid of the ball in end of game intentional foul situations?
easy way to fix that is just give the guy a contract rider granting him the bonus with 5 games left no matter what happens in the final 5 games.
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The Blazers offered him the incentive - and we're supposed to criticize him for responding to it? That just doesn't make sense.
The whole point of incentives is that they change behavior. If the Blazers didn't want that to happen, and/or didn't understand that nearly any incentive contract might create a conflict of interest between the two parties, they shouldn't have offered the deal.
Not that they should be upset. He shot 18% and 28% on 3s in the previous two years, on lower volume. It looks like the deal achieved what they wanted, in terms of overall performance for the year.
And as SL points out, if he was in a slump he *shouldn't* have been taking those shots, even from the team's perspective.
There's an implicit responsibility to help your team to the best of your ability.
Let's say IT had a clause in his contract rewarding him for 90% FT%. He's at 90.1% with 5 games left.
Are you cool with him refusing to drive to the basket, and immediately getting rid of the ball in end of game intentional foul situations?
easy way to fix that is just give the guy a contract rider granting him the bonus with 5 games left no matter what happens in the final 5 games.
In a world that doesn't have a CBA which has specific rules about renegotiations, it is. But that's not the world that Harkless and Portland found themselves in.
The better way to structure a contract is to just key the incentive to the percentage after X amount of attempts. For example: Shoot 35% in your first 150 attempts, congrats! Anything you do afterwards, positive or negative, doesn't matter. That way you don't have players choosing between individual and team goals at the end of the season.
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The Blazers offered him the incentive - and we're supposed to criticize him for responding to it? That just doesn't make sense.
The whole point of incentives is that they change behavior. If the Blazers didn't want that to happen, and/or didn't understand that nearly any incentive contract might create a conflict of interest between the two parties, they shouldn't have offered the deal.
Not that they should be upset. He shot 18% and 28% on 3s in the previous two years, on lower volume. It looks like the deal achieved what they wanted, in terms of overall performance for the year.
And as SL points out, if he was in a slump he *shouldn't* have been taking those shots, even from the team's perspective.
There's an implicit responsibility to help your team to the best of your ability.
Let's say IT had a clause in his contract rewarding him for 90% FT%. He's at 90.1% with 5 games left.
Are you cool with him refusing to drive to the basket, and immediately getting rid of the ball in end of game intentional foul situations?
easy way to fix that is just give the guy a contract rider granting him the bonus with 5 games left no matter what happens in the final 5 games.
You'd still have the incentive in those games, you've just pushed it back. (And the Blazers' games before were more important than the last 5, since after game 80 they'd clinched and the last two didn't matter).
Action781's thoughts above are the most reasonable IMO. If the team sees a possible issue, they offer to make good even if he ends up at 34%+ somewhere reasonably close. They look good, and there's no distortion in Harkless's decisions.
I can't recall specifics, but I think Belichick has done things to make good on incentive clauses for guys who are close, at least occasionally. Incentive clauses are much more common in the NFL.
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Can you imagine him passing up on an open three with the game on the line? Or the coach using Dame and CJ as decoys in order to free him up for a game winning three? Would he even shoot it?