8.28.2017

Back-End Compensation: It is the Only Solution



In the absence of meaningful updates, I've been reading blog posts from Cleveland Cavalier fans. They’re framing up the hip injury as potentially  career-ending. It could be. But let's keep in mind one thing.

 According to the Celtics, Thomas’s official injury is a right femoral-acetabular impingement with a labral tear. He originally suffered the injury in the third quarter of Boston’s March 15 game against the Timberwolves. Thomas missed the next two games against the Nets and 76ers, but had appeared in every game since then.

Boston Globe on 5/21/17

This means that Isaiah Thomas played 12 more regular season games and 15 more playoff games on the same bum hip that eventually ended his season. Did he aggravate the injury in the playoffs against Cleveland? Possibly. Was there any sign of diminished play prior to the point of aggravation? Before you answer, keep in mind IT exploded for 53 against Washington in one game during the prior series.

Most of us aren't doctors and almost none of us have seen the X-rays. But this doesn't mean we're ignorant.

What do we know?

We know Isaiah Thomas has one year left on a contract. Boston wasn't going to pay him max dollars, whether he was healthy, injured, or somewhere in between. Nor was Cleveland. Once he injured his hip, almost no one in the league would either. This is unfortunate for IT, but it's a fact of life. How is this relevant?

IT was most likely a one-year rental for Cleveland. LeBron James will likely depart at the end of next season, and even a healthy Isaiah Thomas is unlikely to keep him in Cleveland, unless Cleveland wins it all, which they won't. What about the Brooklyn pic? Doesn't that sweeten the pot enough for LeBron to stay? I don't think so. What it does do, however, is assuage LeBron's conscience, allowing him to leave under the belief that Cleveland now has ample ground to rebuild.

So no LeBron, no IT.

That's what Cleveland is facing next summer.

And hence why Cavs management is going back to the well, hat in hand, asking Boston for more compensation.

The problem is that Boston already compensated Cleveland for the IT risk. The Brooklyn pic, after all, is unprotected. Now Cleveland is asking Boston to compensate them for things that haven't happened, and may not happen at all. Will IT require season-ending surgery? Who knows. Will he ever play basketball again? Probably. Will he be as effective? Who knows.

The risk for Boston is that they give Cleveland more assets, and everything works out hunky-dory for IT and Cleveland. Oh, look, it's March 2018, and IT didn't require surgery and he's looking as good as ever. Ooops. That's too bad for Boston. They just gave up Jaylen Brown, Jason Tatum, or another first round pick. Hey, Cleveland. Can we please get that asset back? No? Darn it.

Maybe the Cavs planned all this. Maybe they were intending to cry foul during the physical, and then use the physical as a pretext to extort more assets. But we don't know that either. All we can do is see how IT's injury heals. It seems unlikely the Cavs would shut down IT's season this summer, and force him to undergo surgery, at least until they give him a couple of more months to heal and rehabilitate. This is why yesterday's post was more than tongue in cheek. Let's see how the IT injury plays out in Cleveland, and then have Boston offer back-end compensation, after the season is over. The two teams can agree on the parameters of the compensation now, much like I outlined yesterday.

Blindly providing new assets, more assets, simply because things may not work out optimally for a player with one-year left on his contract is not only silly, it’s bad business. You don’t just relinquish assets because you have them. You relinquish assets when it makes good business sense, and we won't know what makes sense until we see how this drama unfolds during the regular season in Cleveland.

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