Seems like a no-brainer for the majority-up-front logic.

Then again, these cats aren't being hired for their mathematical wizardry...

Uh no....

Why do you think they let you take your lotto winnings yearly or in a much smaller lump sum. You factor in potential for investment and inflation 60 million fronloaded is worth more than 60 million backloaded over a span of 5 years or whatever.

Posted by MS:

Some of you guys serious with your reasoning? The money is the same you get more upfront as opposed to later so your not liable if the player gets injured to pay more later and it's easier to trade them......

This is one ****ing stupid conversation, how do you convince a player to get money that he can put in the bank and watch it appreciate? 60 million is 60 million your not worth less if you take more upfront

Teams don't pay as much up front because as some have pointed out, it costs more to do so. Contracts with annual increases in salary are cheaper for the franchise (they are essentially giving out less money).

This is the case because when you have the money now, you can deposit it in an interest-bearing bank account and yield interest instead of waiting for the bulk of your money.

For a franchise like the Knicks though, frontloading would at least make sense since we have the money and tend to get stuck with big contracts down the line.

Yeah, cap space is also a big part of it. After all, if you don't have the cap space to pay that 1st year amount, you can't do it period.

If you can afford to do it though (whether you are under the cap by that large of an amount or if you have bird rights), it is better of course for your long-term cap situation to do the frontload.




[Edited by - s3231 on 07-12-2007 7:55 PM]

Posted by TheGame:

Posted by islesfan:

I still think that cap space is the primary reason why teams can or can't do it.

I agree that this is probably the bigger issue. For instance, for Lewis' contract, the Magic would have to start him out at $24 million this year. They don't have the cap space to do that. You basically have to have enough cap space to pay somebody the last year of their deal first. Most teams only have enough cap space to pay the 1st year amount.

Lewis is a bad example. They severely overpaid. Clearly, frontloading mostly applies to resigning your own players when you're over the cap but hope to be under the cap in a few years and a few million here and there could be the difference between signing a stud or signing an MLE player.