Buyout silly season ends this weekend
The NBA’s silly season — and many would say the most sketchy part of the regular season — ends this weekend.
The period between the Feb. 6 trade deadline and March 1 is what’s come to be known as “buyout season,” when players engineer departures from teams going nowhere so that they can sign on with playoff-bound teams and have something legitimate to play for in the final 25 or so games.
The timing rub is that players have to be free of their former teams and signed with their new ones by March 1 to be playoff eligible, if they’ve been in the NBA at all this season. So there is just one weekend left for any moves to be made.
It feels like it’s been a bit more eventful — impact players joining good teams — this year than in the past, and it’s a bit of unsavoury business that the league could probably do without.
It works, generally, like this: A disgruntled or underused veteran on a bad team, looking to re-energize his season and himself, negotiates what amounts to a separation agreement with one team so that he can sign with a better one and perhaps play a bigger role on a playoff-bound club.
The teams that let players go benefit because they save a bit of money and have more of a chance to look at younger players who might factor into the future far more than a veteran at the end of his run.
Teams acquiring these players get someone with experience who can fill an easily identifiable hole in the roster, as insurance or depth.
The sketchy part is how these moves often unfold.
It feels entirely like it’s technically tampering with players under contract to other teams, but general managers will let it be known — usually through agents — that they have a spot or a role for some specific player. Then it’s up to that player and his agent to decide if they want to pursue the departure, if it’ll be financially feasible to do it, and to weigh different options if they exist.
It’s often premeditated, and that’s where the distastefulness of the whole process comes in.
It’s ridiculous to think that there hasn’t been some early negotiation — if only through back channels — when a player can be bought out at, say, noon one day and sign with a new team by 5 p.m. that night. Some kind of contact had to have been made, and while it may not break the letter of the law if it’s handled discreetly and through other channels it certainly violates the spirit of the rules.
The Raptors were on the periphery of one buyout move this season. They had interest in Markieff Morris of the Detroit Pistons and let it be known. Morris got what he determined was a better offer from the Los Angeles Lakers, and now it appears the Raptors don’t have any other options they’d like to explore.
That’s not to say the buyout season won’t have any impact on Toronto’s pursuit of a second NBA championship.
Watching Marvin Williams make a handful of big plays and hit three three-pointers for the Milwaukee Bucks in their win over the Raptors on Tuesday had to be a bit galling. Williams was the first of the significant buyout moves this spring, getting his freedom from the struggling Charlotte Hornets and joining the team with the best record in the league.
Others may have a big-time impact on the post-season:
The Los Angeles Clippers found themselves a starting point guard in Reggie Jackson after he got free of the Pistons.
The Lakers getting Morris gives their depth a muchneeded boost.
Houston picked up a couple of serviceable veterans in exRaptor DeMarre Carroll (bought out by the San Antonio Spurs) and Jeff Green (added after he was waived by the Utah Jazz).
Dallas getting Michael KiddGilchrist will help the Mavericks’ depth.
The fact that all of those moves came after the trade deadline, when final tweaks to rosters really should be made, suggests the league might want to look at a rule change in the off-season.
Nothing was illegal, but it just doesn’t feel right.