How generous of the players’ union, offering to include not one but two mid-level exceptions in their latest collective-bargaining proposal.
Chuckle first, then recognize you can never have too many Jason Kaponos.
Of all the dollars and nonsense to come out of the back and forth between the league and the union as the current CBA draws to a June 30 close, this latest twist is one that makes you scratch your head.
Yes, there still is a place for the proper mid-level contract. Just ask the Lakers and Ron Artest or the Trail Blazers and Wesley Matthews.
Such revelations, though, are the exception. The mid-level, especially at its five-year maximum, is considered among league executives to be the worst of any contract.
The owners are never going for this one. The union has to know as much.
But, for a moment, consider the possibilities, consider the Heat being able to land both a center and a point guard next summer. It is a prospect for the rest of the league as frightening as the full, five-year, $35 million mid-level package the Bucks gave Drew Gooden this past summer.
A $5.8 million contract is a dangerous thing in the NBA, even though it is calculated as the average salary.
As Bill Veeck once put it, “It isn’t really the stars that are expensive. It’s the high cost of mediocrity.”
A history lesson of the mid-level delivers stark evidence, with the Mid-Level Hall of Fame including the likes of Jerome James, Nazr Mohammed, Jared Jeffries and Michael Olowokandi.
Even those with curb appeal tended to get the deal after they had been kicked to the curb by others, such as Anthony Mason, James Posey, Brian Cardinal and Joe Smith (twice).
This is not a league about average, it is a league about highly paid stars and willing, lowly paid supporting players.
Of course, the union also has expressed a willingness to eliminate the bi-annual exception, one that currently starts at $2 million and actually has a place in the league’s personnel economy.
As for the union willing to lower the maximum term of the mid-level from five seasons to four, don’t think the Bucks will take much solace out of that even in year four of Gooden’s current deal.
The age limit might be abolished.
A hard cap may be on the way.
A lockout is a distinct possibility.
But dual mid-level exceptions? About as good a chance of happening as the Kings and Nets meeting in the NBA Finals.
Ira Winderman writes regularly for NBCSports.com and covers the Heat and the NBA for the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. You can follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/IraHeatBeat.
