Poison Pill

by altercall on Oct 14, 2007 11:06 PM CDT

I've done a decent search for the poison pills in Harris' and Howard's contracts, but came up with nothing but vagues references to them having poison pills in them. Can anyone tell me what their respective pills are? I know what a poison pill is, just not the specifics of what it is in each contract that is a poison pill. Thanks a ton.

Reader Submitted

Tweet Comment 2 comments | 0 recs |

Do you like this story?

Comments

Here is my best shot. Hope it makes sense.

Josh Howard is a base year contract player because the Mavs resigned him at a higher salary than his original contract. The Mavs can only count 50% of his new contract (about 4.5 million) when trading him. Since the Mavs are over the salary cap they can only receive back 125% + 100,000 of the outgoing salaries in a trade. So if the Mavs traded Josh Howard straight up, they could only receive a player in return who makes about 5.7 million (125% of 4.5 + 100K) even though Howard's actual salary is 9 million.

Devin Harris is a "poison pill", just like Josh Howard was last year. Any player who signed an extension of their rookie contract that has not yet gone into effect is a poison pill. Dallas can only use Devin's current year salary for outgoing value (about 4 million). The team receiving Harris has to use an incoming salary value that is the average of his current year salary and the annual salary of his extension -- about 8.1 million (45+4 / 5+1).

Josh Howard's BYC clause expires on July 31st 2008. Devin Harris will be a poison pill until next season when he becomes a BYC like Howard this year.

Hopefully that didn't make you more confused. Please ask more questions and I'll try my best.

by Wes Cox on Oct 17, 2007 12:39 AM CDT reply actions