Contractually Obligated NBA Podcasting

Hosts

Patrick Minton(nbageek)

Produced by Brian Foster(boxscorebrian)

This week's poll

Show Notes

O'Bannon Ruling

The Ed O'Bannon trial recently came out in favor of "student athletes"

Jonathan Weiler wrote a great piece about Bob Bowlski(the Big 12 -- a non-profit organization -- commissioner) and his ludicrous statements about not paying athletes.

College athletics don't make money, or so they say. Of course, it's easy to not make money when you spend it all on athletic coaches! Following up Patrick's talk on this, our old post on this was using the same graphic used at Deadspin.

By the way, the idea that not paying athletes helps parity in college sports is just a myth.

As we've talked with Paul Shirley about before, the rules about how athletes can make money in college (e.g. side jobs using their image) are absurd.

Dave Berri has discussed that paying students to work in college is nothing shocking. He does it. Athletes are apparently different.

Comment Policy

As we mentioned in the thread for last week's show, we're going to be a bit different in the comments. While we do enjoy taking the time out to clarify questions/complaints about our metrics, methodologies, etc., some have abused this. Repeating the same thing over and over is just not going to fly.

Additionally, we've decided to start removing incorrect comments. We feel this is unfair to our readers, who may not realize a statement is incorrect. While we'd love to spend the time to correct/edit every comment, we don't have the time (see below for exciting reasons why). There are lots of people happy to tinker in this space. And that's great. But if your math is off, it will not find a place in our comments.

One last thing that Patrick didn't mention in depth is the length of comments. If you have a super long comment, I suggest you write your own blog post (even a medium as simple as Facebook supports this) and provide a link. Again, it's rough to edit stuff and while I enjoy the enthusiasm of long comments, they do monopolize the comment space, so they too may start getting deleted.

We've seen pushback before in regards to deleting/editing comments. What I will say is that this is our blog. We pay money and have put considerable work to make it. Commenting here is a priveledge, not a right. And the majority of you are great commenters with good insight. We've just seen a small rise in some issues we'd like to keep out of the comments. We hope it makes the comments a more enjoyable experience!

Player Options and Net Present Value

Greg Monroe and Eric Bledsoe may be "leaving money on the table" by only accepting their qualifying offer in order to become free agents next season. Of course, Monroe may never have gotten a good offer.

Patrick brings up the notion of Net Present Value. Namely, while a two contracts may be the same in total value if you accept less money now, in the long run you may be making less. After all, if Eric Bledsoe makes $100 million over five years, but in one case gets $15 million in year one and in another only gets $5 million, that's $10 million he can't invest earlier. And compound interest is amazing! Of course, there's also risk that Bledsoe's value may drop by the time he's eligible for a raise.

Contract negotiations in general are going to be interesting until the next TV deal comes through.

Patrick has some interesting thoughts about why certain players can age more gracefully (like Steve Nash). Tune in to hear more.

Coming Soon to a Boxscore Geeks Near You!

Patrick teases some new features including:

• Historical Wins Produced back to the 1970s!
• Javascript tools to make your own stats tables using Boxscore Geeks numbers!
• More salary data!
• Some updated stats unique to Boxscore Geeks. Don't worry, it's the same great math, just with some more ingredients

Tell Patrick how excited you are in the comments!

Shout Outs

Jonathan Weiler(@jonweiler) for his amazing pieces on the O'Bannon case recently. Seriously, checkout the ESPN Watch.

Josh Weil(@joshweil) has a similar name to Jonathan Weiler. And he's also an amazing NBA mind!

Arturo Galletti(@arturogalletti) couldn't make the show. But he has been working tirelessly with Patrick to get the upgrades we promised!

Music

Intro Music - Test Drive by Zapac.

Outro Music - Take on Me (A-Ha), cover by Anni B Sweet.