Hello Everyone,
Today we have an overdue statement on the contract of Thudd Kassel. HO apologizes for the long wait. We discussed this extensively in both HO and GM chat, and had a vote on this on November 17th, but did not realize that we had not made that ruling public until recently.
HO voted 5-0 with one abstaining in favor of restructuring Thudd Kassel's contract to be a 2 year extension instead of a 3 year extension.
The wording of the original rule is as follows:
The argument we received in favor of upholding the 3 year extension was two fold that was presented to us. First of all, Thudd Kassel originally signed a 3 year deal with New Orleans as a rookie. Secondly, this was not an extension, but a separate contract given to Kassel.
HO disagreed with this argument. First of all, while Kassel originally signed a 3 year contract, he served one year of it and then rejected his mutual option. This means that contract he signed is, for all intents and purposes, a one year contract. Any years except the first one are not served. Some pro leagues will refer to a contract with an option to be an X+Y year deal, with the X being how many years are guaranteed, and Y being how many extra years worth of options there are. Looking at that, this contract would have been a 1+2 year deal. Regardless, HO felt like this was an attempted loophole that just didn't meet standards. We have allowed things and then edited the rule in the past, but we feel like the difference between a one year deal and a 3 year deal that a person only serves one year of and then terminates, is not a significant difference to be determined as a different scenario than the rule that we currently have in place describes.
As for the second point, this was a more seriously considered loophole. Since the rule says a 2 year extension, there was speculation about whether this is different since this was not an extension, but a whole new deal done after free agency. I cannot speak for all of HO, but if Thudd Kassel had signed with a different team, I would have considered this a significant loophole to rule in favor of allowing the 3rd year of his deal. However, since Kassel ended up re-signing with Philadelphia, again we find the difference between an extension and a contract signed back with the team you were just on to be not significant enough to determine as a different scenario than the rule that we currently have in place describes.
In the past, we have used this rule to stop a 3 year extension signing by the Copperheads with Sandip Bakshi and also after this we used the same guidelines and applied them to Marcella Toriki, making sure she only signed a max 2 year extension. We have updated the wording of the rule so as to not cause future confusion. The new rule reads:
Thank you all and we apologize for our delay in taking care of this issue
Today we have an overdue statement on the contract of Thudd Kassel. HO apologizes for the long wait. We discussed this extensively in both HO and GM chat, and had a vote on this on November 17th, but did not realize that we had not made that ruling public until recently.
HO voted 5-0 with one abstaining in favor of restructuring Thudd Kassel's contract to be a 2 year extension instead of a 3 year extension.
The wording of the original rule is as follows:
Code:
D. 14. If a rookie signs a 1-year contract, they can only sign at most a 2-year extension.
The argument we received in favor of upholding the 3 year extension was two fold that was presented to us. First of all, Thudd Kassel originally signed a 3 year deal with New Orleans as a rookie. Secondly, this was not an extension, but a separate contract given to Kassel.
HO disagreed with this argument. First of all, while Kassel originally signed a 3 year contract, he served one year of it and then rejected his mutual option. This means that contract he signed is, for all intents and purposes, a one year contract. Any years except the first one are not served. Some pro leagues will refer to a contract with an option to be an X+Y year deal, with the X being how many years are guaranteed, and Y being how many extra years worth of options there are. Looking at that, this contract would have been a 1+2 year deal. Regardless, HO felt like this was an attempted loophole that just didn't meet standards. We have allowed things and then edited the rule in the past, but we feel like the difference between a one year deal and a 3 year deal that a person only serves one year of and then terminates, is not a significant difference to be determined as a different scenario than the rule that we currently have in place describes.
As for the second point, this was a more seriously considered loophole. Since the rule says a 2 year extension, there was speculation about whether this is different since this was not an extension, but a whole new deal done after free agency. I cannot speak for all of HO, but if Thudd Kassel had signed with a different team, I would have considered this a significant loophole to rule in favor of allowing the 3rd year of his deal. However, since Kassel ended up re-signing with Philadelphia, again we find the difference between an extension and a contract signed back with the team you were just on to be not significant enough to determine as a different scenario than the rule that we currently have in place describes.
In the past, we have used this rule to stop a 3 year extension signing by the Copperheads with Sandip Bakshi and also after this we used the same guidelines and applied them to Marcella Toriki, making sure she only signed a max 2 year extension. We have updated the wording of the rule so as to not cause future confusion. The new rule reads:
Code:
D. 14. If a rookie signs a 1-year contract, they can only sign at most a 2-year extension or other new contract. This includes situations such as a 2-year rookie deal with an option on the second year that is used to accomplish the same thing.
Thank you all and we apologize for our delay in taking care of this issue