Getting a Big Check from the NBA

[DwayneSchintzius]

The NBA's Board of Governors on Thursday voted to reimburse the Thunder for a portion of the contract extension it signed Kevin Durant to in 2010. [...]
The reimbursement, The Oklahoman has learned, has no bearing on the Thunder's team salary. Durant's larger-than-expected extension will continue to count against both the cap and the team's tax computations.
Although the exact amount of the reimbursement is unclear, a league source with knowledge of the situation said it is not the full amount of the roughly $15 million in additional salary that Durant received.
Durant signed a five-year extension worth approximately $89 million in July 2010. But the league didn't ratify its collective bargaining agreement until December 2011, and Durant was grandfathered in. Oklahoma City in 2011 protested Durant's inclusion to no avail.
The rule that was written into the 2011 collective bargaining agreement allowed players entering their fifth seasons to receive a contract extension for up to 30 percent of thesalary cap if they met certain criteria. The provision, widely known as the “Derrick RoseRule,” was introduced to adequately compensate players like Durant and Rose who outperformed their budget-friendly rookie contracts. Under the old labor agreement, such players were eligible only for 25 percent of the salary cap.



http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball-dont-lie/why-nba-reimbursing-oklahoma-city-thunder-part-kevin-232720041.html

[KaiRMD1]

So now the NBA is playing off the teams they help? I find this rather odd with how open they are about it but the NBA was never quiet or secretive when it came to things of this nature

[Chinook]

The NBA is just taking pity on them. Its mistake in allowing Durant's petition cost the Thunder Harden. Sounds like a win for the rest of the league's teams, in my opinion.

[Rogue]

It doesn't make much difference to OKC. If they pay Durant more, they'll have to pay others less to avoid the tax. and they're already feeling financially stressed under the current rules

[FlAVaK]

Another problem of the whole process:

The length of Westbrooks contract!

"...the "Derrick Rose Rule" — in which the extended athlete is called a Designated Player — does not allow teams to sign another player to a five-year extension if they already have a Designated Player on their roster. Yet, if Durant held that status, then the team never should have been able to sign Russell Westbrook to his five-year extension in January 2012. The NBA either forgot its own rules, failed to designate Durant in the proper way, or — I admit this is extremely unlikely — deliberately obfuscated the situation to help the Thunder..."

[AchillesHeel]

lol, NBA has the Derrick Rose rule, but the best player on the planet and his superfriends can take huge paycuts to put together championship teams, no one's talking about how Lebron should be earning 25 mil and not 19 mil..