Lance actually does not cost them anything. I was surprised by that, as well. He had an unusual partially guaranteed contract where the million only kicked in if they didn’t waive him before free agency started. What an odd contract. I can’t imagine what they thought the benefit of that would have been.

Again, though, you can see why non-guaranteed contracts give teams a lot more freedom

Well, not really, if the non-guarantee costs cap space the following year. Isnt that the deal with Lance? Does he cost us cap space this year? It doesn’t show up on earlybirdrights.com

So you can’t trade a guy with a team option and pass the team option on to the next team?

Sorry, I misspoke, you have to guarantee the money if you trade him before free agency begins next year (so a draft night trade, etc.). You can trade a guy with a non-guaranteed contract during that moratorium period, but not a guy on a team option, since you can’t trade a guy who is about to be a free agent (non-guaranteed contracts are technically not free agents, because they are nominally under contract).

So Portis can be traded during the season (and his team option passed along), just not once the season ends (unless they guarantee the contract). Again, though, you can see why non-guaranteed contracts give teams a lot more freedom (also, team options can’t be for less money than the previous season, hence Portis’ team option being a little bit higher than his first year).

To clarify, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with what RJ said…only that it shouldn’t be used as an example of how smart and mature he is.

Agreed. Guy was blindsided his first two summer league games. I’m more hopeful than I was when we drafted him but there’s a fuckload of caveats. He’s not as good as he thinks he is. I suspect he’ll work on it. His vision is real, I don’t think his passing ability matches it yet. And he’s sub par at everything else. It’s reasonable to have hope, it’s ridiculous to think he’ll turn out great.

Yes (except Randle’s, of course).