Breaking News! Lucas Nogueira requests a cancellation of his contract in Spain.

[Sothron]

He knew the risks! He should pay for all this surgery himself too since it is HIS body!! God these players are so greedy.

That's some real talk right there.

[Guest]

I'd appreciate it if you'd tell us how you really feel next time. Stop holding back.

Hahaha the only reason I wrote that is because somebody said he reads our posts on squawk lol...my way if sayin...what up..

[Guest]

The "or partner" part was a nice touch. Very enlightened of you.

Oh and Cviv, if you do indeed read our posts, .... GFY.

Roflmao...I'm bustin up lol

[DrReality]

Wonder if Bebe has Obama care. He

[Duff_Man]

It is a suspension of the contract so he can get his knees looked at. The contract is not cancelled and he cannot join the Hawks.

[Buzzard]

I don't know what to think of this. It was rumored during summer league he wanted to stay in the states to work out. Something to the effect that he thought more of our work out and training regimens than the ones available in Spain. At the same time, big men with knee problems at such a early age should not be taken lightly.

Obviously we all hope he can get healthy, but this is usually a chronic problem in knees. One which does not go away due to how much stress a basketball player puts on his knees every time he jumps.

[Randy]

I've lost hope in this guy ever being any good. He was barely playing and putting up lousy numbers in Spain, now he has a bad wheel. Another dud.

[nathan2331]

I've lost hope in this guy ever being any good.  He was barely playing and putting up lousy numbers in Spain, now he has a bad wheel.  Another dud.

Have you seen him at all? If this guy puts on some weight (big if) and develops like he should, I think he can be Tyson Chandler with a slightly better offensive game.

[Ebert]

I've lost hope in this guy ever being any good. He was barely playing and putting up lousy numbers in Spain, now he has a bad wheel. Another dud.

I would say that 5,7 points (58% FG!!!), 4,2 rebounds and 1,3 blocks in just 18 minutes after having an injury are not bad stats in a professional league which also has a low pace...

I think he has a good vision of the game and can develop in a good center. Just needs to gain some strenght and experience

[AHF]

He knew the risks! He should pay for all this surgery himself too since it is HIS body!! God these players are so greedy.

So your theory is that the team that employs him overseas and carries insurance that would cover the surgery shouldn't pay the surgery and that the Hawks should seek an exemption from the NBA so they can somehow sign him and burn his rookie season so they can be the ones to pay any healthcare costs associated with playing overseas? That doesn't make much sense to me.

He should get whatever medical treatment he needs and it should be paid for by the Spanish team's insurance.

[DrReality]

Not a good start. But I like that he's getting an opinion in the US.

[Guest]

So your theory is that the team that employs him overseas and carries insurance that would cover the surgery shouldn't pay the surgery and that the Hawks should seek an exemption from the NBA so they can somehow sign him and burn his rookie season so they can be the ones to pay any healthcare costs associated with playing overseas? That doesn't make much sense to me. He should get whatever medical treatment he needs and it should be paid for by the Spanish team's insurance.

Looks like I should have used the green font.

[ATLHawks3]

I miss Michael Cunningham.

[TheNorthCydeRises]

I would say that 5,7 points (58% FG!!!), 4,2 rebounds and 1,3 blocks in just 18 minutes after having an injury are not bad stats in a professional league which also has a low pace... I think he has a good vision of the game and can develop in a good center. Just needs to gain some strenght and experience

Yeah ..... way to spin those numbers.This dude having knee problems at such a young age is not good at all.

[AHF]

Looks like I should have used the green font.

Well, me.

[Guest]

EXTRA! EXTRA! Non-subscriber content!

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What does this all mean? How does this affect the Hawks? Where does this leave Lucas?

Outside of Bebe's health, none of this concerns the Hawks at the moment. Bebe cannot come over the Hawks this season. This is because of details outlined in the CBA and because of common sense (I am glad no one on *this site* has suggested we could appeal, you would have to be a f***ing moron to believe that on oh so many levels).

Where might the Hawks come in to play? Well, I am no legal expert but when this injury took place could be of concern. We could potentially have an upcoming battle between the Student and the Teacher. I mean Estudiantes and the Hawks, or more specifically the insurers of the Estudiantes and the Hawks. Most of this is speculation at this point, but Bebe is seeking a second opinion because he does not feel that the Estudiantes have correctly diagnosed his injury.

Estudiantes is saying "hey man, you are just fat and you don't need surgery. Just play dude, it cannot hurt you" while Lucas is more like "wait a second, there could be something really wrong that requires surgery or tells me I should not be playing because this could cause future damage to me". Estudiantes wants Lucas to play, they are paying him for that. Lucas does not want to play, so he is suspending the contract at the moment (no pay, but also not required to play) for a second opinion.

What will this second opinion lead to? Potentially surgery or a diagnosis that he should not play and require rest (apparently Estudiantes medical staff tell him to play). Then could we determine who pays for this? Yes, there is insurance covering the contract (both the Hawks and Estudiantes) but that does not mean 100% of costs are covered. Deductibles, future increases in rates, determining when the injury was sustained, more legal jargon, all of that is important. But these are more business details, as a Hawks fan you are more likely to only care about Bebe's health.

http://es.eurosport.yahoo.com/noticias/jos%C3%A9-asensio-quot-lucas-nogueira-angeles-quot-125518031--nba.html

^kind of supports my suspicion.

[Guest]

Another article on this stuff: http://www.mundodeportivo.com/20131211/baloncesto/acb/lucas-nogueira-solicita-la-suspension-de-su-contrato_54395391976.html

Translation (not literal): Estudiantes says Lucas is "injured" by coming in out of shape and did not sustain an injury with the club. "Injuries" outside the club means medical treatment is not covered by the club.

It is in Lucas' best interest to get healthy. Secondly, he wants to get paid (or not have to pay for getting healthy). Eventually, if Lucas needs surgery he is going to want some insurer to pay for a good chunk. If this becomes an issue where he needs rest and he cannot pin this on insurers of ATL or Spain, then he forgoes wages and negotiates with ATL to come over the 2014-15 season.

Any of our Spanish friends have details on Bebe's contract? That would be very helpful, I think Bebe will still be under contract with Estudiantes for the 14-15 season which implies the the Hawks will need to negotiate a buyout. Of course, there could be a buyout clause already in there so negotiations could be limited.

[Guest]

More scooping from someone who may or may not have passed the AP Spanish Exam!

Lucas and Estudiantes have a contract until 2015 (http://clubestudiantes.com/frontend/clubestudiantes/noticia.php?id_noticia=9982&id_seccion=428). We are going to have to negotiate a buy-out with Estudiantes at some point in time...wait that isn't right. Maybe we won't even sign Lucas until after 2015! This could be interesting.

Lucas will have a 2 year contract offer from the Hawks in 2014 (unless they want to release their draft rights to him). This will have 2 years guaranteed at at least 80% of the rookie scale for the 16th draft pick. Next year, that implies $1,175,120 the 1st year then $1,228,000 the 2nd. Lucas will have this option, he will also need to consider the buy-out for Estudiantes and his saavy in convincing Danny to offer some more change in a contract (up to 120% of scale plus some international player buyout funds of at most $600,000 for him). So there is some wiggle room.

If someone with a better working knowledge of Spanish believes I have read something wrong, let me know! It is like I am working with 2 foreign languages with this situation, Spanish and the collective bargaining agreement. I am only confident in one of those.

[Guest]

This isn't really an update, but I wanted to give others a bit of perspective on Lucas' options. Some of this is speculation, but it is of the highly educated guess kind. I cannot verify this except by assuming that the Hawks are operating in the most efficient manner.

What do we know right now about Lucas? We know that he has signed an agreement with the Hawks to release his caphold from our team salary calculation. This was reported by Mark Deeks:

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In a little more detail, here is the relevant CBA bit for the explanation:

A Team that holds draft rights to a First Round Pick may elect to have the player’s applicable Rookie Scale Amount excluded from its Team Salary at any time prior to the first day of any Regular Season by providing the NBA with a written statement that the Team will not sign the player during that Salary Cap Year accompanied by a written statement from the First Round Pick renouncing his right to accept any outstanding Required Tender made to him by the Team. After making such an election, (i) the Team shall be prohibited from signing the player during that Salary Cap Year, except in accordance with Section 5(e)(4)(ii) below, (ii) the Team shall continue to possess such rights with respect to the player that the Team possessed pursuant to Article X immediately prior to such election, and (iii) the player’s applicable Rookie Scale Amount shall be included again in his Team’s Team Salary at the applicable Rookie Scale Amount on the following July 1. When a First Round Pick provides a Team with a written statement renouncing his right to accept that year’s outstanding Required Tender, the Player shall no longer be permitted to accept it.

So we cannot sign Lucas for this 2013-14 season. There is a little caveat (Section 5(e)(4)(ii)) that does allow us to sign Lucas starting on February 1 through June 30 to a contract for next year (2014-15). This is the starting point for negotiations between Lucas, ATL, and Estudiantes.

From February 1 through June 30 of any Salary Cap Year, a First Round Pick may enter into a Rookie Scale Contract commencing with the following Season, provided that as of or at any point following the first day of the then-current Regular Season (or the preceding Regular Season in the case of a Contract signed from the day following the last day of the Regular Season through June 30) the player was a party to a player contract with a professional basketball team not in the NBA covering such Regular Season.

If the Hawks want to retain their draft rights to Lucas, they will need to give him a contract offer this next offseason that is deemed a required tender. This required tender must conform to the described Rookie Scale Contracts for First Round Picks (Article VIII). There is a little leeway in this contract. For 2014-15, the 16th pick in the draft is slated to make:

[*]$1,468,900 guaranteed [*]$1,535,000 guaranteed [*]$1,601,100 team option [*]$2,456,088 team option (defined as 53.4% raise over 3rd year) [*]$3,450,804 qualifying offer (defined as 40.5% raise over 4th year) [*]Total Compensation: $7,061,088 (does not include QO)

The above listed is for 100% of the Rookie Scale for Lucas. I mentioned some leeway, this leeway is that the contract can be signed for between 80% and 120% of the Rookie Scale. This would leave us with what Lucas can expect as his Required Tender (i.e. the worst possible Contract we can offer, in red) as well as the upperbound for which we can negotiate with Lucas (i.e. the best possible Contract, in green).

[*]$1,175,120 / $1,762,680 guaranteed [*]$1,228,000 / $1,842,000 guaranteed [*]$1,280,880 / $1,921,320 team option [*]$1,964,870 / $2,947,305 team option [*]$2,760,643 / $4,140,964 qualifying offer (only reserves the Right of First Refusal) [*]Total Compensation: $5,648,870 / $8,473,305

Now with the worst possible contract, the Hawks are unlikely to offer any kind of signing bonus that could be used towards a buy-out for Lucas since that money would be paid upfront and money today is worth more than the equivalent money tomorrow. In this case, Lucas is responsible for his buy-out of the Estudiantes contract (last year reported to be $1 million). What does this mean? Well, Lucas needs to have some $$$ saved up in order to guarantee he will play for the Hawks. By not playing, Lucas is forgoing wages and his likelihood of being able to buy-out his Estudiantes deal goes down. It also becomes more likely that the Hawks are unwilling to chip in more in a rookie contract because a player who is injured/out-of-shape is not as valuable of a player.

Now if Lucas is able to get healthy, he can potentially increase his bargaining power against the Hawks and may be able to get a better contract offer. I listed above what his "best contract" was per the Rookie Scale, but since he is an International Player he can actually gain some more leverage with respect to his contract. The Hawks will be afforded an International Player Payment of $600,000 in the 2014-15 Season that they can chip in towards Lucas' buy-out that will not count against the Cap or Lucas' contact (this International Player Payment Amount is for each player, so the Hawks could use this with a hypothetical 2014 Draft Pick to sign in the 2014-15 offseason AND Lucas. Each player is afforded the $600,000, not an amount of $600,000 that the Hawks would need to split between players). This essentially raises Lucas' compensation by $600,000 since he *must* negotiate a buy-out with Estudiantes in order to sign with an NBA team.

What is the most that the Hawks can chip in to a buy-out with Estudiantes if Lucas is to come over next year? Well, there is first the $600,000 from the International Player Amount but also the Hawks can give Lucas a "signing bonus" that acts as a buy-out. The signing bonus is paid upfront and would then be transferred to Estudiantes. This signing bonus needs to conform to three things: 1) must not be greater than 15% of Total Compensation, 2) must not leave Lucas with a salary less than his minimum salary (i.e. 80% of Rookie Scale), and 3) is spread evenly across his guaranteed years of his contract for Cap purposes.

This implies that the first year of his contract, Lucas can be paid $1,175,120 in base salary his first year, his signing bonus can be for $1,175,120 (split evenly implies $587,560 of caphit in the first/second season, also $1,175,120 is < $1,270,996 = 0.15*$8,473,305), which allows for a Caphit in Lucas' first year of his contract to be for $1,762,680 (i.e. his maximum). Continuing with the best possible contract, Lucas' base salary in the second year would be ($1,842,000 - $587,560 =) $1,254,440. Then his third and fourth seasons would be for the outlined best possible contract above. In whole, the Hawks can chip in ($600,000 + $1,175,120 =) $1,775,120 towards the buy-out of Lucas' contract. That leads to a Total Compensation of $8,473,305. HOWEVER, this does not imply that Estudiantes can only be paid this amount for a buy-out as this is just from the Hawks perspective. Estudiantes could demand a higher buy-out than this amount which would imply that Lucas needs to cover the rest of the buy-out with his own funds. This could be from savings, he could take out a loan, his agent could take out a loan, whatever. Estudiantes also has leverage in this scenario where they can extract money from Lucas. So Lucas has to worry about the bargaining power of both the Hawks and Estudiantes.

Whew. That is a lot of info. Suffice to say, unless you are really really interested in the Hawks and their cap management, the only thing Hawks fans should worry about is Lucas being healthy. For Lucas' well-being he also needs to be concerned about his health as that is also tied to his bargaining power between both the Hawks and Estudiantes. As was reported last offseason, we already saw that Lucas is stuck in-between the two parties:

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The Hawks could have chipped in a lot more than the reported $525,000. Hell, the Hawks' International Player Payment amount could have been for $575,000 and they clearly did not do that. This is not looking good for Lucas' checkbook.

[MaceCase]

Shame, guess Lucas will only be buying one round of caipirinhas for everyone at the bar.