What Do We Think of the Amnesty Clause?

Rashard Lewis: Potential Amnesty Candidate

I wrote the following for ClipperBlog, and while it's about how the amnesty clause relates to the Clippers, I'd love to know everyone's thoughts on the proposed details (as described in the post), possible candidates, implications, whatever...

The notion of an amnesty clause is exciting to many fans.  Most teams have at least one “bad” contract — many have more — so it figures that people would embrace the opportunity to see the franchise for which they cheer drop the most undesirable in favor of a roster spot and cap space for a potentially better player.  But it also portends more player movement, which we as fans also tend to enjoy, especially in a time when barely anything basketball-related is happening at all.

While opposition to it based on the somewhat hypocritical message that some individual owners will be sending by simultaneously crying broke and angling for a new way to spend money (much more on that here) appears futile, the whole idea is incredibly unfair to teams that have been successful at not handing out bad contracts.  Like the Clippers.

Even if there are provisions to give such teams the chance to amend a future mistake, as backwards as that may be, you can’t help but wonder just how drastically the advantage accrued by managing the cap responsibly will be slashed.