NBA Teams Awarding Big Bucks To Players
Jet Magazine: Sports
November 8, 1993

The NBA cash registers ring in a new season as more than a quarter-billion dollars worth of transactions have been placed on the 1993-94 ledgers.

Charlotte Hornets forward Larry Johnson recently signed an $84 million extension (Jet, Oct. 25); Chris Webber finally signed with Golden State for $74.4 million dollar contract; and Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway’s $68 million dollar pact (Jet, Nov. 1) is being called the best contract ever by many observers.

But New Jersey Nets star forward Derrick Coleman may not be outdone. At Jet press deadline, Coleman had rejected a $69 million, 8-year contract extension and may be offered more.

MAGIC’S COMPLICATED FINANCING CAPTURES STAR-POWERED HARDAWAY
THE ORLANDO SENTINEL
October 8, 1993

This was taking too long. But all Anfernee Hardaway could do was wait, spending most of the day and night in an Orlando hotel room Thursday, playing video games and trying to sleep.

Then, the wake-up-call.

“The phone rang. It was over. They said the deal was done,” said Hardaway, the Orlando Magic’s first-round draft pick (No. 3 overall), at a late-night news conference. “I had been worried, because I thought something had gone wrong. I thought that after all the time, I wasn’t going to sign. It was just taking too long.”

It took the NBA seven hours to approve the contract. There has never been one quite like it. The Magic beat the salary cap again and Hardaway’s agents, Carl and Kevin Poston, used the system to create a deal that gives the 6-foot-7 guard $45.175 million over 13 years, plus a $20 million line of credit and the option to escape his contract at any time. It’s a creative $65 million package no one thought possible, one that took the NBA lawyers time to digest.

“It’s a unique deal,” said Bob Vander Weide, the Magic’s vice president of basketball operations. “It took some time. I think that stamina, the effort to get this done is some way the real breakthrough. …I don’t think that at the beginning of the week anyone thought we’d be here tonight.”

Negotiations had nearly broken off after the first fact-to-face meetings Monday, with Hardaway’s agent exiting the Orlando Arena at midnight, tired and irritated at the stalemate that put the two sides $30 million apart. The Postons were ready to take the next flight out of Orlando.

Magic player personnel director, John Gabriel, was said to have convinced the Postons to stay. Most observers felt if the two agents left, it was unlikely they’d be seen or heard from again before training camp, which opens today in DeLand with Hardaway in uniform.

“I really wanted to be in camp,” Hardaway said. “Every one worked very hard to get me here. It has been a tough couple of weeks. The pressure was building. It’s just a big relief now. Now I can forget about all this (the negotiations) and concentrate on basketball.”

That’s what he does best. But he also is a personable 22-year-old, someone the public will get a chance to know now that the ugly side of being a lottery pick – the negotiations – has ended.

And the negotiations are over because the Magic – who worked a salary cap coup last year to sign Shaquille O’Neal – and the Postons pulled off an impressive deal. The Postons negotiated a contract few thought was possible: getting fair market value under a salary cap – which prohibits teams from spending more than the league-determined amount to pay its players.

It took a lot of creative contract writing on both sides, with three elements leading to the agreement:
-A $20 million line of credit will be extended to Hardaway by the Magic, which helps make up the difference between the $1.243 million slot the team had available to offer through the Brain Williams trade and the $2.8 million market value for Hardaway. The line of credit will be pro-rated over the life of the contract and whatever is borrowed will have to be paid back by Hardaway. However, the Magic are likely to make up for whatever is borrowed by overcompensating Hardaway in his next contract.
-An unusual escape clause allows Hardaway to pick the year he wants to get out of the contract and become a restricted free agent after any year. That allows the Magic to re-sign him under a league exception to the salary cap. The fact that Hardaway can pick his year to get out of the contract gives him leverage when re-signing. For example, if he should become the NBA Rookie of the Year, he’d want to take a 1-year escape because he could almost name his price the next year.
-A 13-year deal gets the most out of the $1.243 million slot, providing enough guaranteed money to give Hardaway financial security should an injury end his career. It also protects Hardaway should he perform badly.

“I know the expectations and I’m going to do whatever I can to make this team better,” said Hardaway, whose quickness and Michael Jordan – like game helped him average 22.8 points, 8.5 rebounds and 6.4 assists last season at Memphis State.

“But I know I have a lot to learn. I’m going to be looking at guys like (point guard) Scott Skiles.
“Now that it’s over, I’m just ready to play,” Hardaway said. “Hopefully, I can show the fans here a great time.”

PENNY, DOLLARS ALL MAKE SENSE
Friday, August 6, 1999

BY Bob Young
The Arizona Republic

After sweating out the Orlando Magic’s last-minute waffling, the Suns finally got their man Thursday, competing a block-buster trade for All-Star guard Anfernee “Penny” Hardaway.

The two clubs competed a sign-and-trade deal that gives Phoenix what could be the NBA’s best backcourt and Hardaway a seven-year, $86.7 million contract.

As expected, the Suns shipped veteran forward Danny Manning, second-year forward Pat Garrity and two first-round draft picks to the Magic.

The two picks are conditional. They could fall anywhere from next season’s draft to 2006, but NBA rules do not allow a team to go without a first-round pick for two consecutive seasons. And there are protections on the second pick should it fall high in the draft.
Hardaway, a 6-foot-7 four-time All-Star guard, joins Suns playmaker Jason Kidd, 26, to make up a formidable guard tandem that the club believes will propel the Suns into contention again in the fast-improving Western Conference.

The Suns believed they had a deal as early as Tuesday, but Orlando Coach Doc Rivers apparently wasn’t ready to go along with management’s decision to gut the team and completely rebuild.

And the Magic had to consider the possibility that they’re giving up on a 28-year-old star, who could return to his first-team All-NBA form of a few years ago and leave the Orlando franchise red-faced.

“I have to thank Orlando,” Hardaway said. “They didn’t have to do this deal if they didn’t want to. We had a long talk and agreed it was best for me to start a new career and I wanted to do it in Phoenix.”

And he’ll be the highest-paid player in franchise history for it.

Hardaway’s contract will pay him $9million this season, $10.125 million, $11.26 million, $12.385 million, $13.51 million, $14.635 million and, in the final year, $15.76 million. That totals $86.675 million over the life of the contract – an average of $12.4 million a season.

The deal – the same contract the Suns offered Antonio McDyess last summer – easily surpasses the six-year, $58.5 million contract signed last summer by Tom Gugliotta.

The Magic tried to work deals with the Los Angeles Lakers and Toronto Raptors, but those teams and perhaps others dropped out of the bidding. The Suns, meanwhile, stuck with their offer of Manning, Garrity and the picks.

Hardaway started the bidding when he opted out of the final three years in his opted out of the final three years in his contract with the Magic to test free agency or broker a sign-and-trade. But few teams had the money under the league’s complicated salary cap to pay him the maximum contract allowed.

The Suns were over the salary cap after signing Gugliotta last summer and had only one option – a sign-and-trade.

The third overall pick in the 1993 draft, Hardaway was traded by Golden State to Orlando after that draft, where he joined Shaquille O’Neal. The Magic was swept in the 1995 Finals by the Houston Rockets, but appeared to have a young nucleus of players who would keep the Magic among the league’s elite teams.

But O’Neal departed as a free agent for Los Angeles in 1996. Then Hardaway took most of the blame when former Coach Brian Hill was fired, and missed most of the 1997-98 seasons because of knee and calf injuries.
Last season, he reportedly clashed with then-Magic Coach Chuck Daly, who resigned after the 1999 season.

Hardaway said he “did things in Orlando that are out of character for myself,” but that didn’t include trying to get his coaches fired.

Suns Coach Danny Ainge, who got to know Hardaway when Ainge was an analyst for Turner Sports, said he never had any hesitation about making the deal.

“Never for a second did I think I would have difficulty with Penny,” Ainge said. “All players are different, and sometimes you have to treat them differently.”