quote:
I always thought it was "unfair" for a player and a team to agree to a multi-year deal, but after a few years only the player has to adhere to the terms of the contract. Teams could just pull the contract, take a hit on the cap, and walk away.

The only time it's unfair is when the team doesn't live up to its end of the contract. The player is signing his services to the team, and if he doesn't perform said services adequately then the team should be able to terminate that contract. The team, on the other hand, isn't selling its services to that player; it's hiring that player with certain working conditions guaranteed. I think a fair case for players to terminate contracts on their ends would be if management or coaches that they agreed to play for are fired or leave. Really it's something that should be put into the contract if players want reasons to leave.

What's fair is what's agreed upon, and every player knows they can be let go with a terminated contract. This is why signing bonuses became popular, because it was guaranteed money to protect in case of firing. If a team stupidly wants to guarantee 100% of the contract, then it's fair that a player can show up and intentionally play like shite for that team since that's the contract the team stupidly agreed to. It doesn't make it right or honorable of the player to do so, but it is fair since that's what was agreed upon.

The Watson and now Carr debacles I hope will stop this new guaranteed contract nonsense. There are an elite few players in the history of this game that would qualify as worthy of a full guarantee. There are a number of checkmarks that would need to be affirmed before even considering it, and the top most would be character of the player. You have to have full trust that the player is a true 100% work ethic, sacrifice everything for the team character before even moving on to the rest of the qualifications.