Are Employment Contracts the Real Stars of the NBA Draft?
The NBA Draft was June 22, and while fans focused on their favorite team’s selections, the newest professional players and their lawyers had more weighty concerns to address: employment contracts.
Dallas-based attorney Rogge Dunn, partner at Clouse Dunn, works with professional athletes and coaches including Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Larry Brown.
In a blog post on the website of Androvett Legal Media & Marketing, Dunn said:
Athlete employment contracts are singularly unique in many ways. For example, compensation may be tied to a player’s performance metrics, such as shooting averages, games played or post-season awards, and are likely to be quite invasive on issues including the player’s weight, health issues and off-season activities. Also, unlike most employment contracts, they will likely contain morals clauses.
However, so-called ‘guaranteed contracts’ protect most athletes in a way that most of us with employment contracts do not have, by guaranteeing their compensation even if an injury prevents them from playing. We should all be so lucky to have guarantees such as these. Most executive contracts terminate payments or force a leave of absence if you are disabled or can no longer do the job.
