No Trade Clauses revisited...

[Salty Dog]

I was just thinking, many people around here have been saying the only way a team as bad as the Kings can get players to play for them was to offer them no trade clauses in their contract. Does that really make any sense?

1. The players we are talking about were NOT highly sought after free agents with their choice of places to play. I'm sure many would have preferred being on a cup contender than a cellar dweller, so it's not like they have the luxury of being picky.

2. The fact the Kings are such a bad team would suggest most of the players would prefer NOT to have a NTC as a way to hopefully get moved to another (and given the Kings place in the standings) better team at the deadline.

3. The prevailing wisdom is that Lombardi was content with, and expecting to be, a cellar dwelling team. If that was the case, wouldn't it be in HIS best interest to not hand out any NTCs in order to get some return on these players?

As Wolvie pointed out a while ago, I wonder if a year or two ago Lombardi was in fact expecting this team to be in a much different position today than they are? Maybe that's something to ask him at the upcoming meeting...

[McKingfan]

The players in question were mainly old, on the way down in their careers and probably like to be able to choose between surfing or skiing most days. Knowing that they are the types of guys that are trade day fodder, I do think the NTC is used to get guys to sign here when they otherwise would not consider it.

It's all about location location location and wanting to settle down with your family and enjoy the money you've earned getting the crap knocked out of you on a nightly basis.

But hopefully folks will see what many in the media have been starting to say this year, that we've got one of the deepest cores of solid prospects in our system and will be an up and coming team soon. THEN maybe we'll start to see guys that come here to win instead of guys that come her to live in the sun on a retirement contract.