JANUARY 12: Players who miss games due to COVID-19 protocol violations will actually forfeit 1/81.6th of their salary for 2020/21, per ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski (Twitter link).
DECEMBER 24: When an NBA player is suspended, he generally loses 1/145th of his salary for each game he misses. A long-term suspension of 20 games or more forces the player to forfeit 1/110th of his salary per game. The penalty for missing a game this season due to a violation of COVID-19 protocols is even more severe.
According to Marc Stein of The New York Times (Twitter link), the NBA will dock a player 1/72nd of his salary for each game he misses as a result of violating the league’s coronavirus protocols. The number is based on the 72-game season.
This penalty would have applied to James Harden if the Rockets‘ game against the Thunder had been played on Wednesday night, since the NBA determined the former MVP violated health and safety protocols by attending an indoor party of 15 or more people.
However, that opening-night contest was postponed because several other Rockets players were unavailable due to positive or inconclusive tests (or subsequent contact tracing) and the club didn’t have eight healthy players available. Since the game will be rescheduled, if possible, Harden didn’t technically miss it. As such, he was instead hit with a $50K fine by the NBA.
It’s not yet known how many negative coronavirus tests Harden will have to return before he’s cleared by the NBA to play following his COVID-19 protocol violation. If he hasn’t yet received clearance for the Rockets’ game on Saturday in Portland, it would cost him significantly more than $50K — 1/72nd of his $41,254,920 salary works out to $572,895 in lost money for each game he misses due to a protocol violation.
Harden is one of the NBA’s highest-paid players, so even though the 1/72 ratio applies to everyone equally, only a small handful of other stars would lose as much as $573K per game for violating the NBA’s health and safety protocols. A player earning the rookie minimum of $898,310, for instance, would be docked $12,477 for each game missed.
could be worse. out of about 210 games the last 3 years, otto has played 70 of them. that’s around 1.1 mil for every game played instead of about 350k per game average.
The NBA is soft. That game was postponed because of Harden, he should be fined and not allowed to play in the make up (if he is traded he should be suspended for a game). He knowingly violated procedures, got his teammates infected, and the game needed to be pushed. That’s worse than just him missing because of violating procedures.
To be clear, the Rockets’ other eight unavailable players were unavailable for reasons unrelated to Harden — the positive/inconclusive tests and the contact tracing seemingly had nothing to do with him.
You COULD make the case that his unavailability was the tipping point that forced the game to be postponed, since he would’ve been the Rockets’ eighth player if he were available. But even if he hadn’t done anything, the Rockets still would’ve been missing half their team and would’ve been in trouble.
Right now he seems to be the one that violated procedures and the game needed to be moved. You can always blame other people, if the 10th 11th 12th guys didn’t have a positive or inconclusive test blah blah blah. In a sense he is now docked less money because other teammates weren’t available. But when you have a player blatantly not following the rules a slap on the wrist isn’t enough. There hasn’t been reporting of those other guys being at a “not a strip club” location. This is the first game of the season, every other sport has it figured out, this one guy is just trying to be a problem.
Last year a similar thing happened in the nfl with Antonio brown. Wanted a trade, started fighting with teammates and executives at practice. They started with the slap on the wrist fine and it did nothing.
50k is 50k to harden, a percentage of his check that he will still get. Gets like gross 500k for playing, 450k for not playing, he’ll take the 450k all day. Start taking that whole check and he won’t be at “not strip clubs” maskless.
Point is – his actions alone would have gotten him fined his entire pay. Add in teammates test results and his dock in pay gets reduced. Doesn’t seem right.
I think if it wasn’t first game of the season it would be different scenario. NBA (and all sports leagues, frankly) are figuring this stuff out as they go; we’re in uncharted territory. If you’d like we can just forget it and cancel the entire season. Then Harden wouldn’t make a dime. Would that make you happy?
I say dock him the pay. They would have had enough players last night if he hadn’t broken protocol a 2ND TIME.
Just for reference sake, Harden’s fine, percentage wise, works out to $121.20 for a person who makes $100K per year…
???? $1388.88. 1/72 x 100,000 = 1388.88
Now for the moreso avg American at $40k. $555.55
But Harden was “only” fined $50K… $50K against his salary is the same percentage at $121 and change for what is often considered a well-to-do non-athlete.
#FreeTheBeard
Yet the rox still have a man crush on him and don’t have the guts to trade him… The GM and owner must love drama….