One of the best pure shooters anyone has ever seen was Ray Allen, a 10-time NBA All-Star who won rings with the Boston Celtics and Miami Heat. Based in Springfield after 18 seasons in the NBA, Allen was the NBA’s all-time leader in converted 3s until Steph Curry joined. He shot .452 from the field, .400 from outside the arc and .894 from the free-throw line. It was smoother than a Bentley Continental GT.
Allen came to mind after Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray held a news conference Thursday to make a public complaint about a clause in his contract.
This clause, now commonly referred to as the “homework clause”, required Murray to spend four hours a day in “self-study” during game weeks. The ‘independent investigation’ was supposed to involve watching game movies at home. Playing video games, watching television and/or using the internet did not count.
“To think that I could achieve everything I’ve accomplished in my career without being a student of the game…it’s disrespectful and it’s almost a joke,” Murray said.
Kyler Murray has 90 touchdowns in his first three seasons
Murray is a young (24), undersized (5 feet 10 and 207 pounds) and talented quarterback. It is smoother than a Lotus Elise. Over three seasons, he passed for 11,480 yards and 70 touchdowns and rushed for 1,786 yards and 20 touchdowns. He was the league’s Offensive Rookie of the Year in 2019 and a Pro Bowl pick in 2020 and 2021.
On July 21, Murray signed a contract worth $160 million guaranteed – and up to $230 million if all of his bonuses take effect. The contract contained the “homework clause”. A week later, on Wednesday, the clause was reportedly removed. Then, on Thursday, Murray had his press conference.
In other words, Murray called on the media to protest a clause that had already been removed from his contract.
“I’m really flattered that you all think that, with my mate, I can go out and not prepare for the game and not take it seriously,” he said. “It’s disrespectful to my colleagues, to all the great athletes and all the great players in this league. This game is difficult.”
All this has caused a media storm. Welcome to training camp!
What are the problems with Kyler Murray?
There are those who believe that race is an issue here. It often is. Those who deny it should give Colin Kaepernick a job.
There are those pointing out that someone in the Cardinals front office – maybe it’s going as high as the owner, who knows? – must have had a reason to put the “homework clause” in Murray’s contract. Then they took it out. They then made a public statement essentially saying they love Murray and didn’t foresee the PR problem.
Me, I was thinking of Allen. I was thinking specifically about his second NBA contract. He negotiated it himself, rather directly with US Senator Herb Kohl, who owned the Bucks at the time. Given the NBA’s salary-cap-slot structure at the time, Allen knew exactly what he was worth (which turned out to be $70.9 million in six years).
Instead of paying an agent 4% or $2,836 million, Allen hired a team of attorneys, a business manager, and an accountant and paid them up to $500 an hour for their advice. The lawyers were led by the late Johnnie Cochran, a famous criminal defense attorney.
If Cochran, who was on OJ Simpson’s defense team, saw a clause he didn’t like in Jesus Shuttlesworth’s contract, his client would have known about it. (Young people, listen up: Allen played Jesus Shuttlesworth and Denzel Washington played his father, in Spike Lee’s 1998 movie “He Got Game.”)
Where was Kyler Murray’s agent?
What I wonder about Murray is, where was his agent? I spoke to my own lawyer about this and he said, “I was wondering the same thing.”
The going rate for an agent is anywhere from 4% to 10%. Four percent of $230 million is $9.2 million and 10% is $23 million. Cochran would have produced the Magna Carta for that kind of jack.
Murray’s agent and the Cardinals agreed to a contract, and then they changed the terms?
If homework is a problem with Murray, isn’t it something Murray should have known about?
If homework is a problem for the cardinals, and it clearly is, because they are the ones who described it in the original contract, why is it no longer a problem for them?
What was Murray’s agent doing besides calculating his share of one of the richest contracts in NFL history?
What we have here is what John Kennedy Toole could have described as a confederation of suckers, with Murray in the middle.
As my attorney said, “If you want to run your franchise quarterback out of town, the best way to do it is to lie to him.”
Ultimately, that’s the most likely scenario: Murray, offended and hurt, will find his way onto a new team, probably with a new agent.
By the way, what’s in DeShaun Watson’s contract?
marace@dispatch.com
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