Boozer muss jetzt abdrücken!
interessant, interessant...bin mir sicher das wir Boozers comeback jetzt ziehmlich rasch erleben werden. ein wenig druck kann manchmal wunder bewirken. mal schaun wie schnell??!!
Jazz recouping cash now for Boozer's long absence
Insurance policy paying $109,861 per game
By Tim Buckley
Deseret Morning News
Carlos Boozer has been out so long, the Jazz are now recouping money — more than $100,000 per game — every time he does not play.
A high-premium insurance policy on the oft-injured forward finally is paying off for the franchise, and it's a little-known happenstance that surprised even the handsomely compensated Boozer.
"I wasn't even aware of that," he said Thursday. "That's interesting. I didn't know that. That's the first time I've heard of it."
Here's how Jazz owner Larry H. Miller actually is saving some cash because Boozer, who has been out all season with a strained hamstring and is 11 days away from reaching one full year without having taken part in regular-season NBA game, is not playing:
Each of the NBA's 30 teams is required by league rule to ensure at least its five highest player contracts with multiple seasons remaining, based on annual salary.
In the case of the Jazz, Boozer, who makes a team-high $11,260,816 this season — it would be $333,000 more had he reached a minimum games-played bonus, which he will not — is one of those players.
Others include Andrei Kirilenko, who is making $10,967,500 this season, and Mehmet Okur, whose season salary is $8,250,000.
The policy — purchased collectively by NBA teams through large, international re-insurance companies that vary year-by-year and in the past have included well-known Lloyd's of London — only starts to pay when a player has missed 41 consecutive regular-season games all due to the same injury, or some variation of it.
When Kirilenko missed 41 games last season, for instance, there was no payoff — because his absence was not comprised of consecutive games, he did not miss more than 41 and he had varying injuries.
Boozer missed his 42nd straight game because of the hamstring Jan. 23 vs. New Jersey. (The 31 straight games he missed at the end of last season do not count toward the payoff, since they were due to a foot injury, not the hamstring.) Tonight, when the Jazz play host to Sacramento, he will miss No. 47 in a row, all because of the hammy.
Beginning with game No. 42, the payoff kicked in: Insurance is now paying 80 percent of Boozer's per-game salary based on an 82-game season, and the Jazz are on the hook for the rest.
Boozer — whose six-year contract is valued at $68 million in guaranteed money, including a sixth season worth at least $12,324,233 at his option — makes $137,327 per game this season.
That means that since the New Jersey game, insurance has been paying $109,861 of his per-game salary — with the Jazz picking up the other $27,466.
In the five games since the payoff started, they have recouped a little more than $549,000.
That's still not enough to cover the cost of premiums this season for the Jazz's five insured contracts, a total believed to be in excess of $1 million.
But it's a good head start.
If Boozer were to miss the rest of the season, the Jazz would save — because insurance covered — about $4.5 million. It also means they'd be paying $6.76 million as a franchise without getting a game out of him.
One other hypothetical: If Boozer were to return, then miss games within a reasonable time period because of the same injured left hamstring, insurance would still pay 80 percent for the future games in which he does not play.
The payoff saves the Jazz actual cash, but has no impact whatsoever on the team payroll figure — in excess of $57 million — used relative to salary-cap and luxury-tax issues.
Not that any of all that seems to faze Boozer, or for that matter Jazz coach Jerry Sloan.
"I don't know anything about that," Sloan said Thursday. "All I know is we hope we can get him back on the floor."
When that will be remains unclear.
Boozer, who averaged a team-high 17.8 points and team-high 9.0 rebounds during the 51 games in which he did play last season, strained the hamstring during the first weekend of October training camp.
He re-injured it in late October, shortly before the regular started; tore the muscle in mid-November; then sustained another setback Jan. 10, when he thought he was quite close to actually returning.
"I think I'm at that point now where I was when I tweaked it a couple weeks ago," Boozer said, "but I'm hoping soon to be able to do a full practice. Real soon."
For now, while teammates do practice, he rides a bike and does rehab drills on the side.
"We're just going to play it by ear, day-by-day," Boozer said. "It's getting better. Every day, I'm closer to being back. That's how we're looking at it, and we'll just have to see it how it goes once I'm able to practice.
"Like I said maybe the third time, or second time, I tweaked it, or pulled it, or tore it, I don't have a timetable."
Boozer even suggested Feb. 14 holds no particular significance on his career calendar. That date — Valentine's Day — marks the last NBA game in which he did play, the one in which he hurt his foot.
"I've got to get some roses for my wife, and candy. That's the first thing that comes to mind — make my wife feel special," he said. "But, nah, actually, I haven't thought about it. I haven't thought about it all. Interesting, though."