Short-Term Contract

The discussion on injuries brings me to the next subject - short-term contracts. I have been very fortunate - in each season, I signed a contract for 10 months, thus securing a cash-flow for the whole season. There are numerous players, however, who sign contracts for only a short period of time - anywhere between 1-month to 6-month - and travel from team to team throughout the season. Short-term contracts are very common nowadays and can be very beneficial to both, players and teams.
Basketball players live and die by the stat sheet (a very unfortunate fact). The "numbers" from your previous season are the main factor that determines your salary level for the upcoming season. So if you suffer a major injury, you don’t get to play due to high competition on your team, or you just didn’t have a good year, your salary level is likely to decrease. What can you do to prevent this? Unless you have a really good reputation among coaches and have been in the league for a while, little to nothing. The conversation between your agent and the team manager is likely to go like this:
Agent: I have a player for you, works hard, great defender, can shoot the ball, and wants to earn X.
Manager: Well that’s great, but well only offer him Y.
Agent: Why is that? His market value is X.
Manager: That may be, but with the numbers he had last year, we won’t pay him X, well only pay him Y.
Now let’s say you sign for 1 month and put up good numbers during the 4 games of this contract, your salary level will rise again and you can play the rest of the season earning the money you want.
The club managers use the short term contracts to substitute injured players or strengthen a team's roster for a playoff run. For example, let's say your forward, who scores 18 points a game, gets hurt and has to sit out for one month. You sign a profile player for a month, which is likely to give you the same numbers, while the hurt player is recuperating.
We had a similar situation this season. One of our big guys was hurt and the diagnosis was that he could be out for as long as 3 weeks. So the management decided to sign a high profile player for a month. Alexis started his season in the ACB, the top league in Spain. At the end of his 3 month contract he got hurt, so the team decided not to resign him. He played all of January with us, got back into shape from his injury, and in February signed a one month contract in the ACB. He chose not to resign with the team for the rest of the season and is now on his way to Chile or Puerto Rico to play in their respective Summer Leagues that last about 4 months.
Personally, I prefer to sign a one-season contract during the summer rather than waiting and see if better opportunities will come around. The competition is fierce and there are plenty of players who don’t sign with a team, because they waited for better opportunities. On the other hand, there is a lot of money to be made in the short-term market. I assure you that Alexis, playing 5 months in 3 different teams, has made a lot more money than I will at the end of my 10 month contract.

3 weeks of "hell"

The reason I started the discussion about injuries is because unfortunately, I’ve had to battle some injuries myself this year. In fact, in a span of 3 weeks I suffered through more injuries than in my entire college career... well, that is not entirely true, but it is likely to make you feel bad for me, and that is really what I was aiming for!

So these 3 weeks of "hell" began with an away game at the end of November. Sometimes during the first half my right hamstring began to hurt - a lot. Following the athlete's code, I didn’t say anything and continued to play (looking back I’m surprised no one got suspicious, because I was limping my way from offence to defense and back). After the game (we got blown out by 28 points, just in case you were wondering), I put ice on it (the standard procedure prescribed to ANY sort of injury, even if the medics have no clue what it is), thinking it would go away over the weekend. Well, I woke up the next day with a sharp pain in my right hamstring. I couldn’t get out of bed, not to mention walk, so I called up the doctor and told him what has happened. To my surprise, he quickly responded with: it is a micro-tear; you cannot practice for 10 days. It is Saturday, I can’t see you until Monday before practice.

Before I move on, I would like to look at this situation from a different angle. Suppose you are a professional athlete, you are hurt and you are looking to get better as quickly as possible. You call your team's doctor (our "doctor" is a Traumatologist) and based on the information you provided him with over the phone, he is capable of identifying your injury. To top it off, he tells you that there is nothing you can do until he sees you on Monday evening... how would this make you feel? Would you trust a guy over the phone whose primary profession is to operate seriously injured people? I hope this enlightens a little the dilemma between coaches, doctors and players...

On Monday the doctor came to see me, poked my muscle, twisted my leg a couple of times, and confirmed his previous assumption that it is a micro-tear. So I didn’t practice all week, missed one game (we beat the then 1st ranked team in the league) and prepared myself for my glorious return to the field. My highly anticipated comeback happened on Wednesday; I went through the whole practice with no problems.

Towards the end of practice on Thursday, I found myself guarding one of our wings. He drove to the basket, and while I was successfully attempting to stop his charge, my left ring finger got caught in his jersey and snapped - I could feel and hear a clear snap in my left ring finger, followed by an intense rush of pain. I finished practice not being able to catch the ball. So once again I had to report to the doctor. Once again he did some poking and twisting and decided that I had to go to the hospital right away to get an X-Ray. Fortunately, the X-Ray came out negative - nothing was broken, only twisted. I was cleared to play on the weekend with an obstructing bandage between my ring- and middle finger.

The following week I barely escaped what could have easily been my career-ending injury. I was on the right side of the zone, as one of my teammates drove to the basket. I quickly analyzed the situation and concluded that his effort would either result in a basket or a foul (in both cases the ball would be taken out to the top of the key again) and decided to relax and see what would happen. The latter occurred; in mid-air my teammate was knocked down by our American. He came hard to the ground, struggled to regain his balance, and eventually fell down - in my direction. It all happened way to fast... before I knew it, he came stumbling towards me, fell on my right foot and proceeded to fall into my leg. I thought my knee was going to explode. I felt a huge tension in every ligament and instantly thought that my career was over with. It was a scary moment, by the looks of my teammates I could tell that it looked as bad as it felt. After a short break the pain eased and in the end I could finish practice. I don’t know how I got away without any tear or break, but to this day my knee hurts every time I bend it too...