How DiPietro's contract stacks up against other 10+ year deals
By Kevin Stewart
With the New York Islanders signing Rick DiPietro to a 15-year extension today, it made me start thinking about other notable double-digit year contracts. It also made me think about how they affected the corresponding franchises and players alike throughout the contract itself. Here's what I came up with off the top of my head:
- Magic Johnson - signed a 25-year contract with the Lakers in 1981 for $1 million per season starting in 1984. However, the Lakers introduced their salary cap and the contract was limited to 10 years. During that span, the Lakers won 3 NBA Championships and made 7 appearances in the NBA Finals.
- Alex Rodriguez - signed a 10-year, $252 million contract with the Texas Rangers in 2000 and became the highest player in Major League Baseball history. He played just three seasons with Texas, winning the American League MVP in 2003 while the team finished in last place. He was traded from the team in the winter of 2003 to the New York Yankees in return for Alfonso Soriano and the Rangers still pay a chunk of his salary. This past off-season, Soriano was traded to the Washington Nationals (where he is on the brink of a 40/40 season) in exchange for Brad Wilkerson and Terrmel Sledge, essentially leaving the Rangers with nothing from the signing of Rodriguez.
- Derek Jeter - signed a 10-year, $189 million extension with the New York Yankees in February of 2001 after the Yankees had won four out of the past five World Series titles. Since then, he has been named the Yankees' captain and has led the Yanks to two American League pennants and five consecutive American League Eastern Division titles (closing in on their sixth straight) since signing the deal. His name has also been mentioned in MVP talk for this 2006 season.
- Mike Krzyzewski- signed a lifetime contract (guaranteed through 2011) to coach Duke University's men's basketball program in 2001. Before that, Coach K had led Duke to three National Championships, four National Title games, and nine final fours with one since. He is the face of Duke basketball and they would not be where they were if not for him.
- Alexei Yashin - signed a 10-year, $87.5 million deal with the New York Islanders in 2001 and could be the biggest bust in franchise history. Since joining the Islanders, Yashin has not scored more than 32 goals in a season and hasn't tallied more than 75 points (both in his first season with the team in 2001-02). The Isles signed Yashin to the contract after he scored 40+ goals in his previous two seasons with the Ottawa Senators while missing a year between them.
- Daunte Culpepper - signed a 10-year extension with the Minnesota Vikings in 2003. But after Randy Moss departed to Oakland, Culpepper lost some of his fire and suffered a season-ending injury early in 2005. He was traded this past off-season to the Miami Dolphins and Brad Johnson is the Vikings starter once again.
- Charlie Weis - signed a 10-year contract extension with the University of Notre Dame in October 2005 to coach their football program. Weis coached the Fighting Irish to the Fiesta Bowl last year where they lost to Ohio State and the Irish are off to a 2-0 start in 2006 after being ranked #2 in the country in the pre-season.
- Rick DiPietro - signed an NHL-record 15-year contract extension through the 2022 season with the New York Islanders. DiPietro has played in just four NHL seasons and only two of them full. He is coming off a career high 30 wins in the 2005-06 season. After hiring and firing Neil Smith to become the general manager for the Isles, former goaltender Garth Snow became the GM and his first major move was signing an unproven youngster to the longest contract the NHL has ever seen. Looks like the Islanders want DiPietro to become the face, or should I say the mask, of the franchise.
The two names that immediately jump out at you are those of Yashin and DiPietro (and perhaps Weis). These names do not belong with those other names as far as huge contracts are concerned, and both those players were signed by the Islanders. This tel
Lengthy contracts have gone both north and south in the past. But in this day and age, I still think the signing of DiPietro today to a 15-year contract is one of the dumbest moves I have seen over the course of my lifetime. The Islanders will seriously be questioning this signing before 2010 (they have him signed through 2022).
Sources:
Hockeydb.com
Cnnsi.com
ESPN.com
NFL.com
Wikipedia.org
* Alex Rodriguez photo courtesy of askmen.com
* Daunte Culpepper photo courtesy of Andy Lyons/Getty Images
DiPietro signs record 15-year extension (not a typo)
By Kevin Stewart
New York Islanders new general manager and former goaltender Garth Snow really gave me a laugh today. The Islanders re-signed goaltender Rick DiPietro to a fifteen-year, yes 1-5, extension through the year 2022, the longest contract in the history of the National Hockey League. Thank you Snow for the comedy wake-up (this was almost as funny as waking up to find J.J. Redick had been arrested for drunk driving).
The first thing I do everyday when I wake up is go online and check ESPN.com to see what I have missed thus far in the world of sports. Usually my eyes are half open when I reach my computer so I was a bit skeptical of the headline. So I rubbed the cobwebs out of my eyes and splashed some water on my face to gain some composure and headed back to my computer. I learned my eyes had not fooled me.
Just like every other hockey fan who hears this for the first time, I was certainly befuddled. As a fan of the New York Rangers, I can’t help but snicker at the second bad move of the off-season by their rivals on the island (the first being the Isles signing former Rangers GM Neil Smith as their general manager only to fire him before making any moves in favor of Snow).
DiPietro is a fairly good goaltender who is young and certainly talented. But fifteen years, Garth? That is unheard of!
We all remember the last “big” signing the Islanders made in 2001 when they inked Alexei Yashin for ten years (boy, that sure has worked out). The questions that I’d like to ask Snow are just flowing through my head: What are you thinking? Are you serious? You realize how unproven this guy is? What if he gets hurt? What are you thinking? Are you guys still that upset about trading Roberto Luongo? You couldn’t sign him to a shorter and safer deal? WHAT ARE YOU THINKING?
So this got me thinking, I am currently 22-years old and I will be 38 when DiPietro’s contract expires. In the next 16 years, I will hopefully get married, have kids, win the lottery a few times, maybe have grandkids if my kids make some stupid decisions which could lead to an appearance on the Jerry Springer show (never take that off the air – solid gold), buy a nice house and a couple cars, see my teams win a few championships including Henrik Lundqvist raise the cup before DiPietro, or I could die at a young age.
I cannot wait to hear Snow’s reasoning behind signing DiPietro to this lengthy extension. It’s going to be nearly impossible to trade him if they want to sometime down the road; who is going to want a player who has that many years on his contract? They can do whatever they want, but this is stupid.
It may not be the same sport, but it’s not like the guy is Magic Johnson (who signed a 25-year deal in 1981 with the Los Angeles Lakers; which was still ridiculous). It’s Rick DiPietro; not Patrick Roy, not Dominik Hasek. Enjoy your goaltender Long Island. We will all be laughing in Manhattan and everywhere else in the NHL.
Sports are my life. I'm a diehard New York Yankees, Giants, and Rangers fan as well as Tennessee Volunteers football and North Carolina basketball. I can't stand watching the NBA regular season.
I work at ESPN as a Production Assistant, which means I cut some pretty sick highlights.
I enjoy writing mostly about my favorite teams because they are what I am most passionate about.
My aspiration is to be a play-by-play broadcaster for Major League Baseball and the National Football League. I was a broadcaster for the New England Collegiate Baseball League's Torrington Twisters in 2004. The games streamed worldwide via internet.
finished in last place. He was traded from the team in the winter of 2003 to the New York Yankees in return for Alfonso Soriano and the Rangers still pay a chunk of his salary. This past off-season, Soriano was traded to the Washington Nationals (where he is on the brink of a 40/40 season) in exchange for Brad Wilkerson and Terrmel Sledge, essentially leaving the Rangers with nothing from the signing of Rodriguez.
- Daunte Culpepper - signed a 10-year extension with the Minnesota Vikings in 2003. But after Randy Moss departed to Oakland, Culpepper lost some of his fire and suffered a season-ending injury early in 2005. He was traded this past off-season to the Miami Dolphins and Brad Johnson is the Vikings starter once again.
me.
