The thing you don't seem to understand is that this is the tradeoff of all NBA contracts being guaranteed. Every once in a while a guy outperforms his contract pretty significantly, and they just have to ride out those contract terms. On the other side, if a player massively underperforms relative to their contract, that money is still guaranteed over the life of the contract.
You demonstrate that you don't really understand the business fundamentals of NBA contracts when you propose things like sitting out, or state that you just don't like how it works so it should work differently.
I agree -- and I think it is important to not apply the lens of hindsight to when Oshae signed the contract.
He'd gone undrafted. He'd toiled in obscurity in the minors, he was chasing a dream -- and then he got his foot in the door in the most limited way possible. Sink or swim, it was up to him. And he knocked it out of the park with how he played, and Indiana kept him around longer than most call-ups.
And when they offered him a contract, I strongly doubt that Oshae felt like his "hands were tied behind his back" -- I bet he was overjoyed to sign that initial contract. Because it put him in 7 figures, and it meant he would be sticking around the league for longer.
And most importantly, because the trade off was:
- Sign an NBA contract, even one that wasn't extremely lucrative, but which made him a millionaire
- Take a principled stand and go back to the minors, and take his chances
I mean... what's difficult to understand about this?
I completely agree that he's "outplayed" that contract, and that his performance warrants a bigger payday. That's what second contracts are all about.
I'll bet that instead of crying that he didn't sign a bigger first contract, Oshae is grateful that he got the opportunity to live out his dream and prove his worth, positioning him for a bigger payday down the road. When he signed that first contract, and had basically not made a substantial amount of money up to that point -- do you honestly think he felt exploited, used, or disrespected when he signed a multi-year contract with guaranteed money, that pushed him to earning 7 figures? I don't.
He's on the cusp of achieving that dream anyway.
EDIT -- something else I didn't think of earlier, but compare and contrast how things worked out for Brissett compared to another Orange great, C.J. Fair. Fair also toiled for a long time in the g-league, was a key starter on a team that won a championship, a g-league all star, etc. He went to training camps with the Pacers, and even almost made the opening day roster one year, but never got an opportunity to actually play at the NBA level.
Toward the end of his g-league career, he got called up by the Chicago Bulls, who were having massive injury problems [I think that they were flirting with not having the minimum number of available players, like 7, due to the numerous injuries]. A bunch of substitute roster guys were going to have to play, just because somebody has to. CJ got called up on like a Thursday, but as timing would have it the Bulls weren't playing a game until Sunday. But he was a shoo-in for minutes. Practiced with the team a couple of days... only to get cut on Sunday, because the Bulls wanted to sign some other 10-day contract player that another team dumped.
He came within 12 hours or so of at least playing in an NBA game. If the Bulls schedule had a game on Saturday, he would have played. All just bad luck with the timing. Even if he never made it any further than that, for the rest of time he could have known that he made it to the bigs, and played in an NBA game. Maybe he didn't stick, maybe he didn't earn big bucks, but he'd forever his legacy would be that of someone who played in the NBA.
I'm pretty sure that given how things worked out, and given how tantalizingly close he came, CJ would probably cut off his left foot if it meant he could have played in that one NBA game. Comparatively, Brissett hit a grand slam.
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