At the end of the day if the options are something like:
1- Give him another chance, if he f***s up again we enter phase 4 and we get rid of his contract for free.
or
2- No Nuke but 3M cap penalty for 6 years and ownership must pay him 75% of what's left on his contract.
or
3- Buyout
or
4- Pay a team premium assets to take him and likely get a bad contract in return
then I'm very confident that they'll pick the first option and Nuke will be back.
Isn’t option 1 just an extension of option 2?
Under option 1, he gets suspended for a year. The Avs still consistently run the risk that he can come back and they have to plan cap space for him. How does option 1 get us out of the contract for free? It would be the same termination rules.
Question for those who may know.
Could the Avs technically sabotage themselves? For example, could the Avs wait the 6 months, and test Nuke themselves and give it to the league? Or give the league a “heads up” to test Nuke when they know he’s stepped out the lines again?