Deadline is a deadline. Meet it or don't meet it.

You can't stuff people around indefinitely, deadlines are necessary in order to make decisions.

Pretty sure Lauren signed a million dollar 5 year agreement with the Caps in 2011, thanks to funding by BA and the ACT Government.

Surely LJ is breaching this 5 year deal now?

It seems that these negotiations were to amend the dates from the original deal, so that Jackson would play with the Caps this year but not next year - it was to change the seasons around which formed the contract.

Says to me she actually wanted to play elsewhere this year and not with the Capitals...simple as that

How long does she wait though? And looking at things I would suggest it is more likely the Caps or Basketball ACT were trying to get out of it:
- In talks since February about an deal.
- Convinced Jackson was over her injury, a contract amendment was sent on July 19.
- Capitals advised they couldn't meet payments, so Jackson said she would accept delayed payments.
- 4 requests were sent to the Capitals to sign the contract amendments BEFORE the deadline was imposed; that raises the question of over how many days were those requests sent before they felt the need to impose a deadline?

All that info is found in this article:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/sport/basketball/basketball-star-lauren-jackson-wont-play-for-capitals-in-wnbl-in-2013-20130730-2qwrf.html

What makes this even worse is that last week on the 26 July, 2 stories were released to say the Capitals would be announcing Jackson's signing this week - this is a passage from one of those articles:

*The Capitals confirmed to Fairfax Media on Friday a contract was yet to be officially signed, but it is understood to be a formality.

Canberra will hold final discussions with Jackson's management at the weekend, before making an official announcement late next week.*

Read more: http://www.canberratimes.com.au/sport/basketball/capitals-boosted-by-jackson-20130726-2qq67.html#ixzz2aaT6nxqi

If they (Capitals & Basketball ACT) really wanted Jackson to suit up this season, why keep delaying the signing of the contract?

Someone say China.....??

All for the money!

If it is public money paid to Jackson it must be explained to public what exactly happened !

^^^TMK^^^ - Very good point made, if it was Liz instead of Lauren!

This forum would have blown up with everyone calling for Liz's head in this situation. Something really stinks here & my mail tells me that ACT Basketball are dying to tell their version of this story at some point soon. It's not as clear cut as the Jackson Camp would have us beleive!

Seems pretty clean cut to me. Basketball ACT had a deadline, and they missed it.

Isaac, What if the meeting was scheduled for weeks ago, but you delayed till 7pm the next week, then the next until finally you have to go or you will miss out altogether.

Sure seems harsh but simply getting their shit together and signing the contract before 7 would have meant LJ was there this season.

Isaac - in that same scenario though, if the friend was running late wouldn't you expect them to notify you that they are running late?

Look at the timeline of events:

- Been in contract discussions since February.
- Cleared of injury problems with an amended contract sent through on July 19; the amendment being the 2nd playing year of her contract was brought forward by a year.
- Jackson advised she would accept delayed payments when Capitals informed her that they couldn't meet the player payments.
- Jackson's management sent 4 reminders to the Capitals to get the deal signed BEFORE they set the deadline of 5pm July 29.
- News story released on July 27 that Jackson will line up for the Capitals this coming WNBL season. While they admitted the contract wasn't signed they called it a formality.
- 5pm, July 29, no contract has been signed and Jackson walks away.

How much time did the Capitals need to sign the contract? Its not like the contract was sent to them that morning and they were told to sign it by 5pm that day; the 2 parties have been in discussions for months. If the Capitals were serious about having Jackson line up for them this season, and as they said last week that signing of the contract was only a formality, what was the delay on their behalf? And if they were going to be delayed in the signing of the contract until 6pm, why not inform Jackson & her management?

Good on Jackson for sticking to her guns. Obviously the Capitals didn't get the contract signed until after the 5pm deadline, but I wonder if that was before or after they were told by Jackson's management to not bother - and in the end they signed it to make them not look so bad and to give the impression that Jackson was impatient. So how much more time was she to give them, if they said they needed an extra day and that continues to drag on at what stage do you just draw the line and not accept being walked over?

Great summary above. LJ has always appeared to have had a good relationship with the caps over the years and on the surface of it, it appears they simply were too lazy to get the paperwork done in a timely manner.

I agree SamCro, I hope Joyce doesn't bend over for LJ like others have in the past. She should start the Worlds next year on the bench, we have better TEAM players to make up the starting 5.