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Originally Posted by Beatle17
But the MOU in effect at the time had different wording than the final CBA.
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It still meant the same thing it was just worded slightly less clearly (though upon reading it for the first time my interpretation was the same as the league's). There was a reason the MOU explicitly said that acquiring an RFA via trade and then signing him would also exempt that player from rule 13.23 and that's because they were drawing a clear distinction between signing a player you already have the rights to and signing one that you don't. To me that clearly implies that signing another team's RFA does not preclude 13.23 from applying and that was the league's position.
But really, my point was more that what you're either/or scenario isn't really accurate:
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It's quite simple: either a team is exposing a player with whom they do not have a contract or rights to waivers--which is not possible!--or they do have the rights to that player, they sign that player to a contract at which point they legally can put him on waivers, but they are not obligated to because that player is now their RFA and there is an MOU exemption to overseas RFAs and waiver exposure.
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Neither of these scenarios needed to occur, since at the time of the contract taking effect the player is not on the signing team's RFA list which means he's not exempt. O'Reilly would've never been on Calgary's RFA list because they wouldn't have owned his rights until his contract came into effect and thus the rule would've applied to him. And none of that changed between the MOU and the final draft of the CBA.
I agree there's a chance Feaster might've been able talk his way out of it, but that's far from certain. And given the facts and the apparent admission by the front office staff of a blunder, I think it's pretty clear what happened and it wasn't Feaster coming up with an ingenious plan to use somewhat vague language to create a loophole in the waiver rule.