Want proof that the NBA's contract and salary structure is about as byzantine and arcane as they come? Even the brilliant Larry Bird needed a few years to figure it all out.

The Legend from French Lick was named NBA Executive of the Year this week, a runaway winner in voting by his colleagues. Already the first person in league history to win both an MVP and Coach of the Year award, Bird is now the only man to ever claim all three trophies, rewarded for his work as president of the Indiana Pacers. Bumbling Bobcats owner Michael Jordan never had it so good (and probably never will).

It wasn't too long ago that Bird was on the verge of being run out of office in his hoops-crazed home state. Now he's being applauded for putting together a roster that boasts what every front office is after; a young, talented core that doesn't cost too much, leaving financial freedom to spend on key free-agent additions. It's like Bryan Colangelo's current blueprint, only better. The Pacers finished with the fifth-best record in the league and, thanks in no small part to Dwight Howard's wonky back, pushed past Orlando in the first round of the playoffs. Now they're giving Miami all they can handle in splitting the first two games of their current series, with home-court contests in Indianapolis coming up.

Still, success in the big chair didn't come anywhere near as easily for Bird as it did in his days swishing jumpers or stalking the sidelines. The madness of the Malice at the Palace, the infamous Detroit brawl that broke up a potential championship team the year after he was appointed, and the four years in the playoff wilderness that followed, weren't easy on anyone, least of all Bird. He called it "a long, painful journey" to respectability and the respect of his NBA peers in the form of this week's award. 

Yes, things are happy again in the Hoosier state. But just as he's got it all figured out, the landscape may be about to shift under Bird's feet, with a challenge of the salary loophole named in his honour.

The Larry Bird exception is arguably the best known of the nine exceptions to the NBA's salary cap agreement, largely because its initial application allowed the Boston Celtics to exceed the cap and hold on to their superstar. In offering a chance to give more money to players who re-sign with their team of the previous three seasons, so-called 'Bird rights are "among the most valuable rights that players have," according to union head Billy Hunter.

What the player's union wants to know, and has asked an arbitrator to determine, is whether Bird rights (and their shorter term partner, the worm-catching-early-Bird rights for players with two years service), apply to players who change teams through waivers. And the implications could be far-reaching for a team Bird himself once worked hard to beat, the New York Knicks. 

Guard Jeremy Lin and forward Steve Novak both joined the Knicks last year after being waived by other teams, and both went on to have breakout seasons. Lin's promotion to the starting lineup amid a spate of injuries lifted New York from the doldrums to the head-shaking heights of Linsanity, if only for a few weeks. Novak, meanwhile, nearly doubled his career scoring average and finished as the NBA's top three-point shooter. Both earned the league minimum while doing so, and are now set to cash in.

If the union wins the argument, New York can re-sign Lin and Novak with little regard for the constraints of the salary cap, and even retain another exception (the mid-level) for further free agent spending. But if the arbitrator rules in favour of the league, Lin and Novak would lose their early-Bird rights, meaning one or both could price themselves out of the market in Manhattan.

Confused? Of course you are. Asked about the matter in February, three different GMs said they believed Lin and Novak would retain their early-Bird rights this summer, just as players who are traded do. The NBA says no way, that anyone who gets waived doesn't deserve the same treatment. 

Larry Bird might be pleased to see an Eastern Conference rival forced to surrender key players. But for the sake of his own small-market team, now taking their first serious steps toward rebuilding a shattered reputation, the Pacers president might well support the player's side of this debate, lest he find himself in the same predicament as his New York counterparts sometime soon.