TIME DRAIN ALERT: Long articles!
A fairly long article regarding finances in the NBA posted about 2 months ago in Sham. About a month later he posted this addendum:
Addendum to the Xavier Henry thing

where you can find this:

"As the initial post stated, Memphis were not being entirely pioneering here. There was a small amount of precedent, both from Ty Lawson's situation above and from the San Antonio Spurs:

A fifth player joined the less-than-120% club this year; Spurs draft pick and England frontline seamer James Anderson. After about a month of negotiations, San Antonio eventually signed Anderson to a contract that pays a maximum of 120% of the scale in the first year, but only 115% in the second year, and 117% in the third (fourth year salaries are calculated as a percentage of the third), all years of which contained more significant performance incentives than usual. This is the kind of thing Memphis are accused of being doing, if not an even more extreme example. Furthermore, this now means that three of the five players to have received less than the full 120% have been Spurs picks. They've actually gone through with the deed Memphis stand accused of trying, and they've done so on an annual basis. In the cases of [Ian] Mahinmi and [George] Hill, San Antonio could invoke the "no one else was drafting you that high, so live with it" excuse. Not so with Anderson. San Antonio have better leverage, given their strength as a franchise and the fact they aren't doing it with lottery picks, yet it is the same practice."

Just thought it is interesting how Memphis got scorned for attempting this while San Antonio were doing it for the past few years without drawing much attention. The original articles have all the details.