Amnesty Claim on Scola May Be Prohibitive
As first reported by Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle and then confirmed by Adrian Wojnarowksi of Yahoo Sports!, the Houston Rockets are expected to use amnesty on Luis Scola. The goal would ultimately be a run at Dwight Howard of the Orlando Magic (the top priority) or failing that, perhaps a three-way deal to land Andrew Bynum of the Los Angeles Lakers.
Under the normal procedure of making an amnesty claim, teams with cap room can put in a blind bid as the Sacramento Kings did on Travis Outlaw, waived by the then-New Jersey Nets. Submitting a bid $3 million, the Kings took on Outlaw over the final four years of his deal . . . each at $3 million for a total of $12 million.
For a cap team to add Scola at a similar rate per year would be a great deal, except there’s a significant complication.
As confirmed by cap guru Larry Coon, a player with a partially guarantee salary requires a minimum bid of the non-guaranteed amount. Scola is set to make $9.4 million and $10.2 million over the next two years. His final season is for $11.0 million with just $1 million guaranteed.
Therefore a minimum amnesty claim for Scola would start at the non-guarantee portion of exactly $10,041,037. That amount needs to be paid over three years, so the lowest claim would be $3,347,012.
Few teams have that kind of cap space which may open the door for Luis to clear waivers completely.
In a similar situation, Darko Milicic of the Minnesota Timberwolves, also an amnesty cut, has just $1.8 million of his salary for 2013/14 guaranteed out of $5.7 million which would set the minimum bid to $3.9 million over two years so $1.95 million.
The case is different with Brendan Haywood whose final year is completely non-guaranteed. A claim could be sent in at just $1.35 million per year over the next three, which is certainly a reasonable amount for a solid, if imperfect, seven-footer.
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