NBA Salary Cap Chat With Larry Coon 1/4/13

1. Kevin

   Houston has to take on more salary this year to meet the floor of the salary cap right?

   • Larry Coon

     This season teams are required to have a payroll at least 85% of the $58.044 million cap, or $49.337 million. Houston’s team salary is currently $51.322 million, so they’re safe as long as they don’t dump salary through trades.

     If a team ever does finish a season below the minimum payroll, it’s not a disaster. They’re simply surcharged for the remaining amount, and the money is distributed to the players on that team.

2. Dan

   Larry,
   How does trading a player like Lawson work when his extension doesn’t kick in till next year? And do you think a Lawson + 1 or 2 Denver players for Rondo makes sense?

   • Larry Coon

     Lawson is considered a Poison Pill player — if he is traded this season his trade value for the receiving team is the average salary of the remaining contract (both this season and the entire extension). So his incoming salary for trade purposes would be $10,108,906 for his new team, and his outgoing salary for Denver would be his actual $2,544,529.

     I don’t think a Lawson-Rondo trade is anything either team is really contemplating.

3. Kevin

   If a team waives a player with a partially guaranteed contract before it becomes guaranteed (ie, Warriors with Kent Bazemore) does none of that players salary count towards team salary for luxury tax purposes, or does the amount they paid before waiving count?

   • Larry Coon

     The point of a partial guarantee is that the team is not responsible for any of the salary above the guarantee amount. If the player has already made more than the amount of his guarantee when he is waived, then the amount he actually made applies to the team salary (including luxury tax). If his guarantee is higher than the amount he made before he was waived, then the guarantee amount counts.

4. Austin, San Clemente

   What are the chances that Clippers resign Chris Paul and sign Eric Bledsoe to an extension? Im guessing Bledsoe will be a paid as a top 15 pg by some teams?

   • Larry Coon

     Paul can sign an extension prior to June 30, but likely won’t. He will test free agency if for no other reason than he can get a better contract (five seasons versus three). That said, I think he intends to stay in LA, and when all is said & done I think he will remain a Clipper.

     The team is also very high on Bledsoe, and I think they will make every attempt to sign him to an extension prior to the Oct. 31 deadline. If it turns into a logjam situation then I think they will deal with it when the time comes, but I don’t think they’ll let an asset like him just walk as a free agent if they can avoid it. So while the team does make moves that are head-scratchers from time to time, I expect Bledsoe to be extended.

5. Kobe Bryant

   Am I the only one that finds it amusing when people call Kevin Durant the best “pure scorer” the league has ever seen? Maybe I should remind everyone that I have more consecutive 50 point games than KD has in his entire career.

   • Larry Coon

     Yeah, there’s always a tendency for younger fans to over-inflate the abilities of current players with respect to past players, and for older fans to over-inflate the abilities of past players with respect to current players. The truth lies somewhere in the middle.

     With that said, I wouldn’t want any hyperbole backlash to denigrate Durant’s abilities. He -is- a phenomenal scorer, and may end up with a career to rival Kobe’s.

6. Daniel Friedman

   What team will be in the best situation (cap-wise) at the end of the season and why?

   • Larry Coon

     Not counting any free agents they may wish to retain, Atlanta has only $21.5 million in salary committed for 2013-14, Utah has $26.1 million, and Cleveland has $30.5 million.

7. Jeremy

   Do you really think the Lakers are really this bad ? Or do you think in time it will get better still ? At the start of this year i really didnt think they would be this bad.

   • Larry Coon

     They’re a .500 team right now — of course they’re not this bad. There have been many factors in their record, including Nash’s injury, Howard’s recovery, the bad start under Mike Brown, and the transition to a new system under Mike D’Antoni. They have yet to get it together, but I expect them to before the end of the season. While they may not have home court advantage in the West, I expect them to give any team they face in the playoffs a run for their money.

     However, a couple things still concern me about the team. One is their age, and another is the fit with Pau Gasol in D’Antoni’s system. Another is D’Antoni’s system itself — it doesn’t seem a good match given the age and composition of their roster, and D’Antoni showed in New York that he has little inclination to adjust the system to fit the roster.

8. Hank Scorpio

   Can you please explain the finer details of the rule where a team cannot trade its first-round pick in consecutive years and how it effects trades and conditional picks.

   • Larry Coon

     There’s already a good explanation here: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q84. That said, the rule is that a team cannot make a trade that leaves them without a first round pick in any two FUTURE seasons. So if a team has already traded its 2013 draft pick, it can’t trade its 2014 pick. But since the rule only applies to future seasons, if a team had traded its 2012 pick it can now trade its 2013 pick, as long as it has a 2014 pick.

     For conditional picks, the rule is interpreted to mean that a team can’t make a trade that results in any possibility of being without a pick in consecutive future seasons. Let’s say a team has traded its 2013 draft pick, but that pick is protected only if it’s #1, and the team is OKC (or another team with a great record) so the chances of the pick being #1 are next to nil. If the pick isn’t conveyed this year it’s conveyed unconditionally in 2014. Even though it’s almost certain the pick will be conveyed in 2013, the team still can’t trade its 2015 pick, because there’s still a chance of being without first round picks in consecutive seasons, 2014 and 2015.

9. BrianFromWA

   Has Stern backed off of his revenue estimate of $5B this year? If not, are teams planning on significantly more cap space/lux tax threshold? By my math, cap would go to ~71M if that was the case, right?

   • Larry Coon

     I haven’t heard any mention of the $5 billion revenue figure since Stern’s original statement. I’ve tried to follow-up with the league, but didn’t get any clarification. A couple of team execs I spoke to thought it was Stern just crowing — a victory lap of sorts. I don’t really see how revenues could climb that high given where their projections were in July. Brooklyn’s revenues are higher than expected, but that doesn’t equate to a $5 billion BRI.

10. Clara Barton

    With non-guaranteed contracts being guaranteed for the rest of the season of 1/10, are there any guys of substance you see being cut? What about non-guaranteed guys who are currently injured (Denver’s Julyan Stone, Minnesota’s Chase Budinger, Indiana’s Sam Young)?

    • Larry Coon

      There’s always a few waivers in time for the cut-down date (players have to be waived by the 8th in order to clear waivers by the 10th), but it’s usually not anyone of consequence.

11. Jeremy

    The Lakers will have an amazing amount of cap space in two years (even with resigning Howard) Should the refrain from compromising that future space in an effort improve the current team?

    • Larry Coon

      Yes, and I think that’s their current plan. Assuming they re-sign Howard, the only other player they will have on their roster in 2014 is a 40-year-old Steve Nash. If they want to walk away from Nash (making his $9.7 million salary effectively deferred salary for his two years of service) they can waive him, and his salary will be spread across three seasons — about $3 million per season. So they will have just Dwight’s $22 million or so, plus $3 million of Nash, for $25 million. That’s plenty of cap space to go shopping in a year in which LeBron James and others become free agents. It’d be a great jump start to the transition into the post Kobe Bryant era.

12. Julian

    What do you think of Kris Humphries from the Nets to the wizards for Nene. The salaries match up and the wizards would be making a salary dump of an aging Nene while getting a shorter contract by 2 years.

    • Larry Coon

      I’m not sure Brooklyn takes on Nene’s additional two seasons.

13. Karl

    Despite the fact that I would love for the Lakers to trade Gasol for pieces that “better fit” D’Antoni’s system, I wonder what team is willing/excited about acquiring a player who has been battling injury and has two huge cap-crushing years left on his deal. Is there any real possibility Pau gets dealt?

    • Larry Coon

      I think so. At this point in his career I think Pau is a better fit at center than power forward, and he excelled at center during Andrew Bynum’s extended absences. I think there are a few teams that would love to have him. Houston, who almost traded for him a year ago, is one.

14. Kevin

    Where is the best place to find salary information? Hoopsworld, Hoopshype and Basketball-Reference all have different numbers.

    • Larry Coon

      Hoopsworld and Shamsports both have solid numbers.

15. Brian

    Pau for KG. And yes, I’m serious

    • Larry Coon

      While I can see a certain charm in your proposal (Boston would get more of a center, and LA would get a better fit for D’Antoni’s system), I doubt it would happen. I think the Lakers are looking for better than what KG would give them at this point in his career. Plus KG’s is signed through 2014-15, which doesn’t jibe with LA’s plans. Also, KG makes a lot less than Pau, so Boston would need to throw in a lot of additional salary.