NBA Salary Cap Chat With Larry Coon 7/13/12

1. robby grant

   what would you rank the nets backcourt?

   • Larry Coon

     Certainly way up there. Lakers’ backcourt of Kobe & Nash is no slouch either.

2. Fans Now Need Accountants, Lawyers and Calculators

   The CBA seems so complicated to the casual fan. All sorts of rules, exceptions to them, and contracts based off %’s and calculated down to the cent. Do you think the next CBA will get simplified?

   • Larry Coon

     The CBA was never intended to be understandable to the average fan. It was intended to be a labor agreement that allows a multi-billion dollar entity to operate — those kinds of things tend to be complex. The CBA has been getting MORE complex with each successive revision.

3. Joe Koch

   Amnesty question 1 of 2: If a team put in a claim for Brendan Haywood at the minimum for all years, would it be for 3 or 4 years since his 4th year is 100% non-guaranteed?

   • Larry Coon

     Non-guaranteed seasons are ignored for amnesty purposes. A player with three fully-guaranteed seasons and one season with no guarantee would have a minimum bid of the minimum salaries for the three guaranteed years.

4. Blake Hillin

   What makes the luxury tax penalty different and so harsh this year when in the past it seems like multiple teams didnt seem to mind? Unlike Mark Cuban i havent read the CBA…

   • Larry Coon

     It’s not any different this year — which is part of the reason teams are still spending.

     It’s NEXT year that it starts increasing. Under the previous CBA and for the first two seasons of the current CBA (up through 2012-13) the penalty is $1 for each dollar the team is over the tax line. Starting next season, the rate starts to climb, and for every $5 million over the tax line the rate gets even higher. For each successive $5 million, the rates are: $1.50, $1.75, $2.50, $3.25, $3.75, etc. For example, a team $12 million over the tax line would pay $12 million in tax through this season. Starting next season, a team $12 million over the tax line will pay $21.25 million.

     Starting in 2014-15 there is also a repeater rate. For 2014-15 it’s triggered when a team has been a taxpayer in all of the previous three seasons. Starting in 2015-16 it’s triggered when a team has been a taxpayer in any three of the four previous seasons. The repeater rate adds $1 to the non-repeater rate, so a team that’s $12 million over the tax line and would have paid $21.25 million if it wasn’t a repeater would pay $33.25 million if it was a repeater.

     Update: In the original chat I mistakenly said the tax rate doubles for repeaters, and gave incorrect numbers in the above paragraph as a result. My apologies for the oversight.

5. Woody

   If Dwight Howard is not traded to Brooklyn, there’s no way they’ll be able to sign him as a free agent next summer, right? Unless the Russian billionaire kidnaps his family and forces him to take the midlevel exception…

   • Larry Coon

     In Russia, mid-level exception takes you.

6. Lance

   If you have a player that has partially guaranteed salary and you waive / buy them out, how long before your cap space is available for the non-guaranteed salary of said contract? I realize the guaranteed part stays on the cap for that year.

   • Larry Coon

     Non-guaranteed salary usually comes off the cap when the player clears waivers. The exception is amnesty waivers, in which all salary comes off right away.

7. Wesley

   If the rockets get Dwight and take all their bad salaries, how much do you think they’ll have to offer free agents next season assuming he leaves? Any chance of Bynum?

   • Larry Coon

     Assuming this all goes through according to the Rockets’ plan (and assuming the Bulls retain Asik), next summer they’d still have Terrence Jones ($1.6 million), Chris Duhon ($3.75 million, partially guaranteed), Turkoblu ($12 million, partially guaranteed), J-Rich ($6.2 million), Davis ($6.4 million) and whomever else they sign for more than one year.

8. Laker Mike

   Assuming the Lakers are able to resign Jordan Hill, who should the 3 million dollar exception be used on? brand if possible, maybe Courtney Lee?

   • Larry Coon

     Courtney Lee would be a nice pickup. I also hear they’re interested in Grant Hill and Antawn Jamison, to name two.

9. Matthew Gonzalez

   honestly, why would the rockets trade all their youth and promise for practically the whole magic team…? they’d be a 6-7th seed at best… just doesn’t make sense for them. if they kept lowry, then i can see the one-two punch of lowry and DH, but this move doesn’t make sense, what do you think about houston? and if brian shaw gets hired as the coach of the magic, do you think andrew bynum would stay there knowing that shaw would be his coach (if there was a trade).

   • Larry Coon

     Franchise players are hard to come by, so I think Daryl Morey feels that if he has an opportunity to land one, he takes it.

     But yeah, can you imagine how the conversation went?

     Morey: We’d like you to trade Dwight to the Houston Rockets.

     Hennigan: For what?

     Morey: The Houston Rockets.

10. Omar

    If the Lakers do end up pulling off a trade for Dwight Howard and then Howard decides that he wants to leave as a free agent next summer; being that they’ll be over the cap, can the Lakers still sign and trade him to another team and receive players in return?

    • Larry Coon

      Yes.

11. Jim

    Assuming an infinite supply of money and a complete disregard for getting value when spending it: Compare the cap situations of the Knicks with and without Landry Fields. Is there a penalty for the fans to consider since we’re not writing the checks?

    • Larry Coon

      I’ve always said that the Knicks may be in a position to take advantage of the new rules, because they may be the one team in the league that doesn’t care how much tax it is paying. So over the next couple years when teams start regretting the size of their payrolls, the Knicks may be in a position to take some good (but expensive) players off other teams’ hands. Ending contracts will likely be key.

      The downside to matching an Arenas offer to a player like Landry Fields is that there’s a balloon payment in the third year, which will make him harder to trade down the road, if they ever want to do so.

12. Laker Mike

    Can the mid level exception be used on more than one player?

    • Larry Coon

      Yes, it can be split. For example, with the $5 million non-taxpayer mid-level, a team can sign one player for $3 million and another for $2 million.

13. Mike

    How does the salary cap impact pursuit of Howard during/after the season for the nets?

    • Larry Coon

      The Nets won’t have the ability to sign him as a free agent. Their only hope is to trade for him. There are essentially three options:

      1) Orlando can shelf all the trade talks, start the season with Howard, and look to deal with the Nets again closer to the trade deadline. While Brook Lopez would not be a base-year player (which complicated the trade discussions this week), I consider this to be the least likely scenario. I don’t think the Magic start the season with Howard on their roster.

      2) Orlando can trade him now, to a team like the Rockets. That team could later decide it has little hope of keeping Howard as a free agent, and move him to New Jersey. But short of Deron Williams, does a team like Houston want anything on the Nets’ roster?

      3) Howard could play out the season (either with our without a trade), become a free agent next July, and work out a sign-and-trade that gets him to the Nets (possibly by threatening to leave on his own for Dallas if a sign-and-trade isn’t worked out, leaving his team with nothing).

14. Chuck

    Basically, what’s the least a team under the cap can amnesty bid on Scola?

    • Larry Coon

      The minimum bid for Scola will be about $10.04 million.

15. jason

    who will the clips get as a back up 3 and 5 or do they only want 2′s?

    • Larry Coon

      They seem to have a pretty balanced lineup right now, although as you hinted, sorely lacking in depth. Who’s their backup center now, Trey Thompkins? After doing a sign-and-trade to deliver Reggie Evans to the Nets, they need to do something. And as much as I like Reggie and DeAndre, they need to have some scoring punch as an option.

      They’re also thin at three, as you said, but Del Negro also likes to go with three-guard lineups. We probably will see lineups like Bledsoe/Billups/Crawford when Caron Butler is on the bench. I don’t see Ryan Gomes in much more than a reserve role.

16. pacquiao punch

    Will the laker be able to form a good bench or just the guys from year?

    • Larry Coon

      Define “good.”

      Their biggest bench need is someone who can reliably hit a spot-up three. I think they will be able to find someone to do that. They also need someone to fill the role Lamar Odom once filed. Troy Murphy wasn’t the answer last season.

17. DB

    There seems to be a debate in Portland if Minny actually has the cash to offer the contract they claim to be offering to Batum. As I understand it, they still need to waive the non-guaranteed contracts of Miller and Webster to be able to offer him the 11.6 mil per year deal. On top of that, there is a 7 day waiting period for players waived. Does that mean the full contracts of Miller and Webster are still on the books during that 7 day waiting period?

    • Larry Coon

      Players don’t come off the books right away unless it’s an amnesty waiver, and right now, it looks like they’re at about $54 million by virtue of their current contracts alone.

18. Bill

    Will the new CBA allowed teams to do sign and trade with players to allow the other team to get the additonal fifth year on the contract instead signing the player for four years?

    • Larry Coon

      Under the current CBA a sign-and-trade can be for up to four years. The fifth year is now available only when the team is keeping its own player.

19. Josh

    How come everyone thinks that a bid on Scola is prohibitive? I would imagine he could get much more than 3 years 10 million as a free agent.

    • Larry Coon

      Perhaps. Part of it is that it’s a chess game. Right now he’s available only to teams under the cap. If he clears secondary waivers without being claimed, then he’s free to sign with anyone, and teams can swoop in with exceptions.

20. hen1040

    Why are the knicks letting this lin thing play out this way. Why not just sign him for what the rox plan to do the offer sheet. How does this help the knicks?

    • Larry Coon

      The Knicks CAN’T sign him for what the Rockets can sign him, oddly. The Rockets can give him a big bump in the third season due to the Gilbert Arenas provision. But this provision is only available to teams making offer sheets to other teams’ restricted free agents. The Knicks can offer him the same starting salary, but only 7.5% raises each season.