NBA Salary Cap Chat With Larry Coon 7/6/12

Larry Coon the noted author of the CBAFAQ, will answer your Salary Cap and Collective Bargaining Agreement questions. Larry will answers your questions about the Salary Cap, NBA trades and the new CBA at 3:00pm

  1. pacquiaoWON

    When will the telenovela of dwith come to and end?! When will the megics make their move!?

    • Larry Coon

      I would think it will happen pretty quickly. Teams & players need to figure out what they’re doing, and free agency officially begins in five days.

  2. James

    With all this money being spent aren’t the celtics against the cap yet? Will they have money for Allen?

    • Larry Coon

      The Celtics have Allen’s Bird rights. Even if they spend all their cap room, they can still give Ray any amount they want, up to the maximum.

  3. Alex B.

    Why isn’t Allen Iverson back in the NBA? Would any team be interested in signing him?

    • Larry Coon

      I can see him maybe getting a camp invite on a make-good contract, but I think the days of AI helping a team are over.

  4. Lawrence

    What’s the rule on matching an offer and trading the player immediately after? For instance, Could the knicks match the Rockets offer and trade Lin?

    • Larry Coon

      No, teams can’t do that. They can either match the offer sheet and keep the player, or not match it and let him go.

      If they match, then the player can’t be traded for three months or until Dec. 15, just like any other free agent. But with matched offer sheets, there are additional restrictions — for the first season, they can’t trade the player anywhere without his consent, and not at all to the team that signed him to the offer sheet.

      What teams and players sometimes do is work out a sign-and-trade which happens INSTEAD of the player signing the offer sheet. Remember, the offer sheet isn’t signed until it’s signed.

  5. pacquiaoWON

    Are u seing a celtic laker finals again next year?

    • Larry Coon

      I like both teams’ moves. But for the Celtics and Lakers, the measuring sticks are the Heat and Thunder, respectively. Did either team do enough to get them over the hump? I think we can especially say of the Thunder, given their youth and now Finals experience, that they’ll be a better team next year. Miami, if it can add someone like Ray Allen, will be downright scary. Meanwhile the Lakers and Celtics would be relying on older players continuing to perform at their current levels. Plus the Lakers still have to fix their second unit.

      So while a Lakers-Celtics Finals isn’t out of the question, at this point I’d say it’s not the most likely possibility.

  6. Smithy

    What are Miami chances of getting ray after Thursdays meeting ?

    • Larry Coon

      If I heard right, he extended his stay to keep talking with them. That has to be a good sign for the Heat.

      As for his chances — the Heat can only give him $3 million, and the Celtics are bringing back KG & Bass, want him back too, and can offer more money. So it’s loyalty and money vs. a more likely shot at a ring.

  7. Jack

    When a team “agrees” to a contract with a player during the moratorium, that doesn’t mean they have to sign him right away on July 11th, right?

    • Larry Coon

      Right. In fact, technically they can’t even have a VERBAL agreement during the moratorium. The CBA says, “…no player and team may enter into any oral or written agreement concerning the terms and conditions of the player’s employment, or reduce any such agreement to writing in the form of a uniform player contract or amendment, during the moratorium period.”

      Now granted, teams and players ignore this rule, which they can skirt by saying “we have an ‘understanding,’ but not an ‘agreement.” But it all just reinforces the fact that there’s nothing binding about any agreements made with free agents during the moratorium, and nothing that says they have to do anything specifically on the 11th.

  8. Alex of Vancouver, BC

    What can the Rockets do or could have done to minimize the chance of the Knicks matching the offer sheet to Jeremy Lin? Is it too late to do it? Can Houston give Lin a new offer sheet? Thank you!

    • Larry Coon

      They’re doing the best thing they can do — taking full advantage of the Gilbert Arenas provision.

      I think New York matches whatever offer any team can throw at Lin. Will this make it uncomfortable for them in two years? Yes. Will they care enough to not match now? No.

  9. Benton

    By amnestying Haywood and Trading Marion, could Dallas clear enough cap room to make a pitch for the Chris Paul/Dwight Howard combo next summer?

    • Larry Coon

      If they do what you say, then in 2013 they’ll have Dirk at $22.7 million, a Team option on Jones at $2.3 million (which they’ll need to decide on by this Oct 31), and Vince Carter at $3.2 million. Depending on where the cap falls and what else happens in the meantime, that’ll give them somewhere in the $25-$30 million range in cap room. Dwight can command a little over $20 million, and CP3 nearly $19 million. They wouldn’t have enough for both, unless one or both takes less money.

  10. Guest

    Financially, how does a Nets-Magic trade make sense?

    • Larry Coon

      You mean how would one be legal? It would be possible for the Nets to sign-and-trade Humphries and Lopez, along with most of their other free agents, in separate, parallel deals that would bring back both Howard and Turkoglu. Orlando would want Humphries to go to a third team. The Magic would get Lopez, Brooks, draft picks, and whatever they get from the third team. They would also get multiple players who were primarily thrown in to make the trades legal, but who would be on three-year deals with just one year guaranteed, so they’d be like ending contracts. In doing so, the Magic would be unloading Hedo’s bad contract along with Dwight.

  11. Tech

    Whats with all the reports talking about teams handing out backloaded contracts as “poison pills” (mot du jour apparently). Dont they actually sign players for flat money and the cba turns those into backloaded contracts for the matching team only?

    What ive been wondering is what happens in a sign-and-trade for such a player. Would the contract be backloaded for the aquiring team as well in that case? And what salary number would be used for trade purposes?

    • Larry Coon

      Here’s what it’s all about. If a player has one or two years in the league, he hasn’t been around long enough for his team to have full Bird rights. A player with two years, for example, can only have Early-Bird rights, which lets his team go up to the average salary to keep him, but not more. Orlando took advantage of this by signing Gilbert Arenas several years ago to a contract the Warriors were helpless to match. They fixed it in the 2005 CBA by putting restrictions on offer sheets to restricted free agents with one or two years in the league. In these offer sheets, the first year couldn’t be above the maximum salary, which guaranteed the player’s prior team could match using Early-Bird rights or the Mid-Level exception. But so they players don’t get gypped by only being able to get a small contract, they allowed a big jump starting in the third year — to what it would have been if this rule hadn’t existed.

      So teams are taking advantage of this by offering contracts starting at $5 million (the mid-level/Early Bird amount), $5.225 million next season, and with a big jump in 2014-15. First, this is how they can give the player more money. Second, by giving the player a big jump in 2014-15, they’re trying to make it as uncomfortable as possible for the prior team to match.

      Okay, now back to your questions — let’s be clear on the difference between what the player is paid and what counts against the team’s cap. Let’s say the contract is for three years, at $5 million, $5.225 million, and $15 million. This is what the player gets paid, with whichever team he ends up with. This is also the amount that counts against the cap if the player’s prior team matches and keeps him.

      But if the team with the offer sheet ends up getting him, then the average salary of the whole contract (in this case, $8.4 million) counts against the team’s cap. This is because in order to offer a contract with this kind of balloon payment, the team has to have enough cap room for the average salary. So if they keep him, then this amount is accounted for in the team’s cap.

      For your last question, the answer is simple — it can’t happen. You can only use the Arenas provision in an offer sheet to a restricted free agent, and you can’t do a sign-and-trade when there’s a signed offer sheet.

  12. Justin

    I saw something from you on twitter about sign-and-trades becoming more difficult in future years. Could you explain (in more characters)?

    • Larry Coon

      Starting next season, teams over the “apron” (the point $4 million over the tax line) can’t receive a player in a sign-and-trade transaction.

      (There — that was 141 characters.)

  13. Samer

    What you see the pacers doing? If they sign hibbert, what else can they do financially speaking?

    • Larry Coon

      Didn’t I hear they were talking to Kaman?

  14. franklin

    Can teams with a TPE (and no cap space) bid on Elton Brand?

    • Larry Coon

      No. Teams have to have, real, honest-to-goodness cap space to put in a bid on an amnestied player, and by definition, if teams have cap room then they don’t have trade exceptions.

  15. John

    Which do you think is more likely? Bynum for Dwight or Pau for Josh Smith? or both or neither? Thanks

    • Larry Coon

      I think Bynum-Howard has a chance — the Nash trade increased the Lakers’ chances a little.

      I don’t think Pau/Smith really has a chance at all. I think the Lakers now want to keep Pau to play with Nash, and I don’t think Pau makes any sense for the Hawks right now.

  16. Tony

    How can the Rockets afford two poison pill contracts ending in the same year?

    • Larry Coon

      All that matters (as far as making it legal) is whether they can fit the average of the two contracts under their cap this year.

      But yeah, having two average players under contract for $15 million each is going to be pretty uncomfortable two years from now.

  17. Carl

    Is there anyway the Raptors take back their $20 million offer from Landry Fields? I mean, they don’t really want him do they?

    • Larry Coon

      I think they do, but I think they wanted him more when they thought Fields’ signing gave them a better shot at Steve Nash.

      But here’s the thing — no agreement is legal or binding during the moratorium, so technically there’s no offer out there to take back. That said, they DO have their reputation to protect, so if they made him a (non-binding verbal) promise and break it, their name will be mud when it comes to dealing with future free agents.

      But we don’t know what was actually said during the negotiations. They could have said, “We want you, but this offer is contingent on us also getting Nash. If he signs here, then we will sign you per the Arenas provision. But if he ends up elsewhere, then we’ll give you a standard contract, okay?” We just don’t know what specific understanding they have.

  18. Albert

    If a team under the cap bids on Brand for say 2mil and wins, how much of his original salary must be paid by the winning team?

  19. Jesse

    Can the Lakers trade Pau straight up for Josh Smith, and then go after D12, or is the a huge tax that would come along with it?

    • Larry Coon

      Smith actually makes a lot less than Pau, so financially it’d be to the Lakers’ advantage. The Hawks would have to throw-in another player, but that doesn’t change the net effect for the Lakers.

      That said, I don’t see why Atlanta trades for Pau at this point.