Rumor: Al Harrington to the Pacers

[The Oi]

No need for that.--Mac

 

[TJ_4_CV31]

not that i dont believe you but im just trying to figure this out

so why couldnt people over the cap do this all of the time

why do salaries have to match up at all then if the TPE can be created?

I peaked into the CBA and I think I found our answer. Here's the excerpt that I think will help answer your question:

(ii) If a Team’s trade of a player and acquisition of one (1) or more Replacement Players do not occur simultaneously, then the post-assignment Salary or aggregate Salaries of the Replacement Player(s) for the Salary Cap Year in which the Replacement Player(s) are acquired may not exceed 100% of the pre-trade Salary (or Base Year Compensation, if applicable) of the Traded Player at the time the Traded Player’s Contract was traded, plus $100,000.

Using the Peja trade (non-simutaneous) as an example, the Pacers traded Peja for the "rights" of a player (Betts) who may never play in the NBA. The fact that the Pacers did not immediately sign Betts is what generated the TPE. Obviously the Pacers want nothing to do with Betts and won't sign him to the CBA allowed matching salary that Peja received, so they were content to use the 7.5mil TPE as a future asset in acquiring a player of Peja's talent level.

Now to address your question directly, it appears that any team over the cap that's willing to give up a tangible trade commodity (Peja) for an intangible trade commodity (draft rights) can do so if they choose. The risk in doing that is that the TPE is only good for 1 year after the player is traded away (Peja) and cannot be traded to another team for a tangible asset (player or cash). Furthermore, the Pacers in this case would have to be pretty sure that they could convince a player, equal in talent/value with Peja to accept a contract that starts at 100k above their TPE.

In this case, I think the Pacers gambled on the fact that they would be able to acquire Al Harrington with the TPE generated by trading Peja. If they couldn't get Al, they'd have to find a comparable player that would fit, salary wise, within the TPE and be further restricted by the fact that you cannot "add" another exception/commodity to the TPE to acquire more salary in return. For example TPE + MLE + BAE = I have space to get Shawn Marion does not work under the rules of the CBA.

 

[TJ_4_CV31]

George, I'll try and get my explaination verified and post it here for everyone's benefit.

 

[Mac]

Hmmm....cdt and the other guy...where are ya?

 

[cdt]

I'm not Ruanu, I admit I was wrong but seriously that CBA mumbo jumbo is damned confusing. Articles where a player is traded and a TE is generate they throw in the TE as part of the deal.

They don't say Peja Stojakovic was traded to the Hornets in return they get Brandon Bass and the NBA Generates a Trade Exception of 7.5 million.

They say the Indiana Pacers traded Peja Stojakovic to the Hornets for Brandon Bass and a 7.5 million Trade Exception.

I admit I was wrong, but if they want people to sort of kinda comprehend the CBA it'd be nice if they worded it better.

 

[TJ_4_CV31]

I'm not Ruanu, I admit I was wrong but seriously that CBA mumbo jumbo is damned confusing. Articles where a player is traded and a TE is generate they throw in the TE as part of the deal.

They don't say Peja Stojakovic was traded to the Hornets in return they get Brandon Bass and the NBA Generates a Trade Exception of 7.5 million.

They say the Indiana Pacers traded Peja Stojakovic to the Hornets for Brandon Bass and a 7.5 million Trade Exception.

I admit I was wrong, but if they want people to sort of kinda comprehend the CBA it'd be nice if they worded it better.

The thing is CDT, it's not NBA reps that put out these misleading press releases. Those things are put out by journalists that are just as confused about the CBA as the average fan. The media, as usual, is to blame. :chuckles:

 

[cdt]

F The Media

 

[TJ_4_CV31]

not that i dont believe you but im just trying to figure this out

so why couldnt people over the cap do this all of the time

why do salaries have to match up at all then if the TPE can be created?

I got some confirmation from the Admiral George. He's an extremely technical speaker so listening to him explain the CBA is just like reading the CBA in a lot of instances but I think he did his best job in breaking down the bolded portion of your post in his direct response to your copy and pasted post here....

-= original quote snipped =-



They don't. (In response to your point about salaries not really having to match if TPE can be generated...TJ's entry for clarity)
But the NBA has a salary cap, and if you are over that salary cap, you must use an exception to the salary cap if you want to do ANYTHING.
So in the case where you are over the cap, when you trade a player, you generate a TPE. If you accept salary back in that same trade, that TPE allows you to accept up to 125% of its value plus $100k.
But if you don't take back at least 100% of the TPEs value, the TPE still lingers for 1 year until it expires. During that time period, you are allowed to use it to acquire salary at 100% of its value plus $100k.

George, your first question in that post...."why can't people over the cap do this all the time was also addressed in great detail by the Admiral....

It depends on what he means by "this"
Why don't teams try to set up S&Ts like this all the time for unrestricted FAs that they are going to lose to that team anyway?

The other team has to be able, first of all. If we are talking about a team with enough cap space to sign that player in the first place, then they have enough cap space to absorb that same salary in a trade, obviously.
But let's say some over the cap team wanted to offer Mo Williams a full MLE contract next offseason (disregard what you think he will be worth). We couldn't set up a S&T situation (similar to the Peja situation) with them unless they already had a large enough TPE from another trade, because the MLE can't be used to absorb salary via trade.

So for a team to be able, they need to either have cap space or a large enough pre-existing TPE to absorb the necessary salary.

And the team has to be WILLING to. There is a reason that the Pacers had to dump a ton of cash on the Hornets in order for the Hornets to play ball. There was very limited incentive for the Hornets to do this.
The only real advantage for them would be if they chose to structure the contract differently, due to the larger allowable annual raise that would be available to them for Peja with the S&T, thus allowing them to keep the total contract value the same, but use up less cap space because the 1st year salary could be lower this way.

Generally, teams won't see that as worth it.
Worth what?
Worth helping the other team set themselves up to be able to re-stock some of the talent they just lost.

The Pacers offerred the Hornets enough cash that they didn't care. The two teams are in opposite conferences, and the Hornets only care so much about the two games that they play the Pacers, or the remote possibility of meeting them in the Finals.

But take the example of the Bulls with Ben Wallace.
The Bulls were not willing to set up the Pistons with such a TPE, by allowing for a S&T (incidentally, even if the Bulls would have been, one more party would have to be on board with the idea- Ben Wallace).
And why would they for mere cash?
Definitely not worth helping the Pistons, if you're the Bulls.
The Bulls certainly would have been willing to help them out in this manner, but for a much steeper price. A price that the Pistons were not willing to pay (trust me, the two teams discussed it, though only briefly as they knew it wasn't going to happen).

The Bucks board is augmented greatly by having our own resident CBA expert. Dan has studied the CBA since the mid 90's. He takes great pride in explaining and clearing up common misunderstandings surrounding the details of the CBA. If anyone has any questions regarding this document, I'd gladly bounce them off of GAD if we can't find an answer amongst ourselves.

 

[TJ_4_CV31]

Dan also cleaned up a bit of my mess when I said this...

Using the Peja trade (non-simutaneous) as an example, the Pacers traded Peja for the "rights" of a player (Betts) who may never play in the NBA. The fact that the Pacers did not immediately sign Betts is what generated the TPE. Obviously the Pacers want nothing to do with Betts and won't sign him to the CBA allowed matching salary that Peja received, so they were content to use the 7.5mil TPE as a future asset in acquiring a player of Peja's talent level

Dan's response to that.....

This is not really an accurate explanation.
The draft rights to Betts are not related to the generation of the TPE in this way.

There is no "CBA allowed matching salary" that Betts can be signed for. Betts was a 2nd round pick, the Pacers would not have been able to sign him to anything apart from what they could have given him with cap space (which they have none of), or an exception such as the MLE, BAE, or minimum salary exception.
They couldn't use the Peja TPE to sign him, because you can't use TPEs to sign players.
Had he been a 1st round pick, the Pacers would have received an exception to sign Betts for between 80% and 120% of the rookie scale for his draft slot, and they would have been required to offer him a contract within the parameters of the rookie scale system.

Even if they had desired it, you cannot S&T someone you have draft rights to.

Again, the draft rights to Betts don't impact the generation of a TPE, except from the standpoint that neither draft rights nor cash count as incoming salary for trade purposes. Both count as $0.

But the Hornets were required to send the Pacers SOMETHING. Player, draft rights, or cash.
The Pacers didn't want a player that the Hornets were willing to offer (if they were willing to offer anyone desirable, which of course they were not). So if you're the Hornets... why write out a check for $1000 when you can just give away draft rights to some player who you don't expect to (or care to) ever sign?

Had the Hornets chose to send some amount of cash instead of the Betts rights, the TPE would have been generated in the same manner.

In any trade, even involving players on both sides, someone is always left with a non-simultaneous TPE at the end, unless you are trading identical salaries of course.

See, we all learn something new everyday.