BLKMN22 wrote:Diop's contract is not so high in 2010 that it would keep Cuban from signing a FA. Please correct me if I am wrong, but wont the Mavs be under the cap when Dirk and Howard are off the books even with Diop's contract? Couldn't the Mavs first sign a free agent and then resign their own players just as long as they sign the FA first?
Example say the Mavs sign FA D-Wade first. Couldn't the Mavs then resign all of their current players that they have "Bird Rights" on without worrying about the cap after the FA is signed?
If this is correct thats why Cuban can do whatever as far as FA in 2010 even with Diop because he is a very small part of the total cap space.
What you are saying is what Cuban claimed. But he is either a very dumb owner as to the rules (unlikely) or he was trying to pull the wool over everyone's eyes that doesn't know how the rules really work.
Because you CAN'T do what you said. That loophole doesn't exist.
It's hard for me to explain it concisely, but I'll try. Others may be able to explain it better.
In order to sign (not trade for) a high dollar (more than MLE) free agent, you have to get under the cap. And while you are trying to do so, players on your own team whose contracts have just expired eat up part of your cap, in the form of cap holds, until they actually sign a contract. This is to specifically prevent a team from doing just what you said here (which would be, to sign a couple of free agents and then to go back and use Bird rights to go far over the cap and sign their own).
So while on paper the Mavs not be over the cap, if you count in cap holds they would be. And therefore they must operate like an over-the-cap team and don't have any spending room after all.
So for example if Dirk was a free agent, until he was signed he would absorb maximum salary dollars of their cap, in order to preserve his Bird Rights. There's a scale based on prior salary, but in general there's no way to skirt the system with a slew of unsigned players and then first use cap room to sign free agents followed by going over the cap using Bird rights to re-sign your own.
As to Diop's contract, the issue discussed here was which players have ongoing contracts with the Mavs that will eat into spending room in 2010. Cuban said only Dirk and Terry, but Diop should have been included also. That still leaves them room for a major free agent if they blow off quite a few of their own, but Diop reduces their spending capacity by around 6.5M, a not insignificant amount.
Now if they want to, they can renounce their Bird rights on their own free agents, to get and use the available cap room. But once they do so, they definitely CANNOT then go back and re-ink those free agents of their own using Bird rights to bust the cap.
I seem to recall in the past asking you the same sort of "I wonder if that's right, because it just seems out of whack with other things I've noticed, can you double-check and make sure" on some contract-detail-related item and then you later replying, "I went back and checked with my best sources and they gave me something different. Here's a better answer." Thanks in advance for any help.
