New CBA info

[younggunsmn]

I spent some time reading through Larry Coon's new CBA FAQ.
I found some interesting things in there, many of which pertain to the wolves.
(If this thread doesn't lure Shrink back, nothing will, (come back dude we miss you)).

1. Restricted Free Agents - only players coming off the 4th year of a rookie scale deal, or players with 3 or fewer years of experience.

This means Chase Budinger will be an unrestricted free agent next summer should we not extend him.
Makes me more unhappy with the trade for sure.

2. Contract Extensions - Only on contracts of 4 years or longer, and only 3 years after 3rd anniversary of the singing or extension.

This means we can't extend Pek. He will become a RFA next summer and we will have his Bird Rights.
It also means we can't extend Love until January of 2015, or less than 7 months before he could hit unrestricted free agency.

3. Trade Kickers - up to 15%, and are now paid by the TRADING team instead of the RECEIVING team.

This could come into play with Batum. We could have put a 15% trade kicker on him, or 6.6 million on 44 million dollars, or 1.65 million per year. Which the Blazers would now have to pay if they dealt him without his consent. It was unclear if that amount would stay on the trading team's cap as dead money after the trade, but I would think the answer would be yes.

4. Likely/Unlikely Incentives and offer sheets. Teams matching an offer sheet only have to match incentives deemed likely for BOTH teams, or awards-based incentives. An incentive is deemed likely or not based on previous season's performance. All incentives (both likely and unlikely) in the 1st year count against the player's first year cap hit. In later years only unlikely bonuses do not count.

How does this affect us? Batum has 5 million in incentives built into our offer. We don't as of yet know what they are. But we can't really poison-pill incentives in any way so that they hit Portland's cap and not ours. And if we put any incentives in there deemed "unlikely" based on last year (like 15PPG, 90% Ft%, or 40 wins for instance), Portland doesn't have to match the provision.

5. Signing Bonuses - Limited to 15%, and to 10% on an offer sheet

Doesn't really matter as Paul Allen is loaded.

6. Sign and Trades
(a) limited to players who finished the previous season with the team
This prevents signing retired guys with Bird Rights and using them to salary match in trades
(Like the Lakers did with Aaron McKie to acquire Pau Gasol).

(b) Starting in 2013-14, teams can no longer execute sign and trades if they are 4 million above the Luxury tax (or the "Apron") after the trade. So crap like Steve Nash going to the Lakers for a TPE will never happen again. This was a big point of contention during negotiations. The league got what they wanted, but the Players got a 2 year delay.

Bi-Annual Exception - 1.957 million, 2 years max - Can't be used by teams above the "Apron", or teams under the cap (teams who used raw cap room).

Mid Level Exception - 3 versions
1. Taxpayer exception - 3.09 million, 3 years max - Teams above apron (or teams where using MLE would put them above apron)
2. Non-Taxpayer exception - 5 million, 4 years max - Teams above cap, below apron
3. Cap Room team exception - 2.5 million, 2 years max - Teams who use raw cap room

It looks like the wolves will only be getting the cap room exception unless Kahn either works out a sign and trade with Portland, or pulls the offer sheet to Batum. Because to make the offer sheet, we'd have to dip into raw cap room. If he can pull off a S/T, we keep our full MLE and Bi-annual exception.
Unfortunately I think Cap Room exception is earmarked for Tolliver should we end up with Batum since we likely will be renouncing Tolly's Early Bird Rights to create the cap room to make the offer sheet.
Roy's contract was also structured to fit into the full non-taxpayer exception.

"Stretch" provision - When you waive a player signed under the new CBA, his salary is "stretched" over 2x the remaining years + one year for payroll purposes. You can opt to take the cap hit all at once, or "stretch" it.

If Portland decides to "stretch" Shawne Williams buyout, it can take the cap hit over 3 years instead of one. This would increase their cap space by at least 2 million $, depending on the buyout amount.
Our only real "stretch" candidate is Barea, and he can be traded for raw cap space so it's a moot point.

Salary Cap -
Calculated as ((1.045 X previous year BRI) - Benefits X (.4474) / 30)
Cannot be lower than 58.044 million in 2012-13.
My money is on it being exactly that or pretty close.

Luxury Tax - ((1.045 X previous year BRI) - Benefits X (.5351) / 30)
Cannot be lower than 70.37 million in 2012-13

Apron - 4 million above the luxury tax

Circumstances where the Apron becomes a "hard cap" for the rest of the season:
If a team uses either the:
a) Bi-Annual Exception
b) Non-Taxpayer MLE or Cap Room MLE
c) a sign and trade (starting in 2013-14)
They are forbidden from crossing the apron for the rest of said season (until July 1 of the next year).
This effectively becomes a hard cap. (And the reason the Knicks only gave Kidd the Taxpayer MLE of 3.09 mil even though they are currently under the apron)

Maximum Player Salary - ((1.045 X previous year BRI) - Benefits X (.4214) / 30)
multiplied by:
.25 - 0 to 6 years
.30 - 7 to 9 years or "rose" player
.35 - 10+ years

Or 105% of previous salary, whichever is greater.

Larry Coon lists this as 12,922,194 for a 0-6 year player in 2011-12.

However, I though I read something about Max Salaries being grandfathered in at 2010-11 levels for the first 2 years of the new CBA. Which would be 13,680,750 for a 0-6 year player.

The MLE, Rookie Scale, minimum salary, and cap/tax all were grandfathered in that way for 2 years.
I trust Coon, it would be nice if someone could get confirmation on this though as it means a 700k difference in cap room on Love's extension. Also, should the cap rise this year, and Love's extenstion reads "max salary" in lieu of a specific number, it could also increase his cap hit.

"Starter" criteria Qualifying Offers:
I won't get into the nuts and bolts, but I'm operating under the assumption this only applies to players who sign rookie contracts under the new CBA.

Salary Matching in Trades -
0-19.6 million - (150% + 100k, up to 5 million $ difference)
Over 19.6 million - (125% + 100k, unlimited)
Team Salary above the "Apron" - (125% +100k)

[younggunsmn]

BTW our Salary with Darko/Miller/Webster all waived would be 45,688,583

Or 12,355,417 if the cap doesn't go up.

1 Kevin Love 12,922,194
2 Derrick Williams 4,809,840
3 Nikola Pekovic 4,837,200
4 Juan Jose Barea 4,493,500
5 Wesley Johnson 4,285,560
6 Luke Ridnour 4,000,000
7 Ricky Rubio 3,741,120
8 Wayne Ellington 2,083,042
9 Chase Budinger 885,120
10 Malcolm Lee 762,195
11 Cap Hold 473,604
12 Cap Hold 473,604
Darko Milicic 0
Martell Webster 600,000
Brad Miller 848,000
Total Salary 45,214,979
Cap Room 12,829,021

[Grits n Gravy]

top work youngguns

[funfactor]

Great post. Thanks for the accurate info.

[Klomp]

3. Cap Room team exception - 2.5 million, 2 years max - Teams who use raw cap room

Unfortunately I think Cap Room exception is earmarked for Tolliver should we end up with Batum since we likely will be renouncing Tolly's Early Bird Rights to create the cap room to make the offer sheet.

I actually think that exception has a good chance of being used for Stiemsma, since the highest Boston can match is 1.96m with their BAE.

[[RCG]]

I like the fact that Budinger is restricted. We get the chance to keep him no matter what and hopefully we can extend him for something like 3yrs/$6-$7.5 mil.

[Grits n Gravy]

I like the fact that Budinger is restricted. We get the chance to keep him no matter what and hopefully we can extend him for something like 3yrs/$6-$7.5 mil.

are you sure he's restricted? i'm pretty sure it's been widely reported that he will be unrestricted(not sure why as he is pretty much in same situation as pek and pek will be restricted)

i believe you can not extend players that have not been in the league for less than 4 years also so if it's true that he is both unrestricted and cannot be extended then it will be a complete bitch of an off season seeing him go on the market with the option to go anwhere he wants. would make that trade beyond terrible if he left.

edit - chase will be unrestricted as he was signed to 4 years after being drafted...restricted free agency is only available to 3 years or less players who were undrafted or 2nd round picks(pek)...probably means he can be extended though which is good.

[[RCG]]

I like the fact that Budinger is restricted. We get the chance to keep him no matter what and hopefully we can extend him for something like 3yrs/$6-$7.5 mil.

are you sure he's restricted? i'm pretty sure it's been widely reported that he will be unrestricted(not sure why as he is pretty much in same situation as pek and pek will be restricted)

i believe you can not extend players that have not been in the league for less than 4 years also so if it's true that he is both unrestricted and cannot be extended then it will be a complete bitch of an off season seeing him go on the market with the option to go anwhere he wants. would make that trade beyond terrible if he left.

edit - chase will be unrestricted as he was signed to 4 years after being drafted...restricted free agency is only available to 3 years or less players who were undrafted or 2nd round picks(pek)...probably means he can be extended though which is good.

Oops. I read what younggunsmn said in the opening post. Yeah that does sour the trade a little bit but I would have to think that the trade was executed with the Wolves FO intending on extending Chase before next off-season.

[Biff Cooper]

So Batum's offer is 10.06, 10.82, 11.63, 12.50 = 45 Mil with performance incentives that are classified as "unlikely to be obtained".

When we take our cap space of 12.36 and reduce it by 10.06M and add it by the cap hold 11 of 0.47M, we get up to 2.77M. Coon doesn't really say if we can combine this 2.77M with the 2.5M exception to get up close to what we agreed to pay Roy. I would think it would be unlikely that the CBA would allow this, but it might be acceptable?

[Saltine]

I don't think you can combine the exception, you can definitely divide it to use on multiple guys. Normally you'd have no cap space at all when you'd use an exception.

[[RCG]]

So Batum's offer is 10.06, 10.82, 11.63, 12.50 = 45 Mil with performance incentives that are classified as "unlikely to be obtained".

When we take our cap space of 12.36 and reduce it by 10.06M and add it by the cap hold 11 of 0.47M, we get up to 2.77M. Coon doesn't really say if we can combine this 2.77M with the 2.5M exception to get up close to what we agreed to pay Roy. I would think it would be unlikely that the CBA would allow this, but it might be acceptable?

We have the non-taxpayer exception of $5 mil don't we?

[younggunsmn]

3. Cap Room team exception - 2.5 million, 2 years max - Teams who use raw cap room

Unfortunately I think Cap Room exception is earmarked for Tolliver should we end up with Batum since we likely will be renouncing Tolly's Early Bird Rights to create the cap room to make the offer sheet.

I actually think that exception has a good chance of being used for Stiemsma, since the highest Boston can match is 1.96m with their BAE.

Good catch. Bos doesn't have early Bird RIghts, and used their MLE on Terry. They're going to be one of those teams where the Apron will act as a hard cap too. At least this year.

We will have to renounce Tolliver to make an offer to Batum, and would therefore then have to use cap space or an exception to pay him more than the vet min. There is a provision, however, where you can "unrenounce" a player you had to renounce to make an offer sheet, once an offer sheet is matched. So we could theoretically get tolly's early bird rights back if Portland matches Batum.
Miller, Webster, and Darko stay waived though. Doesn't mean we wouldn't have to renounce him AGAIN to sign Roy plus Mayo, Lee, or a trade for Iggy. Makes me think Kahn has a salary-dump trade lined up.

[younggunsmn]

So Batum's offer is 10.06, 10.82, 11.63, 12.50 = 45 Mil with performance incentives that are classified as "unlikely to be obtained".

When we take our cap space of 12.36 and reduce it by 10.06M and add it by the cap hold 11 of 0.47M, we get up to 2.77M. Coon doesn't really say if we can combine this 2.77M with the 2.5M exception to get up close to what we agreed to pay Roy. I would think it would be unlikely that the CBA would allow this, but it might be acceptable?

We have the non-taxpayer exception of $5 mil don't we?

We lose it the minute we use raw cap space. Signing Roy will have to wait until Batum is matched/not matched. If they don't match Batum, we will have to salary dump a player to create the room to sign Roy. We will then get the Room exception. If they match, we just sign Roy using cap room.

[Saltine]

Yep, I think that's correct.

[younggunsmn]

All (unlikely and likely) incentives are included for cap purposes in the 1st year of a contract.
Since incentives need to be pro-rated at the same 4.5% raises, we basically need to have the cap room for the 4/50 offer when we make the offer sheet to Batum.

11,709,602 12,236,534 12,763,466 13,290,398
=50,000,000

We'd need 11,709,602 In cap room. Which is still less than the 12.355 milllion

If we wanted to stick to them with a frontloaded offer it would look like this:
13,404,826 12,801,609 12,198,391 11,595,174

13,404,826 is more than the max of 12,922,194 (according the larry coon)

This is a 4 yr/45 million offer without any incentives included:
10,538,642 11,012,881 11,487,119 11,961,358 45,000,000

[younggunsmn]

I don't think you can combine the exception, you can definitely divide it to use on multiple guys. Normally you'd have no cap space at all when you'd use an exception.

Yep. Can't combine exceptions, but you can break them up.

[Biff Cooper]

All (unlikely and likely) incentives are included for cap purposes in the 1st year of a contract.

You've read it through more completely than I have, so correct me if I'm wrong, but Coon says in #14 that they both need to be added when taking into account exceptions and S&T, but right before that he does not include unlikely incentives in the actual team salary.

[younggunsmn]

All (unlikely and likely) incentives are included for cap purposes in the 1st year of a contract.

You've read it through more completely than I have, so correct me if I'm wrong, but Coon says in #14 that they both need to be added when taking into account exceptions and S&T, but right before that he does not include unlikely incentives in the actual team salary.

Third paragraph under #72. The league counts all incentives against the first year of a contract for cap purposes to keep teams from loading up a bunch of players with "unlikely" incentives (which can be as simple as an incentive for more wins than the team had in the previous season) to subvert the salary cap.

I think the only time unlikely incentives (in the first year) won't be included is when doing luxury tax calculations or possibly salary matching in a trade (which isn't a sign and trade).

[younggunsmn]

I've edited our team salary, we've got 12.8 mil under the new calculation.

Reading things closer, I've come to the conclusion we are only charged for cap holds up to 12 (not 13) roster spots during the offseason. Which gives us an extra 473,604.

[younggunsmn]

Adrian Wojnarowski ‏@WojYahooNBA

The NBA's salary cap for the 2012-'13 season will be $58M, and the luxury tax level, $70.3M, the NBA says.

58.044 mil cap like I thought there would be. That means the 12.8 mil cap figure stands.

Batum 11.7
Roy 5.0
Shved 3.0?

We would have to clear an additional 6.0 million to do this (we gain 947,208 when the 2 roster spot cap holds go off the books).

My guess the top candidates to be traded to create cap space are:

Barea 4.5 million
Wes Johnson 4.286 million
Ridnour 4.00 million
Ellington 2.083 million

Remember we then get a roster spot cap hold of 473,604 for each open roster spot created.

Sending Miller+Webster in a Batum S/T would create an additional 1,448,000.
Getting Batum to drop the incentives in a S/T would create an additional milllion or so.

If we could get portland to take Ellington/Webster/Miller/Pick in a Batum S+T and then dump Barea or RIdnour for Capspace it would create enough room to sign all 3 of Roy/Batum/Shved.

We would be left with the 2.5 mil cap room MLE (can only offer 2 years) to add a backup C.
Or we could dangle Wes/Williams. Too bad we just didn't draft Jonas instead of Williams, we would be set for bigs and our roster would be balanced. And we would have the wicked Shved/Jonas connection: The "hammer" and the "sickle"