Two questions that have nothing to do with Darius Miles

[Three34]

1) When calculating prorated salaries, are the 48 hours that a player spends on waivers counted as two extra days of salary (and thus a further 2/170th's) on the team's cap number? Are those 48 hours suspended over weekends, and thus a player waived on the Friday could still be prorated until the Tuesday? Is the day that the player is waived counted? Is the day that the player is signed counted? See, these questions leave for only slight differences in cap numbers, but they also confuse me.

2) If you leave a possible RFA unrestricted (be they coming off the rookie scale or otherwise), but you don't them renounce them, can you extend them a QO the following offseason?

[LarryCoon]

These answers are to the best of my knowledge, but I 'd want to check with others before saying they're absolutely true.

1. "Days under contract" begins on the day the contract is signed, and ends on the day it's terminated. The termination occurs after the waiver period. Makes sense -- if another team makes a waiver claim after 47 hours, the player doesn't have a gap in time during which his salary is unaccounted.

2. Yes.

[Three34]

OK, cool, thanks. What about the weekends, though? Are they not counted in the 48 hour waiver period? I kind of hope they aren't, because otherwise my numbers don't add up.

[Dunkenstein]

OK, cool, thanks. What about the weekends, though? Are they not counted in the 48 hour waiver period? I kind of hope they aren't, because otherwise my numbers don't add up.

Weekends count towards "days under contract".

[Three34]

A third question:

In a discussion with someone about how minimum salary players are handled in trades, that very someone conjectured that the Minimum Salary Exception can only be used to acquire minimum salary players that were signed using the MSE, and that other players who are earning the minimum but who signed three year deals using a portion of the MLE to get them (such as Gabe Pruitt or Dominic McGuire) could not be accepted as incomig salary in this way. I said nuh uh. They said yuh uh. And we didn't get much further after that.

I can't imagine for a minute that they're right, and that "minimum salary players" means only players signed for the MSE, given that the 'minimum salary' is a set of figures that are not specific to any one salary cap exception. (Larry's FAQ states that the MSE can be used to acquire "minimum salary players" in trades, verbiage that left us both thinking we were right.) However, the example I was going to cite (Steve Novak) isn't applicable, because although he was traded for no salary in return while on the third year of a three year minimum salary contract signed using the MLE, the Clippers were still a fraction under the cap at the time, meaning that they didn't need any exception (MSE or otherwise) to accept him. As a result, I haven't got a citeable example to turn to, and so I am turning to you.

So what does the CBA say?

(g) Minimum Player Salary Exception.
A Team may sign a player to, or acquire by assignment, a Player Contract, not to exceed two (2) Seasons in length, that provides for a Salary for the first Season equal to the Minimum Player Salary applicable to that player (with no Unlikely Bonuses). A Player Contract signed or acquired pursuant to the Minimum Player Salary Exception covering two (2) Seasons must provide for a Salary for the second Season equal to the Minimum Player Salary applicable to the player for such Season (with no Unlikely Bonuses).

I am not smart enough to know what this means.

Basically, the question again in short hand: could Pruitt or McGuire be traded to, say, the L.A. Lakers (ignore the tax ramifications and other logistics for a minute), with the Lakers giving up no players in return and using the Minimum Salary Exception to handle their incoming salary? I vote yes. The other guy votes no.

Vote ShamBulls.

[d-train]

2) If you leave a possible RFA unrestricted (be they coming off the rookie scale or otherwise), but you don't them renounce them, can you extend them a QO the following offseason?

2. Yes.

The purpose of a QO is so a team can restrict the contract options its player. So, why would a team make a late QO? It would have only the effect of an ordinary offer to a team’s own UFA. The teams RFA advantages would be gone.

[Dunkenstein]

Sham, Re: Question 3:

The key to your answer is in your quote from the CBA. "A Team may sign a player to, or acquire by assignment, a Player Contract, not to exceed two (2) Seasons in length, that provides for a Salary for the first Season equal to the Minimum Player Salary applicable to that player (with no Unlikely Bonuses)."

Both Pruitt and McGuire were signed to three year contracts. For the Lakers to acquire them by assignment, they can't use the MSE which can only be used to acquire minimum contracts not to exceed two years in length.

[Dunkenstein]

2) If you leave a possible RFA unrestricted (be they coming off the rookie scale or otherwise), but you don't them renounce them, can you extend them a QO the following offseason?

2. Yes.

The purpose of a QO is so a team can restrict the contract options its player. So, why would a team make a late QO? It would have only the effect of an ordinary offer to a team’s own UFA. The teams RFA advantages would be gone.

Edit: I spoke to a guy who works in an NBA front office and he said that everything I previously wrote on this topic was wrong. He says that once a team doesn't give a player a QO, they have lost any rights to him forever. That's why Memphis gave Navarro a QO and Toronto gave Delfino a QO, even though both had already signed signed in Europe.

[Three34]

I assumed that "assignment" meant waiver claims.

By the way, I liked hwo you accidentally typed rofl there. I knew there was a 16 year old schoolgirl side to you that you were deliberately keeping back from us.

[Dunkenstein]

I assumed that "assignment" meant waiver claims.

A trade is the assignment of a player's contract or of the rights to a draft pick from one team to another.

[LarryCoon]

Edit: I spoke to a guy who works in an NBA front office and he said that everything I previously wrote on this topic was wrong. He says that once a team doesn't give a player a QO, they have lost any rights to him forever. That's why Memphis gave Navarro a QO and Toronto gave Delfino a QO, even though both had already signed signed in Europe.

Dunk, thanks for following up on that issue. My opinion was based on a previous conversation I had with the league regarding a similar situation (if you save emails, see mine to you from 7/31/08, 1:39 PM). It was specifically pointed out to me that when the language of the CBA doesn't say anything specific about future rights, then no abridgment of those rights is to be assumed. The one place where they actually intended for a clock-resetting concept (trade of a player on a one-year contract who would have Bird rights), they made sure to spell it out with precision.

Of course, my conversation wasn't in regard to this particular situation, and it's entirely possible that they consider it differently.