Can contract length be shortened in buyout?

[cucad8]

Random question I had while thinking about my Blazers' cap space. My assumption is no, but, say you trade for a player still owed 10 million next season, can we just buy him out in full, but take the full cap hit this season?

[Smitty731]

I'm curious to see what the others who are smarter about this than me think, but my thought is no. I don't think you can move up money from next year on to this year and eat it all at once.

Now, both the player and team could agree to remove the money by some or all from next year (and this year as well) as terms of the buyout.

And, of course, they could always stretch the player and lessen the hit in future years.

[Tfence92]

The team and player can decide how they'd want to pay/receive the money for the buyout however they so choose, but I'm pretty sure any guaranteed money from their contracts still stays on the books for following years.

Definitely not as smart as smitty, but that's my understanding.

[DBoys]

Random question I had while thinking about my Blazers' cap space. My assumption is no, but, say you trade for a player still owed 10 million next season, can we just buy him out in full, but take the full cap hit this season?

No. If he's getting paid his full contractual amount, the only choice you would have would be to either
1 have a cap hit for each season of the full contractual amount, or
2 have a cap hit this season of the full contractual amount, and split that 10M cap hit for 2016-17 into 1/3 next year, and 1/3 on each of the ensuing 2 seasons.