No Trade Until January 15th

[TheBallDoLie]

I understand there is a rule you can not trade a recent free agent signing for 3 months, or by January 15th whichever is later. The rule states if you resign a player with Early/Larry Bird rights, if the team is over the cap, the player's new salary is above the minimum, and he receives a raise more than 20% then the rule applies. I understand all that but my question is about the "cap space". It says if you are over the cap which I do understand, but my question is does that mean at the time of the signing? For example, let's say a team resigns a free agent and all that applies but the team isn't over the cap. The team uses cap space to make the resigning and afterwards is still under the cap. Let's say though by the start of the season the team is over the cap because since then they resigned a different player or two which brought the team over the cap. Since the team is over the cap now does that mean that first free agent can't be traded until January 15th because all those things apply now? Or because when they resigned the first player and weren't over the cap then, this rule does not apply.

Hope this is clear...

[DBoys]

The difference-maker:
Did you use cap room to sign the player, where it left you under the cap when you submitted the deal to the league to add him to your roster? Or not (ie did you have to use his Bird/EB rights or some other cap exception to be able to add him)?

What may have happened after that is irrelevant.