RealGM

A team trades away player A for player B on draft night in late June. The team then realizes it wants player A back, and on July 20 it reacquires player A for player C. According to the FAQ this would be legal, since a new season started on July 1. Is there some other rule that would invalidate the second trade?

I believe that they can reacquire the rights to player A as long as he hasn't yet signed a contract. If he has signed a contract with the second team, his original team has to wait until 30 days from the date he signed his contract to reacquire him.

Huh? I think you are mixing up two completely unrelated types of situations, Dunk. You might wanna read that hypothetical again and adjust your reply accordingly.

Curmudgeon wrote:A team trades away player A for player B on draft night in late June. The team then realizes it wants player A back, and on July 20 it reacquires player A for player C. According to the FAQ this would be legal, since a new season started on July 1. Is there some other rule that would invalidate the second trade?

Your scenario was vague enough that there are clearly some hypotheticals you can inject into the scenario that could run afoul of other rules and make it illegal. But the basic concept of "in general, can a player be traded back once you get into July" is legal.

When I read the hypothetical, I assumed that player A was drafted on draft night.

so the main rule that is bypassed here is the whole, "you can't reacquire a player in the same season you trade him away (unless he's waived, in which you have to wait 20 or 30 days depending on when it happens)"

I have a feeling the NBA would take a close look at this for circumvention purposes. What if Player A makes $8 million and Player B makes $6.5 million, and they trade Player C (who makes $10 million) back for player A? That would be like trading player A and reaquiring him in order to shed $3.5 million dollars. In essence, it's like trading player C ($10) for Player B ($6.5), but since that's not legal, using player A in both trades to make it work.

Sorry for the long hypothetical, but I was wondering if the NBA would examine something like this - cuz something has to be fishy if you re-trade for a guy you traded away 20 days earlier

No. Just assume that players A, B and C each have three years left on their deals and their salaries roughly match. They are all veterans. The "circumvention" is that a team can reacquire a player via trade more quickly than it could reacquire him as a free agent after he was waived by the team that traded for him.

I guess...to me the whole circumvention is that they traded him right before the previous season ended just so they could reacquire him right after...i.e. if he's traded July 11, he can't be traded back to that team until the following July 1st. So in this case if the player's traded on June 30th, you could technically trade him right back on July 1st technically. To me there's a circumvention issue there. Thanks for asking about this, though - it's pretty interesting.

bgwizarfan wrote:I guess...to me the whole circumvention is that they traded him right before the previous season ended just so they could reacquire him right after...i.e. if he's traded July 11, he can't be traded back to that team until the following July 1st. So in this case if the player's traded on June 30th, you could technically trade him right back on July 1st technically. To me there's a circumvention issue there. Thanks for asking about this, though - it's pretty interesting.

What are they circumventing? It's not the luxury tax because that's based on team salary as of the last day of the regular season.

Circumvention implies gaining an advantage by stretching the rules. How are they gaining an advantage?

I guess not.. I guess the only way would be if they did it for salary purposes like i mentioned above. If anything, they'd be adding more luxury tax if the player on draft day has a trade bonus, so you seem to be right. Have there been any actual circumvention examples, where the NBA stepped in and stopped it (besides Joe Smith, though that might have fallen under tampering instead).

There's a "stepping up the basis" loophole that could be exploited here by taking advantage of the July 1 delineation of seasons. Let's say I want to trade my $8M player for your $12.5M player. Can't do it ordinarily, but let's say you also have a $10M player. On draft night we trade the $8M player for the $10M player. Then after the moratorium I trade the $10M player back to you for the $12.5M player. And depending on who gets what raises on July 1, you could conceivably fill in an even larger gap.

A rule that simply said you have to wait some specified period of time from the date of the trade would make alot more sense.

Curmudgeon wrote:A rule that simply said you have to wait some specified period of time from the date of the trade would make alot more sense.

It does exactly that. It says if you trade away a player, you can't reacquire him (unless he is released and is looking for a job) "until the next cap year begins."

Oh please. Don't play semantics. The problem is that players traded on draft night can be reacquired almost immediately.

Just make it six months. Or a year. That would put an end to the potential shennanigans that Larry Coon describes.

Shenanigans are fun!

They help separate the good GMs from the others, the good agents from the others. Clever shenanigans are what made Dan Fegan's reputation which served to grow his client base.

Curmudgeon wrote:Oh please. Don't play semantics. The problem is that players traded on draft night can be reacquired almost immediately.
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Yep Curm you're right. It's a MAJOR problem.

They need to have a way to curb all those trades where a player is traded away in June and then traded back in July or August! It's just ruining the dang NBA. I think you need to get a petition together and ask Congress to intervene if D Stern won't.

And if that doesn't work, who's gonna stop all those trade-backs we keep seeing year after year after year? Ohhhhhhhhh, the humanity !!!!

FGump wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Yep Curm you're right. It's a MAJOR problem.

They need to have a way to curb all those trades where a player is traded away in June and then traded back in July or August! It's just ruining the dang NBA. I think you need to get a petition together and ask Congress to intervene if D Stern won't.

And if that doesn't work, who's gonna stop all those trade-backs we keep seeing year after year after year? Ohhhhhhhhh, the humanity !!!!

Then why have a rule that players can't be reacquired in the same "season?" Why have a ruke at all? Just let teams reacquire players via trade whenever they want.

Tried to think of a situation in which this happened. Failed.

Some loophole.

This thread reminds me of a play by Shakespeare.

"Much Ado About Nothing"

And reminds me once again why Curmudgeon picked his user name.

The reason this does not happen is that teams don't want to admit that they made a mistake. But I could very easily see a player traded from team A to team B, then traded from team B to team C, and then reacquired by Team A from team C, all in a short period of time. Teams have different needs. The question is, why should there be ANY rule against this?