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I thought I read this somewhere, but I can't seem to find an answer for this so my question is

If Team A has a caphold of 5 million dollars for restricted free agent X, and restricted free agent X signs an offer sheet with Team B;
Does the cap hold stay at 5 million dollars for Team A or does it increase to 10 million for Team A?

Increases. A RFA's free caphold is either his free agent amount, his qualifying offer, or the first year of any offer sheet - whichever is the biggest amount is the caphold.

Ive always thought that this could lead to interesting FA strategies. For instance last season the Sixers were thought to be after Josh SMith. THe reason the sixers had so much room was because of a very low caphold for Louis Williams. If the Hawks had signed Williams to an offersheet (even one that was thought likely to be matched) then it would have taken away caproom for Philadelphia.

killbuckner wrote:Ive always thought that this could lead to interesting FA strategies. For instance last season the Sixers were thought to be after Josh SMith. THe reason the sixers had so much room was because of a very low caphold for Louis Williams. If the Hawks had signed Williams to an offersheet (even one that was thought likely to be matched) then it would have taken away caproom for Philadelphia.

In theory, that works. In reality, the flaw with that strategy is that it takes the cooperation of the free agent. Easier said than done.

Atlanta would have had to offer Williams MORE than he knew he would otherwise get from Philly - because he's not signing an offer sheet for the same or less. Even an identical first year would be lower than what Philly can give, since Philly could offer bigger raises. And if they get Williams to sign that offer sheet and then Philly does NOT match, now are they screwed? Do they lose payroll room to sign their real goal Josh Smith?

Well.. I think a 20% raise would get williams to sign with Atlanta considering the sixers sort of had him by the balls as a RFA. He had no guarantees on the contract that they would give him after they resolved their capspace. A 20% raise would be a million dollars a year extra over 5 years (on a contract that would still be likely to be matched) in order to save the Hawks huge dollars on the Sixers overpaying smith to lure him away.The Hawks had the MLE to easily make that offer. Either way I don't think a 20% increase in offer would get turned down by a player. If you can pay williams 20% extra and Smith 20% less you are way ahead of the game. If for some odd reason the contract wasn't matched this may have cost the Hawks Childress (though obviously they didn't particularly care) though its not like the Hawks couldn't use a hometown player like Williams anyway.

Kill, your math doesn't make any sense. And I don't think your argument is adding up either.

I'm not sure what sort of "20% raise" deal you envision. 20% over the cap hold? His cap hold was less than $1M, I think. 20% more than his prior salary? He was coming off a minimum deal. He's not signing any offer in that range.

Or are you saying the Hawks should have thrown their whole MLE or thereabouts at him? In other words, potentially eat up over $5M of yearly payroll (an ADDITIONAL $5M for the Hawks), when they are tight on room to sign Smith anyhow? That deal, rather than making it easier for them to get Smith, would have greatly endangered their ability to keep Smith.

I know they had the ability to match ANY offer, but that is merely what the NBA would have allowed. The other part of the equation was their internal budget, and if you heaped an extra $5+M into the mix, I think they run out of budget room on Smith.

I'm not sure exactly what you are proposing here, but as best as I can tell, it wouldnt be feasible in the least.

I am saying that Williams signed a deal starting at 4.5 million. There is a number past that where Williams would still be inclined to sign the sheet with the Hawks because its more than he could have gotten from the sixers but still within what the Sixers would match. Or if the sixers for some reason didn't match the Hawks could still easily have signed smith without going into the luxury tax. I don't think that the sixers would have let williams walk over 500k or a million dollars a year. Or the Hawks could have just done the same contract Williams got but with a max signing bonus to give him more upfront.

I agree the Hawks COULD HAVE made a bigger number offer to Williams than Philly did. But I disagree that it would have helped them, because they already were challenged to pay Smith what they did.

And your math is wrong. Their payroll ended up above $68M per Sham's site. Then you're adding an extra $5+M onto their payroll, for a backup, which would have put them into tax territory if you include Smith at what he ultimately got. That doesn't include a nickel of room for Childress if he decides to accept his QO - that franchise already was dollar-challenged over Childress - and adding on even more with Williams and also paying tax doesn't look workable to me under any scenario.

Like I said to begin, it sounds like a nice theory. But I just don't see how it was a feasible idea for ATL to try, under the circumstances.

It could still be a good strategy if the committed salaries were lower, and you're sure to have room under the tax to add contract offered to other Team F.A., and your own F.A.

In this case, it doesn't work, but there could be a working scenario, couldn't it ?.

Fgump- If Williams were for some reason not matched then the Hawks wouldn't have needed Flip Murray and maybe they would have had to pass on Maurice Evans (a deal they would probably like out of anyway). Though I believe the general perception was that unless a team was going to exceed the MLE for Williams the sixers would have matched.

But regardless- this was just an example. It does seem like there are situations where doing something like this would give a team an advantage. I think the Hawks ended up getting lucky that the sixers didn't overpay Smith in an attempt to get the Hawks to not match. To me Williams would have been a great fit on the Hawks next to Joe Johnson and I think even being paid a little more Williams would have still been good value.