CBA Proposal - partial trades

[Ryoga Hibiki]

This is something I have thinking for years, but it would be even more beneficial now, with all the new restrictions.
Today, a team can either trade a player at the contract he is into, or wave him.
The side effect of this is that it makes good players who are though overpaid incredibly difficult to move.
They can either get traded for equally bad contracts, or they require assets to be dumped, or they must be bought out.
These are bad solutions for the team, obviously, but also for the player, who will have limited opportunities to play a revive his career.
And for the league in general, as it makes more difficult to generate the best possible product for fans, putting the right player on the right spots.
My proposal would be: allow a team to eat part of the remaining contract, write it off as dead money, and trade the player on what is left with it.
For instance, nobody really wants Beal at 50m+ per year. But if the Suns are willing to pay him 25+25m, trade him, and let the new team deal with the remaining 25+25m, I am sure there can be much more interest. And they might be able to recover some assets, rather than having his whole salary as dead money with nothing to show for.

What is good for me:
- give more flexibility to teams to manage expensive players, there's no good in having franchises in cap hell with no possibility maneuver
- letting stars age more gracefully, rather turning them into journeyman who are negative assets. Whatever you think of him, not a good look to have a former MVP like Russ being waved out of a supermax
- no extra spending overall for teams

There are some details to be defined, of course (what about the base for extensions, what limits to the reductions you want to put, what teams should be allowed to acquire a player on a reduced salary, maybe not apron ones?). But I hope you got the general idea.

What do you think? Any bad side effects I haven't been considered and they could derail the whole idea and they can't be solved with some extra clarifying rules?

[MartyConlonJr]

I think that is a great idea and I'm surprised I've never heard of it before (or that I didn't think of it myself!).

I would extend it to having the same rules as stretch provision for the amount you have to pay off.

[bkkrh]

This is something I have thinking for years, but it would be even more beneficial now, with all the new restrictions.
Today, a team can either trade a player at the contract he is into, or wave him.
The side effect of this is that it makes good players who are though overpaid incredibly difficult to move.
They can either get traded for equally bad contracts, or they require assets to be dumped, or they must be bought out.
These are bad solutions for the team, obviously, but also for the player, who will have limited opportunities to play a revive his career.
And for the league in general, as it makes more difficult to generate the best possible product for fans, putting the right player on the right spots.
My proposal would be: allow a team to eat part of the remaining contract, write it off as dead money, and trade the player on what is left with it.
For instance, nobody really wants Beal at 50m+ per year. But if the Suns are willing to pay him 25+25m, trade him, and let the new team deal with the remaining 25+25m, I am sure there can be much more interest. And they might be able to recover some assets, rather than having his whole salary as dead money with nothing to show for.

What is good for me:
- give more flexibility to teams to manage expensive players, there's no good in having franchises in cap hell with no possibility maneuver
- letting stars age more gracefully, rather turning them into journeyman who are negative assets. Whatever you think of him, not a good look to have a former MVP like Russ being waved out of a supermax
- no extra spending overall for teams

There are some details to be defined, of course (what about the base for extensions, what limits to the reductions you want to put, what teams should be allowed to acquire a player on a reduced salary, maybe not apron ones?). But I hope you got the general idea.

What do you think? Any bad side effects I haven't been considered and they could derail the whole idea and they can't be solved with some extra clarifying rules?

I'm against it for the following reasons.

- It completely contradicts the reason to have a salary cap. Imagine the following. You have a team with a star player and a team that wants to rebuild, as we just had the case now with Houston and Phoenix. Phoenix could just decide to suck for a few years, do a full rebuild and trade KD and Devin Booker as vet minimum contracts (or whatever the lowest possible salary will be) to a team like OKC, who currently has 12 1st rounders and 16 2nd rounders until 2032.
- Even worse, imagine the potential BS that could happen with sign and trades. If I'd be a GM that wants to do a rebuild I'd literally try to trade for as many solid prospects on expiring rookie contracts as possible. Resign them to a 5 year deal, then ship them out for draft picks. Again imagine OKC being able to add Scottie Barnes, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Johnson, or Jonathan Kuminga to their current roster on a 5 year deal that is super favorable for the team. In the meantime I got a ton of draft picks and actually benefitting from the lower salaries of the rookie contract extensions and will on top of that have a ton of cap space in 5 seasons, when the rebuild is hopefully at a point were I want to sign good players and be a contender.
- I also don't see why teams should be bailed out for maneuvering themselves in a bad situation. Bad teams get rewarded already enough with the draft system. If they mess up their team by signing old players to super high long term deals and trading away their picks, then they deserve to be in that situation. They took a gamble that didn't pay off. If I'm a treatmill team like Washington and decide to sign Bradley Beal to a max contract, despite him being constantly injured, despite him not having played almost half a season at that point and despite my current team being an absolute treatmill team, I simply need to deal with the consequences. If Phoenix then decides to trade for this player, when everybody can clearly see that he is not a good fit in general on the team and is already considered the as one of the worst contracts in the league,they don't need a bail out. Nobody forces teams to do dumb trades or signings.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

This is something I have thinking for years, but it would be even more beneficial now, with all the new restrictions.
Today, a team can either trade a player at the contract he is into, or wave him.
The side effect of this is that it makes good players who are though overpaid incredibly difficult to move.
They can either get traded for equally bad contracts, or they require assets to be dumped, or they must be bought out.
These are bad solutions for the team, obviously, but also for the player, who will have limited opportunities to play a revive his career.
And for the league in general, as it makes more difficult to generate the best possible product for fans, putting the right player on the right spots.
My proposal would be: allow a team to eat part of the remaining contract, write it off as dead money, and trade the player on what is left with it.
For instance, nobody really wants Beal at 50m+ per year. But if the Suns are willing to pay him 25+25m, trade him, and let the new team deal with the remaining 25+25m, I am sure there can be much more interest. And they might be able to recover some assets, rather than having his whole salary as dead money with nothing to show for.

What is good for me:
- give more flexibility to teams to manage expensive players, there's no good in having franchises in cap hell with no possibility maneuver
- letting stars age more gracefully, rather turning them into journeyman who are negative assets. Whatever you think of him, not a good look to have a former MVP like Russ being waved out of a supermax
- no extra spending overall for teams

There are some details to be defined, of course (what about the base for extensions, what limits to the reductions you want to put, what teams should be allowed to acquire a player on a reduced salary, maybe not apron ones?). But I hope you got the general idea.

What do you think? Any bad side effects I haven't been considered and they could derail the whole idea and they can't be solved with some extra clarifying rules?

I'm against it for the following reasons.

- It completely contradicts the reason to have a salary cap. Imagine the following. You have a team with a star player and a team that wants to rebuild, as we just had the case now with Houston and Phoenix. Phoenix could just decide to suck for a few years, do a full rebuild and trade KD and Devin Booker as vet minimum contracts (or whatever the lowest possible salary will be) to a team like OKC, who currently has 12 1st rounders and 16 2nd rounders until 2032.
- Even worse, imagine the potential BS that could happen with sign and trades. If I'd be a GM that wants to do a rebuild I'd literally try to trade for as many solid prospects on expiring rookie contracts as possible. Resign them to a 5 year deal, then ship them out for draft picks. Again imagine OKC being able to add Scottie Barnes, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Johnson, or Jonathan Kuminga to their current roster on a 5 year deal that is super favorable for the team. In the meantime I got a ton of draft picks and actually benefitting from the lower salaries of the rookie contract extensions and will on top of that have a ton of cap space in 5 seasons, when the rebuild is hopefully at a point were I want to sign good players and be a contender.
- I also don't see why teams should be bailed out for maneuvering themselves in a bad situation. Bad teams get rewarded already enough with the draft system. If they mess up their team by signing old players to super high long term deals and trading away their picks, then they deserve to be in that situation. They took a gamble that didn't pay off. If I'm a treatmill team like Washington and decide to sign Bradley Beal to a max contract, despite him being constantly injured, despite him not having played almost half a season at that point and despite my current team being an absolute treatmill team, I simply need to deal with the consequences. If Phoenix then decides to trade for this player, when everybody can clearly see that he is not a good fit in general on the team and is already considered the as one of the worst contracts in the league,they don't need a bail out. Nobody forces teams to do dumb trades or signings.

the cases you mentioned can be easily controlled putting some rules on how much you can reduce a player's salary, who to trade such contract to and how often it can happen. You just mentioned an extreme scenario that we could easily regulate. Like you can do it once every 5 years, you can cut the salary by max 50%, you must trade the guy and he must accept the destination, he will become untradable and impossible to wave and stretch on that contract, it can be done only when he has max 2 years left.
Moreover, you WILL pay the consequences of a bad contract, because you will have dead money in your books. Nothing is free. The question is if it's desirable for the League as a whole to not give teams any chance to maneuver out of tough situations. That could be bad choices but also bad luck, like for instance injuries that would diminish the value of a player.

[Myth]

My god, imagine how horrible this would be with agents pushing their players to certain teams. Lakers would be a constant powerhouse while other teams are stuck partially paying the bill. This would be player empowerment to the extreme.

[MessiahUjiri]

This is something I have thinking for years, but it would be even more beneficial now, with all the new restrictions.
Today, a team can either trade a player at the contract he is into, or wave him.
The side effect of this is that it makes good players who are though overpaid incredibly difficult to move.
They can either get traded for equally bad contracts, or they require assets to be dumped, or they must be bought out.
These are bad solutions for the team, obviously, but also for the player, who will have limited opportunities to play a revive his career.
And for the league in general, as it makes more difficult to generate the best possible product for fans, putting the right player on the right spots.
My proposal would be: allow a team to eat part of the remaining contract, write it off as dead money, and trade the player on what is left with it.
For instance, nobody really wants Beal at 50m+ per year. But if the Suns are willing to pay him 25+25m, trade him, and let the new team deal with the remaining 25+25m, I am sure there can be much more interest. And they might be able to recover some assets, rather than having his whole salary as dead money with nothing to show for.

What is good for me:
- give more flexibility to teams to manage expensive players, there's no good in having franchises in cap hell with no possibility maneuver
- letting stars age more gracefully, rather turning them into journeyman who are negative assets. Whatever you think of him, not a good look to have a former MVP like Russ being waved out of a supermax
- no extra spending overall for teams

There are some details to be defined, of course (what about the base for extensions, what limits to the reductions you want to put, what teams should be allowed to acquire a player on a reduced salary, maybe not apron ones?). But I hope you got the general idea.

What do you think? Any bad side effects I haven't been considered and they could derail the whole idea and they can't be solved with some extra clarifying rules?

I'm against it for the following reasons.

- It completely contradicts the reason to have a salary cap. Imagine the following. You have a team with a star player and a team that wants to rebuild, as we just had the case now with Houston and Phoenix. Phoenix could just decide to suck for a few years, do a full rebuild and trade KD and Devin Booker as vet minimum contracts (or whatever the lowest possible salary will be) to a team like OKC, who currently has 12 1st rounders and 16 2nd rounders until 2032.
- Even worse, imagine the potential BS that could happen with sign and trades. If I'd be a GM that wants to do a rebuild I'd literally try to trade for as many solid prospects on expiring rookie contracts as possible. Resign them to a 5 year deal, then ship them out for draft picks. Again imagine OKC being able to add Scottie Barnes, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Johnson, or Jonathan Kuminga to their current roster on a 5 year deal that is super favorable for the team. In the meantime I got a ton of draft picks and actually benefitting from the lower salaries of the rookie contract extensions and will on top of that have a ton of cap space in 5 seasons, when the rebuild is hopefully at a point were I want to sign good players and be a contender.
- I also don't see why teams should be bailed out for maneuvering themselves in a bad situation. Bad teams get rewarded already enough with the draft system. If they mess up their team by signing old players to super high long term deals and trading away their picks, then they deserve to be in that situation. They took a gamble that didn't pay off. If I'm a treatmill team like Washington and decide to sign Bradley Beal to a max contract, despite him being constantly injured, despite him not having played almost half a season at that point and despite my current team being an absolute treatmill team, I simply need to deal with the consequences. If Phoenix then decides to trade for this player, when everybody can clearly see that he is not a good fit in general on the team and is already considered the as one of the worst contracts in the league,they don't need a bail out. Nobody forces teams to do dumb trades or signings.

the cases you mentioned can be easily controlled putting some rules on how much you can reduce a player's salary, who to trade such contract to and how often it can happen. You just mentioned an extreme scenario that we could easily regulate. Like you can do it once every 5 years, you can cut the salary by max 50%, you must trade the guy and he must accept the destination, he will become untradable and impossible to wave and stretch on that contract, it can be done only when he has max 2 years left.
Moreover, you WILL pay the consequences of a bad contract, because you will have dead money in your books. Nothing is free. The question is if it's desirable for the League as a whole to not give teams any chance to maneuver out of tough situations. That could be bad choices but also bad luck, like for instance injuries that would diminish the value of a player.

I like the idea too. The easiest way to regulate it might be to limit the stretch-and-trade-discount up to the MLE amount. It still counts against the cap as dead money, just like a regular contract.

You could also add on a voluntary giveback from the players side too.

That would make it fun. If a player wants to be traded to a preferred team, they should be willing to give up salary (probably capped to a similar amount as the MLE).

As a final thing, I would get rid of no-trade-clauses

[DoItALL9]

I'm against it for the following reasons.

- It completely contradicts the reason to have a salary cap. Imagine the following. You have a team with a star player and a team that wants to rebuild, as we just had the case now with Houston and Phoenix. Phoenix could just decide to suck for a few years, do a full rebuild and trade KD and Devin Booker as vet minimum contracts (or whatever the lowest possible salary will be) to a team like OKC, who currently has 12 1st rounders and 16 2nd rounders until 2032.
- Even worse, imagine the potential BS that could happen with sign and trades. If I'd be a GM that wants to do a rebuild I'd literally try to trade for as many solid prospects on expiring rookie contracts as possible. Resign them to a 5 year deal, then ship them out for draft picks. Again imagine OKC being able to add Scottie Barnes, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Johnson, or Jonathan Kuminga to their current roster on a 5 year deal that is super favorable for the team. In the meantime I got a ton of draft picks and actually benefitting from the lower salaries of the rookie contract extensions and will on top of that have a ton of cap space in 5 seasons, when the rebuild is hopefully at a point were I want to sign good players and be a contender.
- I also don't see why teams should be bailed out for maneuvering themselves in a bad situation. Bad teams get rewarded already enough with the draft system. If they mess up their team by signing old players to super high long term deals and trading away their picks, then they deserve to be in that situation. They took a gamble that didn't pay off. If I'm a treatmill team like Washington and decide to sign Bradley Beal to a max contract, despite him being constantly injured, despite him not having played almost half a season at that point and despite my current team being an absolute treatmill team, I simply need to deal with the consequences. If Phoenix then decides to trade for this player, when everybody can clearly see that he is not a good fit in general on the team and is already considered the as one of the worst contracts in the league,they don't need a bail out. Nobody forces teams to do dumb trades or signings.

the cases you mentioned can be easily controlled putting some rules on how much you can reduce a player's salary, who to trade such contract to and how often it can happen. You just mentioned an extreme scenario that we could easily regulate. Like you can do it once every 5 years, you can cut the salary by max 50%, you must trade the guy and he must accept the destination, he will become untradable and impossible to wave and stretch on that contract, it can be done only when he has max 2 years left.
Moreover, you WILL pay the consequences of a bad contract, because you will have dead money in your books. Nothing is free. The question is if it's desirable for the League as a whole to not give teams any chance to maneuver out of tough situations. That could be bad choices but also bad luck, like for instance injuries that would diminish the value of a player.

I like the idea too. The easiest way to regulate it might be to limit the stretch-and-trade-discount up to the MLE amount. It still counts against the cap as dead money, just like a regular contract.

You could also add on a voluntary giveback from the players side too.

That would make it fun. If a player wants to be traded to a preferred team, they should be willing to give up salary (probably capped to a similar amount as the MLE).

As a final thing, I would get rid of no-trade-clauses

Why would you get rid of no trade clauses?

Sent from my moto g - 2025 using RealGM mobile app

[bkkrh]

This is something I have thinking for years, but it would be even more beneficial now, with all the new restrictions.
Today, a team can either trade a player at the contract he is into, or wave him.
The side effect of this is that it makes good players who are though overpaid incredibly difficult to move.
They can either get traded for equally bad contracts, or they require assets to be dumped, or they must be bought out.
These are bad solutions for the team, obviously, but also for the player, who will have limited opportunities to play a revive his career.
And for the league in general, as it makes more difficult to generate the best possible product for fans, putting the right player on the right spots.
My proposal would be: allow a team to eat part of the remaining contract, write it off as dead money, and trade the player on what is left with it.
For instance, nobody really wants Beal at 50m+ per year. But if the Suns are willing to pay him 25+25m, trade him, and let the new team deal with the remaining 25+25m, I am sure there can be much more interest. And they might be able to recover some assets, rather than having his whole salary as dead money with nothing to show for.

What is good for me:
- give more flexibility to teams to manage expensive players, there's no good in having franchises in cap hell with no possibility maneuver
- letting stars age more gracefully, rather turning them into journeyman who are negative assets. Whatever you think of him, not a good look to have a former MVP like Russ being waved out of a supermax
- no extra spending overall for teams

There are some details to be defined, of course (what about the base for extensions, what limits to the reductions you want to put, what teams should be allowed to acquire a player on a reduced salary, maybe not apron ones?). But I hope you got the general idea.

What do you think? Any bad side effects I haven't been considered and they could derail the whole idea and they can't be solved with some extra clarifying rules?

I'm against it for the following reasons.

- It completely contradicts the reason to have a salary cap. Imagine the following. You have a team with a star player and a team that wants to rebuild, as we just had the case now with Houston and Phoenix. Phoenix could just decide to suck for a few years, do a full rebuild and trade KD and Devin Booker as vet minimum contracts (or whatever the lowest possible salary will be) to a team like OKC, who currently has 12 1st rounders and 16 2nd rounders until 2032.
- Even worse, imagine the potential BS that could happen with sign and trades. If I'd be a GM that wants to do a rebuild I'd literally try to trade for as many solid prospects on expiring rookie contracts as possible. Resign them to a 5 year deal, then ship them out for draft picks. Again imagine OKC being able to add Scottie Barnes, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Johnson, or Jonathan Kuminga to their current roster on a 5 year deal that is super favorable for the team. In the meantime I got a ton of draft picks and actually benefitting from the lower salaries of the rookie contract extensions and will on top of that have a ton of cap space in 5 seasons, when the rebuild is hopefully at a point were I want to sign good players and be a contender.
- I also don't see why teams should be bailed out for maneuvering themselves in a bad situation. Bad teams get rewarded already enough with the draft system. If they mess up their team by signing old players to super high long term deals and trading away their picks, then they deserve to be in that situation. They took a gamble that didn't pay off. If I'm a treatmill team like Washington and decide to sign Bradley Beal to a max contract, despite him being constantly injured, despite him not having played almost half a season at that point and despite my current team being an absolute treatmill team, I simply need to deal with the consequences. If Phoenix then decides to trade for this player, when everybody can clearly see that he is not a good fit in general on the team and is already considered the as one of the worst contracts in the league,they don't need a bail out. Nobody forces teams to do dumb trades or signings.

the cases you mentioned can be easily controlled putting some rules on how much you can reduce a player's salary, who to trade such contract to and how often it can happen. You just mentioned an extreme scenario that we could easily regulate. Like you can do it once every 5 years, you can cut the salary by max 50%, you must trade the guy and he must accept the destination, he will become untradable and impossible to wave and stretch on that contract, it can be done only when he has max 2 years left.
Moreover, you WILL pay the consequences of a bad contract, because you will have dead money in your books. Nothing is free. The question is if it's desirable for the League as a whole to not give teams any chance to maneuver out of tough situations. That could be bad choices but also bad luck, like for instance injuries that would diminish the value of a player.

No matter what rule you put on how much you can reduce the player salary, it will have either have a major impact, or it will make this change pointless. Let's say you go with 50% reduction, it would still mean that I can trade for Giannis and he just counts 27 Million towards my salary cap instead of 54 Million. Which means that OKC could right now trade Isiah Hartenstein 1:1 for Giannis and save 1.5 Million in salary cap. Or Boston could trade him for Anfernee Simmons.
To expect that teams will not try to exploit that when pretty much everything else already gets exploited would be pretty naive. Dead money does not matter if I want to rebuild, it actually makes it easier because teams have to reach a certain percentage of a salary cap. That's why teams that tank often sign mediocre players to high salary contracts with a short duration. Since rebuilds take on average 3-4 seasons it works out perfectly timewise and I can also please my current star by sending him to a contending team where he most likely will play for a title. On the other side I will probably receive 1 or 2 additional picks for doing that, so teams that want to start over will 100% go that route.
If you can only do it every 5 seasons, it will still mean that every team will do it within those 5 seasons with one player, since otherwise it would simply mean that they would not use an advantage they have. See the 2011 NBA amnesty clause, which 21 of 30 teams used, despite this clause being limited to players that had signed contracts before the new bargain agreement. Otherwise it would have most likely been 30 of 30 teams.
Teams already have a chance to get rid of bad contracts and you mentioned it already. It's through buyouts. Also besides no trade clauses there is rarely an untradeable contract. You might need to add an asset like a pick, but just to go back to the Washington example, they were able to trade John Wall and Bradley Beal and they are also the poster child why teams should not get more support. They literally signed their other constantly injured star Guard to a 5 year max contract 2 seasons after they were able to trade their other constantly injured star Guard on a max deal. You really have to go out of your way to mess up an NBA team this bad that it will impact you long term and in pretty much every case the majority of people called out that this is super risky or probably a bad idea the second it happened.

[KMartsCrew]

This is already a thing in the NHL, with some restrictions.

In the NHL, when a team trades a player, they can retain a portion of the player's salary and cap hit, making the player more attractive to the acquiring team. The maximum amount a team can retain is 50%, and a contract can only have a maximum of two teams retaining salary on it. A team can only carry a maximum of three retained salaries at any given time.

[Ryoga Hibiki]

I'm against it for the following reasons.

- It completely contradicts the reason to have a salary cap. Imagine the following. You have a team with a star player and a team that wants to rebuild, as we just had the case now with Houston and Phoenix. Phoenix could just decide to suck for a few years, do a full rebuild and trade KD and Devin Booker as vet minimum contracts (or whatever the lowest possible salary will be) to a team like OKC, who currently has 12 1st rounders and 16 2nd rounders until 2032.
- Even worse, imagine the potential BS that could happen with sign and trades. If I'd be a GM that wants to do a rebuild I'd literally try to trade for as many solid prospects on expiring rookie contracts as possible. Resign them to a 5 year deal, then ship them out for draft picks. Again imagine OKC being able to add Scottie Barnes, Trey Murphy III, Jalen Johnson, or Jonathan Kuminga to their current roster on a 5 year deal that is super favorable for the team. In the meantime I got a ton of draft picks and actually benefitting from the lower salaries of the rookie contract extensions and will on top of that have a ton of cap space in 5 seasons, when the rebuild is hopefully at a point were I want to sign good players and be a contender.
- I also don't see why teams should be bailed out for maneuvering themselves in a bad situation. Bad teams get rewarded already enough with the draft system. If they mess up their team by signing old players to super high long term deals and trading away their picks, then they deserve to be in that situation. They took a gamble that didn't pay off. If I'm a treatmill team like Washington and decide to sign Bradley Beal to a max contract, despite him being constantly injured, despite him not having played almost half a season at that point and despite my current team being an absolute treatmill team, I simply need to deal with the consequences. If Phoenix then decides to trade for this player, when everybody can clearly see that he is not a good fit in general on the team and is already considered the as one of the worst contracts in the league,they don't need a bail out. Nobody forces teams to do dumb trades or signings.

the cases you mentioned can be easily controlled putting some rules on how much you can reduce a player's salary, who to trade such contract to and how often it can happen. You just mentioned an extreme scenario that we could easily regulate. Like you can do it once every 5 years, you can cut the salary by max 50%, you must trade the guy and he must accept the destination, he will become untradable and impossible to wave and stretch on that contract, it can be done only when he has max 2 years left.
Moreover, you WILL pay the consequences of a bad contract, because you will have dead money in your books. Nothing is free. The question is if it's desirable for the League as a whole to not give teams any chance to maneuver out of tough situations. That could be bad choices but also bad luck, like for instance injuries that would diminish the value of a player.

No matter what rule you put on how much you can reduce the player salary, it will have either have a major impact, or it will make this change pointless. Let's say you go with 50% reduction, it would still mean that I can trade for Giannis and he just counts 27 Million towards my salary cap instead of 54 Million. Which means that OKC could right now trade Isiah Hartenstein 1:1 for Giannis and save 1.5 Million in salary cap. Or Boston could trade him for Anfernee Simmons.
To expect that teams will not try to exploit that when pretty much everything else already gets exploited would be pretty naive. Dead money does not matter if I want to rebuild, it actually makes it easier because teams have to reach a certain percentage of a salary cap. That's why teams that tank often sign mediocre players to high salary contracts with a short duration. Since rebuilds take on average 3-4 seasons it works out perfectly timewise and I can also please my current star by sending him to a contending team where he most likely will play for a title. On the other side I will probably receive 1 or 2 additional picks for doing that, so teams that want to start over will 100% go that route.
If you can only do it every 5 seasons, it will still mean that every team will do it within those 5 seasons with one player, since otherwise it would simply mean that they would not use an advantage they have. See the 2011 NBA amnesty clause, which 21 of 30 teams used, despite this clause being limited to players that had signed contracts before the new bargain agreement. Otherwise it would have most likely been 30 of 30 teams.
Teams already have a chance to get rid of bad contracts and you mentioned it already. It's through buyouts. Also besides no trade clauses there is rarely an untradeable contract. You might need to add an asset like a pick, but just to go back to the Washington example, they were able to trade John Wall and Bradley Beal and they are also the poster child why teams should not get more support. They literally signed their other constantly injured star Guard to a 5 year max contract 2 seasons after they were able to trade their other constantly injured star Guard on a max deal. You really have to go out of your way to mess up an NBA team this bad that it will impact you long term and in pretty much every case the majority of people called out that this is super risky or probably a bad idea the second it happened.

You seem very worried by the idea teams might use it for a Giannis like guy to increase its trade value.
First those kind of guys are already commanding all the picks, but second there's an easy solution: do not allow more than one FRP to be traded in such transaction. Or even zero. That's meant to help in disaster scenarios, not for teams to get more out of positive value players.
Now, how would a team unfairly exploit this?

[bkkrh]

the cases you mentioned can be easily controlled putting some rules on how much you can reduce a player's salary, who to trade such contract to and how often it can happen. You just mentioned an extreme scenario that we could easily regulate. Like you can do it once every 5 years, you can cut the salary by max 50%, you must trade the guy and he must accept the destination, he will become untradable and impossible to wave and stretch on that contract, it can be done only when he has max 2 years left.
Moreover, you WILL pay the consequences of a bad contract, because you will have dead money in your books. Nothing is free. The question is if it's desirable for the League as a whole to not give teams any chance to maneuver out of tough situations. That could be bad choices but also bad luck, like for instance injuries that would diminish the value of a player.

No matter what rule you put on how much you can reduce the player salary, it will have either have a major impact, or it will make this change pointless. Let's say you go with 50% reduction, it would still mean that I can trade for Giannis and he just counts 27 Million towards my salary cap instead of 54 Million. Which means that OKC could right now trade Isiah Hartenstein 1:1 for Giannis and save 1.5 Million in salary cap. Or Boston could trade him for Anfernee Simmons.
To expect that teams will not try to exploit that when pretty much everything else already gets exploited would be pretty naive. Dead money does not matter if I want to rebuild, it actually makes it easier because teams have to reach a certain percentage of a salary cap. That's why teams that tank often sign mediocre players to high salary contracts with a short duration. Since rebuilds take on average 3-4 seasons it works out perfectly timewise and I can also please my current star by sending him to a contending team where he most likely will play for a title. On the other side I will probably receive 1 or 2 additional picks for doing that, so teams that want to start over will 100% go that route.
If you can only do it every 5 seasons, it will still mean that every team will do it within those 5 seasons with one player, since otherwise it would simply mean that they would not use an advantage they have. See the 2011 NBA amnesty clause, which 21 of 30 teams used, despite this clause being limited to players that had signed contracts before the new bargain agreement. Otherwise it would have most likely been 30 of 30 teams.
Teams already have a chance to get rid of bad contracts and you mentioned it already. It's through buyouts. Also besides no trade clauses there is rarely an untradeable contract. You might need to add an asset like a pick, but just to go back to the Washington example, they were able to trade John Wall and Bradley Beal and they are also the poster child why teams should not get more support. They literally signed their other constantly injured star Guard to a 5 year max contract 2 seasons after they were able to trade their other constantly injured star Guard on a max deal. You really have to go out of your way to mess up an NBA team this bad that it will impact you long term and in pretty much every case the majority of people called out that this is super risky or probably a bad idea the second it happened.

You seem very worried by the idea teams might use it for a Giannis like guy to increase its trade value.
First those kind of guys are already commanding all the picks, but second there's an easy solution: do not allow more than one FRP to be traded in such transaction. Or even zero. That's meant to help in disaster scenarios, not for teams to get more out of positive value players.
Now, how would a team unfairly exploit this?

I am not worried about the Giannis trade specifically, it's just an example. It still means that teams can take advantage of that. Even with one draft pick or a few 2nd rounders I can get some impactfull starters or high level trades. Also just to point out, the Luka trade involved exactly 1 1st round pick.

Also if the team can't get any picks back, why should they actually do that trade? Why then not just wave the player in the first place. If the player has value, they will receive offers that consist of players that fit their current situation and/or picks. If the player doesn't have trade value, they will receive players they don't need and on top will take on the additional salary.

Related to those changes, every single change the NBA made to trades and player signings gets exploited today, has a workaround, or isn't used with the initial intend. The NBA implemented the Stepien rule, after Cleveland traded away their draft picks for the next 6 seasons for mostly mediocre players. Now teams work around it by trading pick swaps for the seasons they can't trade picks. Rookie contracts were implemented because teams started signing rookies for contracts that were 9+ years long and paying them superstar salaries before playing a single game, now everything stands and falls around rookie contracts and teams literally have 4-5 year windows for everything. And so on and so on.

Or to put it this way, can you give some examples (besides No trade clause scenarios) of any of those possible disaster scenarios that you mentioned? I can't think of a single situation where a team was basically put in an impossible situation due to player contracts. And I say this as a Knicks fan. We had during the 2000s by far the highest payroll of all teams and some of the worst contracts in the history of the league and were able to clean it all up within 2 seasons as soon as we good a competent GM.

Also, just to point out, you basically want to implement a rule to help teams out but simultaneously propose as a possible solution that the receiving team can't trade or wave and stretch that player again. Well what happens if that team also falls «apart, like Phoenix did now,after trading for 2 players with Durant and Beal from teams that probably would have used your solution for the trade. They would now be stuck with Durant and Beal. Or to go with Damian Lillard on the Bucks, which I guess comes kinda close to a disaster scenario and might have actually forced Milwaukee to do a Giannis trade now.

[YogurtProducer]

This is already a thing in the NHL, with some restrictions.

In the NHL, when a team trades a player, they can retain a portion of the player's salary and cap hit, making the player more attractive to the acquiring team. The maximum amount a team can retain is 50%, and a contract can only have a maximum of two teams retaining salary on it. A team can only carry a maximum of three retained salaries at any given time.

yep, and it’s great.

Even for smaller deals it would help. Right now in thr NBA matching salaries is so hard. If teams could retain even $5M in a trade to make it go through that would help

[Dominator83]

My god, imagine how horrible this would be with agents pushing their players to certain teams. Lakers would be a constant powerhouse while other teams are stuck partially paying the bill. This would be player empowerment to the extreme.

The Blazers are footing the bill for Ayton already!

[Myth]

My god, imagine how horrible this would be with agents pushing their players to certain teams. Lakers would be a constant powerhouse while other teams are stuck partially paying the bill. This would be player empowerment to the extreme.

The Blazers are footing the bill for Ayton already!

Right, but wait until we are footing the bill for actual good players.