Free Agency & Trades Rumours Thread 3

[Pointgod]

Sorry why won't we have his bird rights?

I thought that he was not extension eligible, due the opt in on an existing extension.

What about his ext, and opt in negates bird rights?

My confusion. Any team that trades for him can’t extend him so he becomes an unrestricted free agent that can only be resigned with capspace or exceptions. We’d have his bird rights but we’d be in a capspace crunch to resign OG, Harden and Siakim. That’s what severely limits his attractiveness to any team trading for him. You can’t go over the cap to resign him.

Read on Twitter

Yep we can't extend.

I'm curious tho, do we have his bird rights, i.e. the ability to go over the cap and the lux tax lines etc to resign an existing player, or would we need to renounce players rights (OG etc.) to resign him under the cap?

I know there's 2 round pick limitations on your own free agents (like what happened with Jalen Brunson).

The cap crunch is real, but that's just money and not actually a hard limitation.

There's an opportunity here to trade salary filler and pick(s) for an all star 33yr old creator (which is what this team actually needs). Our front court is on par with most in the league.

Poeltl, Siakam, OG, and Barnes is a really good front court.

Having Precious, McDaniels and Koloko is really nice upside depth.

Our guard depth is 'fixed' with a ballast for aging star trade IMO. Aren't we the team that can compensate for him?

We’ll have his bird rights which means we can pay him more than any other team but we can only resign him using capspace. The Raptors are projected to have 60 million in capspace assuming that we renounce all our free agents and OG opts in. If OG opts out it’s 80 million but don’t forget Siakim’s caphold is like 50 million, OG’s is 27 and you start to run out of room to resign Harden unless we move Schroeder and Poeltl for pure cap-space.

[douggood]

My confusion. Any team that trades for him can’t extend him so he becomes an unrestricted free agent that can only be resigned with capspace or exceptions. We’d have his bird rights but we’d be in a capspace crunch to resign OG, Harden and Siakim. That’s what severely limits his attractiveness to any team trading for him. You can’t go over the cap to resign him.

Read on Twitter

Yep we can't extend.

I'm curious tho, do we have his bird rights, i.e. the ability to go over the cap and the lux tax lines etc to resign an existing player, or would we need to renounce players rights (OG etc.) to resign him under the cap?

I know there's 2 round pick limitations on your own free agents (like what happened with Jalen Brunson).

The cap crunch is real, but that's just money and not actually a hard limitation.

There's an opportunity here to trade salary filler and pick(s) for an all star 33yr old creator (which is what this team actually needs). Our front court is on par with most in the league.

Poeltl, Siakam, OG, and Barnes is a really good front court.

Having Precious, McDaniels and Koloko is really nice upside depth.

Our guard depth is 'fixed' with a ballast for aging star trade IMO. Aren't we the team that can compensate for him?

We’ll have his bird rights which means we can pay him more than any other team but we can only resign him using capspace. The Raptors are projected to have 60 million in capspace assuming that we renounce all our free agents and OG opts in. If OG opts out it’s 80 million but don’t forget Siakim’s caphold is like 50 million, OG’s is 27 and you start to run out of room to resign Harden unless we move Schroeder and Poeltl for pure cap-space.

bird rights mean you dont need cap space to resign a player. any team he is traded to can re-sign him for 5 year max if they want next offseason.

the reason harden now that he has opted in cant sign an extension right away, is because he is now 2nd year of a 2 year contract, and contracts of 3 year + can only be extended. same reason raptors couldnt sign trent to an extension during the season, even though we have his bird rights, the short contract was the issue.

[planetmars]

My confusion. Any team that trades for him can’t extend him so he becomes an unrestricted free agent that can only be resigned with capspace or exceptions. We’d have his bird rights but we’d be in a capspace crunch to resign OG, Harden and Siakim. That’s what severely limits his attractiveness to any team trading for him. You can’t go over the cap to resign him.

Read on Twitter

Yep we can't extend.

I'm curious tho, do we have his bird rights, i.e. the ability to go over the cap and the lux tax lines etc to resign an existing player, or would we need to renounce players rights (OG etc.) to resign him under the cap?

I know there's 2 round pick limitations on your own free agents (like what happened with Jalen Brunson).

The cap crunch is real, but that's just money and not actually a hard limitation.

There's an opportunity here to trade salary filler and pick(s) for an all star 33yr old creator (which is what this team actually needs). Our front court is on par with most in the league.

Poeltl, Siakam, OG, and Barnes is a really good front court.

Having Precious, McDaniels and Koloko is really nice upside depth.

Our guard depth is 'fixed' with a ballast for aging star trade IMO. Aren't we the team that can compensate for him?

We’ll have his bird rights which means we can pay him more than any other team but we can only resign him using capspace. The Raptors are projected to have 60 million in capspace assuming that we renounce all our free agents and OG opts in. If OG opts out it’s 80 million but don’t forget Siakim’s caphold is like 50 million, OG’s is 27 and you start to run out of room to resign Harden unless we move Schroeder and Poeltl for pure cap-space.

No.. it means we can sign him even if we are already over the cap. You don't need cap space to resign a guy with the bird rights. It's the whole reason why bird rights exist.

Players only lose their bird rights if they sign with a brand new team as a UFA for 1 or 2 year deal (with 2 years they get early bird rights though). Fred for example will have early bird rights with Houston if they opt out of his 3rd year. But can still re-sign him again even if they are over the cap.

It's how we were able to re-sign Poeltl since we got his bird rights at the deadline, despite being over the cap. Being over the cap allowed us to use the full non tax-payer mid-level on Schroeder and the BAE on McDaniels (those exceptions are only offered if you are operating above the cap).

As for Harden, those bird rights carried over when the 76ers traded for him. They didn't lose those rights when he resigned for the 1 year. But now if Harden signs as a UFA with a different team next season, and only signs for 1 year. He will no longer have bird rights.

[planetmars]

The problem with the Raptors is they rarely operate over the tax. With a Pascal max extension looming, and OG extension. Poeltl at $20M and eventually a Precious + Scottie extension (although with Scottie it won't kick in until 2025) we can be a tax team very quickly if you throw in a max (or close to max) Harden contract.

Ideally you would want to move OG to help with that burden. But if we didn't care about the tax, and we traded for Harden we could re-sign him up to a 35% max contract if we wanted to.

[Pointgod]

Harden will still have his Bird Rights if traded. He has never hit free agency as a UFA. Ever since he's been drafted with OKC, he's been traded, and then extended. His Bird Rights have never been released or renounced.

You don't need to sign a 3 year deal to get Bird Rights. You can sign three 1 year deals and get Bird Rights. And those rights get moved with him on trades.

See Q32 here:
http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm

Yup you’re correct. The guy I posted was interpreting the extension rule correctly, but any team that trades for Harden still has his bird rights and can go over the cap to sign him.

[Tor_Raps]

Lets go get Harden and stick it to Nurse... we'd be the better team if we got Harden from them, which would be hilarious lol.

[Raptorfan2012]

The problem with the Raptors is they rarely operate over the tax. With a Pascal max extension looming, and OG extension. Poeltl at $20M and eventually a Precious + Scottie extension (although with Scottie it won't kick in until 2025) we can be a tax team very quickly if you throw in a max (or close to max) Harden contract.

Ideally you would want to move OG to help with that burden. But if we didn't care about the tax, and we traded for Harden we could re-sign him up to a 35% max contract if we wanted to.

Pretty sure Philly will take OG for Harden; OG and Trent for Harden and Springer. If OG and Trent are planning to jet out of Toronto anyways, then might as well try to go all-in and see where Pascal and Harden can take us. If OG really wants to stay with the Raptors, then this decision will be harder to make (I don’t know myself).

[SurgeIblocka]

We would be so stupid if we traded for Harden. 100% he would leave the following year for the Clippers. If Masai trades for Harden he has definitely gone senile. The move to make if we are trading assets is go for Dame at least he is signed long term

[Kreamy]

We would be so stupid if we traded for Harden. 100% he would leave the following year for the Clippers. If Masai trades for Harden he has definitely gone senile. The move to make if we are trading assets is go for Dame at least he is signed long term

With what cap space are the Clippers going to sign Harden?

[WuTang_CMB]

this is how i see it

viewtopic.php?p=107965689#p107965689

[planetmars]

The problem with the Raptors is they rarely operate over the tax. With a Pascal max extension looming, and OG extension. Poeltl at $20M and eventually a Precious + Scottie extension (although with Scottie it won't kick in until 2025) we can be a tax team very quickly if you throw in a max (or close to max) Harden contract.

Ideally you would want to move OG to help with that burden. But if we didn't care about the tax, and we traded for Harden we could re-sign him up to a 35% max contract if we wanted to.

Pretty sure Philly will take OG for Harden; OG and Trent for Harden and Springer. If OG and Trent are planning to jet out of Toronto anyways, then might as well try to go all-in and see where Pascal and Harden can take us. If OG really wants to stay with the Raptors, then this decision will be harder to make (I don’t know myself).

Going all-in would be to try and keep OG and pay the tax. Finding an OG trade wouldn't be difficult. Like you said, Philly would likely take him. If you are bringing Harden in, the goal should be to try and contend. So you need guys like OG to do that.

Dame has the same issues. Dame and Harden are highly paid players in the league. Both provide skills we need. But if ownership/Masai is not willing to be a tax team then the discussion stops there. You can't invest in these types of guys and build a contending team around them without dipping into the tax.

We did go into the tax for Kawhi and Marc though. So there is a precedence for it. I just don't know if we are ready as a team to do that now considering we just came off a lottery season.

Plus the biggest weakness this team has had for the last 2-3 seasons has been their bench. Trading for Harden/Dame would require trading the best parts of our already weak bench. Might be better to just stand pat and continue to build around the edges. And wait another year or two for the next disgruntled star to become available. The timing may just not be right.

Plus Harden might hurt Scottie's growth. He'd likely force Scottie to be off ball which would feel a lot like it did last season.

But if we did make a big move like this, we could try to retain Harden as we'd have his bird rights. Or flip him in a S&T. This time around the Clippers wouldn't have cap space to try to lure him like they did with Kawhi back in 2019.

[Pointgod]

We would be so stupid if we traded for Harden. 100% he would leave the following year for the Clippers. If Masai trades for Harden he has definitely gone senile. The move to make if we are trading assets is go for Dame at least he is signed long term

It would be stupid if we traded anything of value for Harden but Trent plus expiring contracts is a good deal considering that we have nothing to lose and it actually gets us closer to being a playoff team. We don’t have a pick this year, being good enough to lose our pick but bad enough to miss the play in is not the answer.

[gerrit4]

I'd gladly take Harden if we were giving up peanuts for him. He does fit a lot of what we need - he's an all-time great passer/playmaker, and can still hit 2.8 threes a game at a 38.5% clip.

I can't imagine there's a realistic deal where Philly would want to trade him to a division rival though. Gary Trent Jr and scraps isn't really enough to move the needle.

Here's the only trade I can come up with:

Harden, PJ & draft compensation for OG, Boucher, Thad, Otto.

I know Philly is a team with cap space next summer, so they may not really value OG's bird rights, or the fact that he's not going to sign an extension. I'm guessing the bird rights would enable them to pay him more. Philly gets a nice core guy to go with Embiid and Maxey. They get off PJ's contract (I'm assuming they'd want to) and get Boucher, who I think Nurse kinda liked.

We get a guy who balances out the roster for us, adding shooting and playmaking to a roster in dire need. Harden probably is motivated to stick it to Morey, and could have a good season. I'd make this with the assumption that he gives us 15ppg/10assists, as a point guard who gets everyone involved and beefs up bench units.

Obviously the sticking point here is the picks. Philly is at a point of weakness, and OG could help them be a contender again this year. I'd want two first round picks. This is where Morey hangs up the phone, but at least it is a move that would possibly keep Joel happy.

We clearly don't want to trade OG for Harden. There's probably no interest in keeping Harden more than a season, and we'd be trading our best defender for one of the worst defenders in the league. It would be a fun experiment though, and could patch together an interesting season. The picks would be the main benefit though. If the expectation is that we'd lose OG in free agency anyways, this would be a neat alternative.

Obviously this is under the assumption that Harden isn't going to be a bad locker room guy here, and further ruin our chemistry from where it was last year. I'm under the assumption he'd be on his best behaviour, which might be totally wrong.

[tester551]

My confusion. Any team that trades for him can’t extend him so he becomes an unrestricted free agent that can only be resigned with capspace or exceptions. We’d have his bird rights but we’d be in a capspace crunch to resign OG, Harden and Siakim. That’s what severely limits his attractiveness to any team trading for him. You can’t go over the cap to resign him.

Read on Twitter

Incorrect.
Bird rights allow you to go over the cap to sign him.
Harden would still have his bird rights.

This Smith tweet is just relating to an extension right now. He's just saying that Harden would be an UFA July 1 '24... But he absolutely can sign a new contract (over the cap) with whatever team trades for him.

[YogurtProducer]

Going after Harden makes more sense than Dame, and I was pro trade for Dame.

If we are sticking with the core then **** - go get the guy who fits next to the core. GTJ/Boucher/Flynn fits in the trade checker.

In theory this works, with some salary additions needed.

To Toronto: Harden/Herro/Kris Murray
To Philly: GTJ/Boucher/Flynn/Precious
To Miami: Dame
To Portlan: Barnes/Robinson/Thad/OPJ

Harden/Schroder
Herro/Dick
OG/Murray
Siakam/McDaniels
Poeltl/Koloko

Only part I hate is Herro.

[billy_hoyle]

Going after Harden makes more sense than Dame, and I was pro trade for Dame.

If we are sticking with the core then **** - go get the guy who fits next to the core. GTJ/Boucher/Flynn fits in the trade checker.

In theory this works, with some salary additions needed.

To Toronto: Harden/Herro/Kris Murray
To Philly: GTJ/Boucher/Flynn/Precious
To Miami: Dame
To Portlan: Barnes/Robinson/Thad/OPJ

Harden/Schroder
Herro/Dick
OG/Murray
Siakam/McDaniels
Poeltl/Koloko

Only part I hate is Herro.

Why is Herro even in the trade?

If you wanted Harden, nothing going to Philly is coming from Portland/Miami. Cut them out

In this trade moves Barnes for effectively Herro, why not just trade for Dame too?

[YogurtProducer]

Going after Harden makes more sense than Dame, and I was pro trade for Dame.

If we are sticking with the core then **** - go get the guy who fits next to the core. GTJ/Boucher/Flynn fits in the trade checker.

In theory this works, with some salary additions needed.

To Toronto: Harden/Herro/Kris Murray
To Philly: GTJ/Boucher/Flynn/Precious
To Miami: Dame
To Portlan: Barnes/Robinson/Thad/OPJ

Harden/Schroder
Herro/Dick
OG/Murray
Siakam/McDaniels
Poeltl/Koloko

Only part I hate is Herro.

Why is Herro even in the trade?

If you wanted Harden, nothing going to Philly is coming from Portland/Miami. Cut them out

In this trade moves Barnes for effectively Herro, why not just trade for Dame too?

I suppose he would not have to be. Including Portland allows us to give up Precious as well while re-rolling Kris Murrays rookie contract for some flexibility.

My line of thinking is if you get Harden you are in full win-now mode. Barnes does not fit a roster that includes heavy usage guys like Harden/Siakam, and you need guys who can shoot the rock around a lineup that includes non-shooters in Siakam/Jakob and a uber-heavy usage guy in Harden.

Replace Herro with any player you could reasonable obtain for Barnes + salary filler (Thad/OPJ)

[HumbleRen]

Going after Harden makes more sense than Dame, and I was pro trade for Dame.

If we are sticking with the core then **** - go get the guy who fits next to the core. GTJ/Boucher/Flynn fits in the trade checker.

In theory this works, with some salary additions needed.

To Toronto: Harden/Herro/Kris Murray
To Philly: GTJ/Boucher/Flynn/Precious
To Miami: Dame
To Portlan: Barnes/Robinson/Thad/OPJ

Harden/Schroder
Herro/Dick
OG/Murray
Siakam/McDaniels
Poeltl/Koloko

Only part I hate is Herro.

Why is Herro even in the trade?

If you wanted Harden, nothing going to Philly is coming from Portland/Miami. Cut them out

In this trade moves Barnes for effectively Herro, why not just trade for Dame too?

I suppose he would not have to be. Including Portland allows us to give up Precious as well while re-rolling Kris Murrays rookie contract for some flexibility.

My line of thinking is if you get Harden you are in full win-now mode. Barnes does not fit a roster that includes heavy usage guys like Harden/Siakam, and you need guys who can shoot the rock around a lineup that includes non-shooters in Siakam/Jakob and a uber-heavy usage guy in Harden.

Replace Herro with any player you could reasonable obtain for Barnes + salary filler (Thad/OPJ)

This is idiotic lol.

[JB7]

this is how i see it

viewtopic.php?p=107965689#p107965689

I actually think the whole Harden situation is just about his Bird rights (ability to get maxed by the team that holds his rights). I think when he demanded the trade from the Nets, it was about moving his Bird rights to a team he thought would extend him.

The reason he opted out into the lesser deal last year with the Sixers, was not only to help free up room for the Sixers to sign other players, but I wonder if he got the impression from Morey (after the trade) that they only traded for him to help in the short-term, and then let his contract expire to sign other players (which would screw Harden in terms of his Bird Rights). Harden might have done the two year extension last year just to guarantee money for this year, as well as the option to bolt if a team (Houston) was willing to max him at the three years, to restore his Bird Rights. It is possible Morey might have just let Harden walk this summer, if they didn't do the extension (Harden opted into the original $47M last year), so that the cap space was available next summer.

Maybe when the trade was being discussed from Nets to Sixers, Morey at that time might have given the impression to Harden that he would be extended. Morey seems shady. And Harden feels like he can force his will on teams. So who knows who really caused this situation. Morey promising extensions he lied about, or Harden just thinking he could force Morey into extending him.

Now, if Harden is successful in forcing a trade, that team will hold his Bird Rights and can exceed the salary cap and luxury tax to sign him.

[WuTang_CMB]

this is how i see it

viewtopic.php?p=107965689#p107965689

I actually think the whole Harden situation is just about his Bird rights (ability to get maxed by the team that holds his rights). I think when he demanded the trade from the Nets, it was about moving his Bird rights to a team he thought would extend him.

The reason he opted out into the lesser deal last year with the Sixers, was not only to help free up room for the Sixers to sign other players, but I wonder if he got the impression from Morey (after the trade) that they only traded for him to help in the short-term, and then let his contract expire to sign other players (which would screw Harden in terms of his Bird Rights). Harden might have done the two year extension last year just to guarantee money for this year, as well as the option to bolt if a team (Houston) was willing to max him at the three years, to restore his Bird Rights. It is possible Morey might have just let Harden walk this summer, if they didn't do the extension (Harden opted into the original $47M last year), so that the cap space was available next summer.

Maybe when the trade was being discussed from Nets to Sixers, Morey at that time might have given the impression to Harden that he would be extended. Morey seems shady. And Harden feels like he can force his will on teams. So who knows who really caused this situation. Morey promising extensions he lied about, or Harden just thinking he could force Morey into extending him.

Now, if Harden is successful in forcing a trade, that team will hold his Bird Rights and can exceed the salary cap and luxury tax to sign him.

I think they are both dummies. Harden for believing Morey would make him whole this off-season after taking less money and Morey for playing that shady game