KVH and Mckie to name a few. Perhaps smitch could be next....or not
Aaron McKie is Not the Only NBA Coach Who Could Get Traded
February 4, 2008 4:03 PM
This time last week, Aaron McKie was an unpaid assistant coach for the Philadelphia 76ers (although he is still making money from his last contract as a player).
Then McKie was traded from the Los Angeles Lakers to the Memphis Grizzlies.
What?
Even better, now he's going to get a chance to be that rarest of things, a player/assistant coach. And for his troubles, he'll reportedly make an additional $750,000 or so.
Not bad!
But how did that happen?
McKie was included in the deal to make the salary cap numbers work. The Lakers could have renounced McKie, but instead -- as teams often do -- held onto his rights. Sometimes the rights to retired players can come in handy, and the cost of keeping them is only some salary cap inflexibility.
A free agent like McKie stays on the books as a "cap hold" until he re-signs with his own team, signs with another team, or is renounced. UPDATE: These players are not under contract and are typically not paid (exception: McKie, and all those bought out under the one-time amnesty rule). But they have not been renounced either -- it's like the team has a right of first refusal to their playing services if they want to come back. And that right costs the team a little bit of space under the salary cap. Teams that are trying to maximize cap space to sign free agents typically will renounce these guys. But in the meantime, they hang around on the books.
This allows a team, like the Lakers with Aaron McKie, to use that player in a trade, instead of a player on their current roster.
Some of the names might surprise you -- like current Raptors head coach Sam Mitchell, who could in theory be traded by Minnesota. (Based on a conversation I just had with the league office, for the league to approve such a trade, the NBA would have to be satisfied that Mitchell's contract with the Raptors was completley resolved -- bought out, terminated etc. -- and that whichever team was acquiring Mitchell was doing so to get him to play basketball for them. They frown on retired players moving around on paper just to satisfy the collective bargaining agreement.)
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/0-3 ... raded.html
oh yeah...just realized this is from feb4, so there is probably only a 0.00000001% chance of this not getting locked, but hey smitch trade...lol
Hey I got an idea...lets trade for sprewell, and then trade him to the grizz as another expiring...
