Clippers, Davis and Brand

[dbodner]

Looking at the Clippers salaries, assuming they renounce the rights to Maggette, I still see this for this year:
Kaman: 9.5 million
Mobley: 9.275
Thomas: 6.049
Thornton: 1.776
Knight: 1.728
Brand: 16.11
Gordon: 2.186
Fazekas: 0.886
Marcus Williams: 0.886
Powell: 0.864

That totals roughly 49.29 million, giving them only around 9 million in cap space.

A few questions:
- Is this roughly correct? Have they renounced the rights to people I have listed?
- Assuming this is true, would I be correct in thinking they won't have enough space to offer Davis the rumored contract without renouncing Brand?
- If they do renounce Brand, that would leave them with roughly $13 million in cap space after Davis' signing. Wouldn't this mean they would lose Bird rights on Brand, and could only use that $13 million to sign Brand, only able to give him 5 years, with only 8% raises?


If this is all true, wouldn't it be imperative that the Clippers work out a sign and trade with golden state so they can retain bird rights to offer Brand more? If not, Golden State would be able to significantly more money to Brand. Am I missing something?

[killbuckner]

You are missing that the Clippers would resign Brand to a smaller deal to create more caproom. Some situations it makes sense to use your caproom and then go give raises to your own guys. In this case Brand actually counts as a max contract until he signs a new contract. But since he is willing to take a paycut him signing a new deal will create more caproom for the Clippers to sign Baron.

But yes- Basically the plan is for Baron and Brand to split the Clippers available Caproom. If the Warriors renounce Baron then they could sign Brand to a larger contract (though for only 5 seasons where the Clippers can go 6).

[dbodner]

It just seems like Brand is going to have to take a very large pay cut to make this work, and leaves the door open for GS to offer more money. It would be interesting to work out exactly what the Clippers could offer (with 10% raises and 6 years) vs what the Warriors can offer (at 8% and 5 years). Wouldn't the Warriors be able to offer upwards of $16 mil?

[dbodner]

Actually, looking at it, 5 years/65 million would be just under $11 million or so to start, so Brand would only have to take about a 2 million pay cut to make this work.

Thanks.

[lakerfan10770]

Clippers can offer about:

5yrs $72.6M
6yrs $90.9M

Warriors could offer:
5yrs $93,444,960

(assuming the max for a player with 9 years experience doesn't go above $16,111,200)

[Three34]

Powell is unguaranteed, and can be easily waived if they need to open up another $400. Same applies to Williams and Fazekas.

[Three34]

What does seem odd is that they've today signed Eric Gordon, presumably to 120% of the scale. All that does is take away more cap room. And they need all that they can get.

[lakerfan10770]

What does seem odd is that they've today signed Eric Gordon, presumably to 120% of the scale. All that does is take away more cap room. And they need all that they can get.

I found that strange as well, assuming Gordon got the typical rookie contract, that cost them an extra $437K in cap space. They must already have an agreement with Elton in place.

[loflin3hree5ive]

I thought I was the only one to think that was weird about signing Gordon.

[FGump]

Brand will get signed using Bird rights, to be able to get bigger raises and perhaps more years. THEN they will start slicing and dicing to get cap room for Davis.

PS - This item ("The most the Clippers can offer Brand is a five-year deal worth about $70 million due to salary-cap restrictions ") running in the wiretap was totally wrong. If Davis is getting $65M, that could be starting at about $11M. That would leave LAC with $14M or so, and $14M with max raises and years on a Bird deal comes to $106M !!!!! To beat the Warriors supposed offer of $90M, the Clipps could use only $12M (total deal 90.9M) and still have another $2M to sign a decent free agent on the side before they go for the minimum salary leftovers to fill out the roster.

[killbuckner]

At this point do teams have a good idea what the cap is going to be or is that information kept top secret until it is announced?

[Chris Cohan]

Brand will get signed using Bird rights, to be able to get bigger raises and perhaps more years. THEN they will start slicing and dicing to get cap room for Davis.

PS - This item ("The most the Clippers can offer Brand is a five-year deal worth about $70 million due to salary-cap restrictions ") running in the wiretap was totally wrong. If Davis is getting $65M, that could be starting at about $11M. That would leave LAC with $14M or so, and $14M with max raises and years on a Bird deal comes to $106M !!!!! To beat the Warriors supposed offer of $90M, the Clipps could use only $12M (total deal 90.9M) and still have another $2M to sign a decent free agent on the side before they go for the minimum salary leftovers to fill out the roster.

Why the f k is Baron taking a near $7 million paycut if Brand is still getting his max? I thought they ironed this all out nice and pretty already? Where's the Brand announcement?

Anyway, thanks for getting the numbers together and up on the boards.

[LarryCoon]

FGump -- it was a writer for the SF Chronicle who originated the mistaken limit for what the Clips could offer Brand. She pretty quickly corrected herself (to saying it's what they "had" offered), but other outlets had already run with what she'd written.

killbuckner -- They've had a rough idea for a while, I believe. The exact figure leaks out a day or two in advance. I imagine we'll know it around the 7th.

Re Gordon -- Don't discount the possibility that the Clips didn't understand that Gordon counted $400K less on their cap before they signed him (assuming they actually gave him the 120%).

[bstein14]

FGump -- it was a writer for the SF Chronicle who originated the mistaken limit for what the Clips could offer Brand. She pretty quickly corrected herself (to saying it's what they "had" offered), but other outlets had already run with what she'd written.

killbuckner -- They've had a rough idea for a while, I believe. The exact figure leaks out a day or two in advance. I imagine we'll know it around the 7th.

Re Gordon -- Don't discount the possibility that the Clips didn't understand that Gordon counted $400K less on their cap before they signed him (assuming they actually gave him the 120%).

If hundreds or possibly even thousands of fans posting on these message boards know more about the rules of the CBA than the people making decisions for the Clippers than God help that franchise.

But I have always wondered if a player was a "reach" for a certain draft spot, if the team would try to get the agent to a deal at only 100% of the rookie salary scale... perhaps get the agent to agree to that before the draft.

[Three34]

If hundreds or possibly even thousands of fans posting on these message boards know more about the rules of the CBA than the people making decisions for the Clippers than God help that franchise.

You shoulda seen te Juan Carlos Navarro debacle of last summer. Yeehaw!

It's staggering how naive some NBA front office people are.

[Dunkenstein]

In May, the Players Assn told its agents that they projected that the Salary Cap would be $58.5M. For purposes of this discussion, I’m going to use that number.

Based on a cap of $58.5, the most the Warriors could offer Brand is a five-year deal starting at $16.46M (28.13% of $58.5). The total five-year deal would equal $95,468,000.

(Note: According to an email I got from Larry Coon, "The cap uses 51% of Projected-BRI in its calculation, and the max salaries use 48.04% of Projected-BRI in their calculations." Thus the league-mandated max salary has actually been 28.13% of the Salary Cap, not 30%)

Now that David Falk (Brand’s agent) has a competing offer from Golden State, I’m sure that he’s going to squeeze the Clippers for every dollar he can get in a revised offer for Brand. To achieve this, it means that the Clippers would be forced to withdraw all tenders and renounce all free agents. Since the contracts of the three players who have either QOs or conditional contracts are based on minimum salaries, it will be no problem to re-sign them to minimum contracts once Davis and Brand are signed.

Currently the Clippers have salary commitments to six players (Kaman, Knight, Mobley, Thomas, Thornton and Gordon) for a total of $30,473,840. Based on the report of Davis’s five-year, $65M contract, that would mean a first-year salary of $11,206,897. And if the Clippers waive all players other than the six mentioned above, they would have to add four minimum salary cap holds in addition to Brand and Davis in order to reach the 12-man team minimum. 4 x $442,144 = $1,768,576.

So if we add $30,473,840 + 11,206,897 + 1,768,576 we get $43,449,313. That would leave $15,350,787 for Brand. So the maximum that the Clippers could offer Brand would be a six-year contract worth $116,282,212. If the Clippers stuck to the notion that they only wanted to give Brand a five-year contract, that would amount to $92,872,212. That should be only about $2.6M less than the Warriors are able to offer.

I guess those are the numbers that Falk and the Clippers are discussing over the holiday weekend.

Edit: I just heard from someone close to the Clippers that they have a standing policy of not offering any player a contract longer than 5 years. I later read that it was Brand who only wanted a five-year contract.

Edit 2: adjusted max salary based on observation of Carl_Monday.

Edit 3: Added Larry Coon comment about difference in percentage used to determine maximum salaries.

[Three34]

....which, again, makes you wonder about the Gordon thing. That's nearly $3 million over 5 years that they've cost themselves.

[FGump]

Based on a cap of $58.5, the most the Warriors could offer Brand is a five-year deal starting at 17.55M (30% of $58.5). The total five-year deal would equal $101,790,000.

Have you done the roster math with the Warriors (as you did with LA) to be certain they'd have 17.55M of cap room? I see several analyzing this situation and ASSUMING that GS could offer a max deal, but none include any GS analysis and i wonder if a falsity is being assumed.

[Dunkenstein]

Golden State has $28,503,814 committed to Bellinelli, Harrington, Jackson, Perovic, Wright and Foyle (waived). Randolph’s cap hold is $1,424,400. Biedrins’s cap hold is $7,910,088 (three times last year’s salary). Ellis and Azubuike each have cap holds of $1,001,793 (equal to their QOs) since both were minimum players last year.

That accounts for nine roster slots. If all other players are either waived or renounced, two additional cap holds of $442,114 would be needed to bring the roster to twelve if Brand is given a contract.

That totals $40,726,116, which when subtracted from $58.5M leaves $17,773,884 in available cap room.

[Three34]

Azubuike has only played two years, so his QO is $972,581. It's a small saving, but it's something.