Celtics trade Cassell & $$ for 2nd Round from Kings

[Brett43]

There's a lot of negativity I hear about Marbury.
But I ask myself this: If I had a CONTRACT to get paid millions of dollars this year, and my employer said he wanted to pay me less or else I wouldn't be ALLOWED to go to work, what would I do? Let's see:
A. Go to work AND give up MILLIONS of dollars which are owed to me, or
B. Wait the cheapskate bosses out while my body gets completely healed.
Hmmmm.
Marbury's actions may not be great for his future career, but I think the Knicks are being the idiots here. Why pay a man and then refuse to let him do his job?

[heyjohnny]

Marbury would be a fool to give up millions of dollars just to placate the Knicks brass.
If I was him, I would make SURE I have a deal in place with the C's that's got a option year on it. Otherwise why bother.
$ is $, especially nowadays...

[kevin_405]

Hi jammer

A great explanation for a seemingly simple but really complex trade that i guess nobody understood..

But there is one more complexity here.. Why would a team under lux tax help a team over the tax mark.. because the lux tax claws back to the better managed teams right..
Wouldn't that share be equal or more than $101,250

By trading Sam Cassell,

the Celtics remove his entire $797,500 team portion from their books,
for lux tax calculations,
and place it on Sacramento's books (Sac is under the tax, it doesn't matter).

Cassell actually makes about $1,262,275 this year, with the league paying the difference.

Sacramento will only owe Cassell 1/2 of $797,500,
since there are 8 paychecks remaining of the 16 paychecks
that an NBA player gets from November THRU June (1rst and 15th every month).

So, the Celtics gain a roster spot,
and save $797,500 luxury tax + 0.5 x $797,500 salary = $1,196,250 savings to Celtics.

My guess is Celtics never get the pick,
and the Celtics probably paid Sacramento something like $500,000
(which is a NET profit to Sacramento of $101,250
since they will probably just waive Sammy).

Now, if Sacramento is actually considering Sam for a
future head coaching position,
then maybe they keep him around for the rest of the season.

If the Celtics did say, pay Sacramento $500,000 cash to cover remaining salary + profit,
that would reduce the Celtics actual savings
to $1,196,250 minus $500,000 = $696,250 actual savings.

Again, it wasn't done to save Wyc the $696,250
it was done to create a roster spot,
for Steph I suspect,

since New Orleans is seriously considering sending Tyson Chandler to OKC
for the expiring contracts of Joe Smith and Chris Wilcox.

[Jammer]

Hi jammer

A great explanation for a seemingly simple but really complex trade that i guess nobody understood..

But there is one more complexity here.. Why would a team under lux tax help a team over the tax mark.. because the lux tax claws back to the better managed teams right..
Wouldn't that share be equal or more than $101,250

...

Hi kevin_405,
Jammer here:

Sacramento's share of the money the Celtics save on Sam Cassell would have been
1/22 of $797,500 = $36,250 lost due to assisting Celtics.

So, if the Celtics paid Sacramento around $536,250
it covers Sam Cassell's remaining salary, the lost $36,250 and about $101,250 profit.

The 8 lux tax paying teams owe the 22 teams under the cap
$104,048,585/22 =$4,729,481 for remaining under the cap.

So, again, Sacramento should be getting a check from the league in excess of
$4.5 Million this Spring; all they lose from doing this deal is $36,250
which the Celtics undoubtedly included,
in addition to Sam Cassell's remaining salary,
and a profit that I'm guessing at around $100,000
in their payment to Sacramento,
which was probably around $536,250
which is pretty close to the approximately $500k
number that was reported on yahoo sports or wherever already.

-- Jammer

[MyInsatiableOne]

I'm coming to the party late but I'm glad we did this simply for the fact that we don't have to worry about seeing Sam playing during crucial playoff moments...