The New CBA

[eyeteeth]

Interesting. Looks like the Wolves probably won't use the amnesty then.

What about injuries? I have thought for a long time that there should be a salary cap exception made for severe injuries. I am thinking more along the lines of Terrell Brandon than Brandon Roy. (With Roy it could be argued that the Blazers either didn't do their due diligence or failed to follow through with insurance; with Terrell Brandon his knee went POP and his contract screwed the Wolves for 2 -3? more years.)

Check 1st post of the thread.

Disabled Player Exception Set at the lesser of
1) 50% of injured player's salary
2) Non Taxpayer MLE

You still have to pay the injured player. But that's what insurance is for.
You won't get cap room for the injured player though.
If Brad Miller misses enough games insurance will start paying his contract at some point this year.

Youngguns, I saw that, and truth be told I'm not sure I understand. If there is an exception for injured players, what would it count against if not the cap?

So, for example, Player A gets hurt; his knee explodes, covering a 10 ft radius with gore. He will obviously never play again. He makes $12 mil/yr. The lesser of 50% of injured player's salary or the Non Taxpayer MLE is the MLE, $5 mil or something. I get that. But what about that $5 mil? Is that the number the team is still on the hook for? The number that hits their cap? Mama always said I could be a lawyer if I wanted, but the shaman said I was going other places. Please help.

[shrink]

Youngguns, I saw that, and truth be told I'm not sure I understand. If there is an exception for injured players, what would it count against if not the cap?

A DPE is an exception like any other, which means that even if you're over the cap, you can use it to sign a replacement player

Maybe this is a good time to discuss a bit of the arcania of exceptions and cap holds.

Exceptions are not the same as cap space, and they are used by teams that are over the salary cap. If a team is under the cap, then they can use cap space to do deals. Exceptions carry identical cap holds, so a team under the lux may waive an exception so they can add that money into their pool of flexible cap space.

For example, Let's say that your team has a payroll of $51 mil, and thus $7 mil of cap space ($58-$51). When the NBA "hands" everyone their MLE (let's say it's $5 mil), it has a $5 mil cap hold, and their cap space drops from $7 to $2. Teams under the cap generally waive the MLE and it's cap hold, and go back to work with the full $7 mil.

Now keep in mind that cap holds are not real money, but place-holders to help the NBA enforce salary-driven rules. For example, when you have the rights to re-sign your own free agents, they carry cap holds. that prevents a team from saying "Hey - we have zero salary .. let's sign three superstars first to get up to the salary cap, then resign our players to have a $110 mil payroll. Since it's not real money, if a team doesn't need to use cap space that year, you may see strange things like Rik Smit's $19 mil cap hold still on IND (they will renounce in a few days).

I've found it easier to conceptualize holds when I think of them as place-holders, and to remember that exceptions are exceptions to the rule that prevents a team from adding any contract once they are over the salary cap.

[younggunsmn]

Interesting. Looks like the Wolves probably won't use the amnesty then.

What about injuries? I have thought for a long time that there should be a salary cap exception made for severe injuries. I am thinking more along the lines of Terrell Brandon than Brandon Roy. (With Roy it could be argued that the Blazers either didn't do their due diligence or failed to follow through with insurance; with Terrell Brandon his knee went POP and his contract screwed the Wolves for 2 -3? more years.)

Check 1st post of the thread.

Disabled Player Exception Set at the lesser of
1) 50% of injured player's salary
2) Non Taxpayer MLE

You still have to pay the injured player. But that's what insurance is for.
You won't get cap room for the injured player though.
If Brad Miller misses enough games insurance will start paying his contract at some point this year.

Youngguns, I saw that, and truth be told I'm not sure I understand. If there is an exception for injured players, what would it count against if not the cap?

So, for example, Player A gets hurt; his knee explodes, covering a 10 ft radius with gore. He will obviously never play again. He makes $12 mil/yr. The lesser of 50% of injured player's salary or the Non Taxpayer MLE is the MLE, $5 mil or something. I get that. But what about that $5 mil? Is that the number the team is still on the hook for? The number that hits their cap? Mama always said I could be a lawyer if I wanted, but the shaman said I was going other places. Please help.

Short answer, Disabled Player exception is like getting a 2nd MLE. It doesn't add to your cap space. It is fairly useless to teams under the cap. And that 12 million$ for player A doesn't come off your cap.
You also have only 45 days to use it from the time it is granted by the league.

In your example, player A with the 12 million dollar salary goes down with a career ending injury.
That 12 million dollar salary will still count against the salary cap. However, the team is also granted a 5 million $ "disabled player exception" to use in acquiring a player to replace him. They can use this like a 2nd MLE to sign someone. They can also use it to acquire a player in trade.

Houston and Portland got Disabled PlayerExceptions for Yao and Greg Oden last year, but did not use them because they were both in luxury tax territory.
http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/ ... n-for-yao/.

It's explained in larry coon's salary cap faq for the last CBA. Changed slightly to "MLE" from "average player salary" in new CBA.
http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q19

Also question 55 in his FAQ explains the options for an injured player to retire.
http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q55

In your scenario, barring death/amnesty/trade, the only way a team will be rid of his contract is:
1. He voluntarily retires. Immediately wipes total amount remaining, effectively voids his contract.
2. League doctor confirms player is medically unfit to play (forced retirement). There is a waiting period one year from the occurence of the injury/illness (last game played + 1 year). After the 1 year waiting period, the player still receives his salary, but his entire salary is removed for salary cap and luxury tax purposes. His contract continues to be removed until the player has played in 10 games.

Remember the Darius Miles scenario from a couple years ago? Portland was receiving cap relief for his "forced retirement" Then he attempted a comeback with the Grizzlies. When he played his 10th game that year, his entire contract immediately went back on Portland's books. It cost them 9 million in cap room the following summer when they thought they would be major free agent players. Instead they just signed Andre Miller. They infamously sent a memo out warning teams not to sign Miles, and Memphis stuck it to them anyway (the cheeky bastards), and we cheered about it here.

Also, you cannot trade the rights to a player who is off of your cap due to "forced retirement".
This could be construed as the "terrell brandon rule".

[younggunsmn]

For those interested in some type of cap savings for brad miller, there really isn't a whole lot to cheer about. As long as he attempts to play this season, we are unlikely to receive a disabled player exception.(would be his salary X 66/82, divided by 2), (or $1,912,390).

Also, even if he was immediately forced to retire due to medical reasons, his salary would not drop off until next summer (and that # is only 848k anyway of guaranteed salary) since he played in houston's final game last year.

Also on the insurance front, insurance doesn't kick in until after he misses his 41st game. Since there are only 66 games remaining, Taylor would only be eligible for 25 games worth of relief where insurance pays 80% of his contract. That number is only $1,159,024. On the $4,752,000 owed him this year.

And that is worse case scenario where he misses the entire year.

[eyeteeth]

youngguns, shrink, thank you. Your nerdery is awesome and appreciated.