2) Trade for big money players, taking back 150% of what you send out for them, going up to $6 million over the cap
3) Use the new mini-MLE ($2.5 mil this year) which teams under the cap can use after they hit the cap to go to further over the cap.
Basically, we can sign the players we want and then trade $12 mil in salary for $18 mil in return (ala Iggy, Gay, etc) and pay someone the mini-MLE after that.
In my opinion, this will become the new norm. Not only is it a better way to spend your limited resources, the team that trades their big money player (Memphis trading Gay, for instance) also gets a very valuable TPE that allows them to make a mid-season trade while only paying half of that players salary (in other words, you pocket some other team's salary dump for the trade deadline when you want to make a playoff push).
Here's an example:
Wolves cut all their free agent cap holds and Amnesty Darko.
Wolves sign Andrei Kirilenko, Alexey Shved, and Nemanja Bjelica after drafting Quincy Miller and Robert Sacre in the 2nd round (OKC pick).
Wolves trade JJ Barea ($4.5 mil) and Derrick Williams ($4.9 mil) for Okafor ($13.5 mil) and the draft rights to the #4 pick Beal (not signed yet, so no salary is included in the trade).
New Orleans now has an additional $7.3 mil or so in cap space, JJ Barea and Williams for Okafor and Beal (drafted #4). That's a hell of a deal for both teams, and allows the Wolves to go way over the cap AND they still have the mini-MLE to add a Tolliver type role player for $2.5 mil. New Orleans can resign Kaman and has a much better balanced lineup with a quality veteran PG to act as mentor off the bench (assuming they sign someone like Billups or Dragic to start).
Minnesota's final lineup
Pekovic/Okafor/Sacre
Love/Bjelica/Tolliver ($2.5 mil mini-MLE)
Kirlenko/Wes Johnson/Q. Miller
Beal/Shved/M. Lee/Ellington
Rubio/Ridnour (Shved and Lee can play PG minutes as well if there's injuries)
Just thought I'd point out the new rules. You can make a better Iggy or Gay trade AFTER signing free agents and end up having plenty of salary over the cap.
Have fun making new scenarios where you sign free agents then make trades for overpaid players
