Aggregating draft picks in a trade

[Garf]

Here are some other facts about trade exceptions:
•When determining whether a trade is simultaneous or non-simultaneous, and the amount of any trade exception, only current contracts are considered. Any cash, draft rights and future draft picks are ignored.

Just making sure:

1. You can't trade players you traded for less than 2 months ago if you'd need to aggregate their salary in the new trade.
Possibility A: draft picks have no salary, thus you can aggregate them to such a player.
Possibility B: draft picks have a salary of zero, thus you cannot aggregate them to such a player.
Which one is correct? (I'd guess A based on the above.)

2. When breaking down a bigger trade into small ones (usually working differently from different teams' points of view) is it allowed to send/receive a draft pick for nothing? (Does it matter if simultaneous or not?)

Thanks!

[DBoys]

You can send picks without any of those restrictions. Since they have no salary value, they don't get used in the salary-matching process, which is where "aggregation" occurs.

[Dunkenstein]

When breaking down a bigger trade into small ones (usually working differently from different teams' points of view) is it allowed to send/receive a draft pick for nothing? (Does it matter if simultaneous or not?)

DBoys, correct me if I'm wrong (you've always been kind enough to do so in the past ), but whenever a team conveys an asset to another team, whether it be a player or a draft pick, doesn't the other team have to send something in return, even if it's only the rights to a 2002 draft pick who is currently retired and living on the Dalmatian coast?

[DBoys]

When breaking down a bigger trade into small ones (usually working differently from different teams' points of view) is it allowed to send/receive a draft pick for nothing? (Does it matter if simultaneous or not?)

DBoys, correct me if I'm wrong (you've always been kind enough to do so in the past ), but whenever a team conveys an asset to another team, whether it be a player or a draft pick, doesn't the other team have to send something in return, even if it's only the rights to a 2002 draft pick who is currently retired and living on the Dalmatian coast?

LOL I've tried to reform my feistiness, but so nice of you to remember the errors of my youth!

If I understand correctly, what you are asking is a different question than Garf's, even though they were worded similarly.

You are correct in saying that a trade must indeed be a trade not a giveaway, ie each team has to send "something" in order to be included and receive assets, even if one team only sends away a tiny next-to-nothing that is buried in essentially impossible contingencies.

However ...

If I understand correctly, Garf was looking at what we at one time mistakenly believed to be separate sub-trades (due to the aggregation, trade-matching, trade exceptions, etc) and asking about each separate one of those. Since a trade is only one trade and not ever truly made into some series of mini-swaps per se, there may be lots of items in the individual process of matching incoming to an exception, that has no corresponding outgoing. (I hope that was worded clearly enough to follow.) Indeed, there is an attempt made by the league office to create as many something-for-nothings in that part of the process as possible, wherein the swap is configured so that the biggest and most NS trade exceptions are awarded to benefit each team.

[Garf]

If I understand correctly, Garf was looking at what we at one time mistakenly believed to be separate sub-trades (due to the aggregation, trade-matching, trade exceptions, etc) and asking about each separate one of those.

Indeed. And as usual, your reply is gold. Cheers!