Forgoing draft pick protection

[Village Idiot]

This year Portland's pick is top 12 protected due to a debt to Charlotte from the Gerald Wallace trade.

Let's face it, this draft is really weak, a pick in the late teens next draft will probably end up better than the #12 in this draft. If Portland's front-office were to decide that they'd rather have $1.5 million in additional cap-space than use their pick this year, could they choose to convey the pick to Charlotte? Would Charlotte have to accept it or could they demand to wait?

[Dunkenstein]

Portland's current arrangement with Charlotte is a contract between the two teams. Therefore Charlotte would have to agree to agree to accept any changes to the current agreement.

[d-train]

Are the conditions on trading draft picks "form agreements" or are teams free to negotiate any condition they want? For example protected draft picks, can 2 teams agree the protection is optional if the protection is triggered rather than automatic? And, if the agreements are “form” is positional draft protection optional if triggered or automatic?

Personally, I don’t believe the Blazers would want to convey the pick early. I’m just asking because it is a good question. Your answer says all parties have to agree to change the agreement but I'm not sure you are answering the question of whether the agreement would have to change if the Blazers wanted to convey the pick early.

[DBoys]

I thought Dunk was crystal clear. It would take approval of BOTH teams to alter the terms. If Portland proposed the idea of paying off the owed pick this season, even though it wasn't the deal agreed to in the trade, Charlotte can say yes (and the pick would go to Charlotte) or no (and the pick would continue to be owed under the terms of the trade when it was made).

[d-train]

The deal can't be changed without both sides approval. There is no question about that. The question asked, as I understood it, requests clarification of what the agreement was.

Again, I'm sure Blazers don't want to convey their pick to Charlotte unless they have to. The question is can they if they don't want the pick. Clearly, Blazers made a deal and owe Charlotte a pick. But, the Blazers obtained protection from conveying a pick of higher quality. So, does the protection in the agreement allow Blazers an option or is the protection triggered involuntarily? The only way you could know the answer is if you have the agreement and I don't.

[DBoys]

The deal can't be changed without both sides approval. There is no question about that.

I believe that ^ is the answer to the question originally being asked.

As for your question, my understanding* is that a pick to be conveyed isn't allowed to contain options (that is, a decision to be made later). They can only contain conditions: the pick conveys if A happens, and doesn't convey if B happens.

*My understanding derives from what occurred two NBA years ago, when I read the following description by a long-time NBA beat writer of a pick traded: "The pick will be protected through No. 20, meaning that if the Mavericks are selecting in the top 20 picks of the draft, they keep the pick. The Mavericks also have six years to supply the draft pick to the Lakers. So if they see a particularly weak draft or they win the title again and have the very last pick of the first round, that would likely be the year they would send the choice to the Lakers with typical lottery protection built in." The idea of having the option to convey the pick in a year they would subsequently select was an unusual concept, and advantageous. And it's the type of option you are wondering if the Blazers might have here.

But when I did some checking with the team and elsewhere over such an unusual pick condition, I came to the understanding that the rules didn't allow a team to do as described where they had the "option to choose to convey" of their own volition each year. As it turned out, the pick in that article simply had garden variety top-20 protection, combined with a very odd description of it.

[d-train]

my understanding* is that a pick to be conveyed isn't allowed to contain options (that is, a decision to be made later). They can only contain conditions: the pick conveys if A happens, and doesn't convey if B happens.

*My understanding derives from what occurred two NBA years ago, when I read the following description by a long-time NBA beat writer of a pick traded: "The pick will be protected through No. 20, meaning that if the Mavericks are selecting in the top 20 picks of the draft, they keep the pick. The Mavericks also have six years to supply the draft pick to the Lakers. So if they see a particularly weak draft or they win the title again and have the very last pick of the first round, that would likely be the year they would send the choice to the Lakers with typical lottery protection built in." The idea of having the option to convey the pick in a year they would subsequently select was an unusual concept, and advantageous. And it's the type of option you are wondering if the Blazers might have here.

But when I did some checking with the team and elsewhere over such an unusual pick condition, I came to the understanding that the rules didn't allow a team to do as described where they had the "option to choose to convey" of their own volition each year. As it turned out, the pick in that article simply had garden variety top-20 protection, combined with a very odd description of it.

This makes sense because I can't remember a recent draft pick trade that includes a future decision. And, I know trades involving draft picks and future decisions used to occur frequently. Teams used to trade future draft picks and instead of positional protection, there was an option between several future picks. A specific example of a draft pick trade that included a future option that went bad happened in 1982/85 and involved the Blazers. The Blazers in 1982 traded Kelvin Ransey to Dallas for Wayne Cooper and a 1985 1st round pick. The Mavs had several 1st round picks in 1985 and the understanding was the Blazers would get the worst one but in 1982, there was no way to know which Mavs pick would be the worst. The problem was at the end of the 84/85 season, when it was known which pick was the worst; the pick still belonged to the Mavs for a couple months until the draft happened. And, the Mavs decided they would make their worst pick (the 20th pick) more worse by trading it to Boston for the 24th pick and a future 2nd round pick that the Mavs kept. So, future decisions could potentially create problems.