Voluntary retirement

[Klomp]

How loose are the CBA rules about "voluntarily retirement"? If KG retires, what are the odds he stays on the books for 2016-17?

Source of the original discussion: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1374696&p=47768617#p47768411

[Smitty731]

How loose are the CBA rules about "voluntarily retirement"? If KG retires, what are the odds he stays on the books for 2016-17?

Source of the original discussion: viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1374696&p=47768617#p47768411

(please quote me when you respond here so I get a notification)

Being that you used "voluntary retirement", I am assuming KG just walks away in this scenario. In that case, if they Wolves don't pay him anything, his salary could be wiped from the books. If they pay him anything, that amount would remain on the books and charged against the cap.

This is from the CBA FAQ

63. What are the rules for retired players? What if the player suffers a career-ending injury?

There's nothing binding about a player announcing his retirement. The player can still sign a new contract and continue playing (if he's not under contract), or return to his team (if he is still under contract) and resume his career.

The only exception to this is when a player is still under contract, wants to quit, and his team doesn't want to let him out of his contract. Under these circumstances the player can file for retirement with the league. The player is placed on the league's Voluntarily Retired list (see question number 79), forgoes his remaining salary, and cannot return to the league for one year. The latter requirement prevents players from using retirement as an underhanded way to change teams, and can be overridden with unanimous approval from all 30 teams. For example, guard Jason Williams signed with the LA Clippers in August 2008, then changed his mind the following month, announcing his retirement. He applied for reinstatement in early 2009, but his request was denied by a vote of 24-6. Williams later signed with the Orlando Magic once the one-year anniversary of his retirement announcement had passed.

Any money paid to a player is included in team salary, even if the player is no longer playing or has retired.

A recent situation where this happened was with Rasheed Wallace and the Celtics. He wanted to retire, but also wanted the opportunity to return if he changed his mind. Because of this, rather than going the "voluntary retirement" route, the Celtics and Wallace agreed to a buyout. Boston had no interest in a return and didn't want the money on their books, if he did choose to play again. So, they held a small amount on their cap while Wallace was "retired". Wallace ended up returning to the Knicks a couple of years later, but at that point all obligations to Boston were complete.

If a player walks away due to injury, the situation is far more complicated. It is outlined in the same question in the FAQ.

The short version is, as long as the Wolves don't want to hold him to playing (which I can't imagine they would at this point), they can get the space back if Garnett retired.

I may have missed something here and Dboys will correct me if I did. But as far as I know, as long as he leaves and stays away, there is no penalty to the Wolves.

[DBoys]

How loose are the CBA rules about "voluntarily retirement"? If KG retires, what are the odds he stays on the books for 2016-17?

These situations are impossible to predict, as to cap ramifications, without knowing exactly what the team and player choices will be when it happens.

Did the player truly decide to unilaterally quit the game, having simply lost his desire to go through the work? Or was he washed up (ie body is too broken down from aging and wear-and-tear to truly be worth having), with the team wanting to nudge him out the door and get a fresh body in his place, and a "retirement" announcement made to explain the waiver off the roster while saving face for him? Or is he just tired of the game, but a team icon, and the team wants to give him extra money as a going-away stipend? There are sometimes complex choices here. Given the size of the contract, I suspect that if KG wants to get paid, he'll have to remain a player, which means he'll have to play and travel and practice and all of that, as much as he can. But that's just a guess.

No matter what they decide about the money, he'll be waived off the roster, freeing up a roster spot.

The cap consequences follow the money, of course. And after he is waived, regardless of how it came to happen in the first place and regardless of how much he was paid after he retired, he is free to play again with that team or another, by signing a new deal.

PS - About the idea that KG has a front office job waiting if he retires, that may be true, but it won't be a substitute financially for what he'd make as a player. And teams who hire ex-players get their books audited to see if there's some sort of unusually high pay for that job, as a much-bigger-than-normal paycheck would indicate that there had been an off-the-cap deferred pay thing used. IOW players will keep playing, if they want the big player-sized paycheck, because front office jobs aren't that lucrative, relatively speaking.

[DoItALL9]

How loose are the CBA rules about "voluntarily retirement"? If KG retires, what are the odds he stays on the books for 2016-17?

These situations are impossible to predict, as to cap ramifications, without knowing exactly what the team and player choices will be when it happens.

Did the player truly decide to unilaterally quit the game, having simply lost his desire to go through the work? Or was he washed up (ie body is too broken down from aging and wear-and-tear to truly be worth having), with the team wanting to nudge him out the door and get a fresh body in his place, and a "retirement" announcement made to explain the waiver off the roster while saving face for him? Or is he just tired of the game, but a team icon, and the team wants to give him extra money as a going-away stipend? There are sometimes complex choices here. Given the size of the contract, I suspect that if KG wants to get paid, he'll have to remain a player, which means he'll have to play and travel and practice and all of that, as much as he can. But that's just a guess.

No matter what they decide about the money, he'll be waived off the roster, freeing up a roster spot.

The cap consequences follow the money, of course. And after he is waived, regardless of how it came to happen in the first place and regardless of how much he was paid after he retired, he is free to play again with that team or another, by signing a new deal.

PS - About the idea that KG has a front office job waiting if he retires, that may be true, but it won't be a substitute financially for what he'd make as a player. And teams who hire ex-players get their books audited to see if there's some sort of unusually high pay for that job, as a much-bigger-than-normal paycheck would indicate that there had been an off-the-cap deferred pay thing used. IOW players will keep playing, if they want the big player-sized paycheck, because front office jobs aren't that lucrative, relatively speaking.

My idea: Warriors trade Shaun Livingston this off season for his $~8M price tag. (The rumor is he wants to retire.) With the new team he agrees to a buyout ~$2M.

For the new team would he only count for the buyout price or $8M against the cap?

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[DBoys]

My idea: Warriors trade Shaun Livingston this off season for his $~8M price tag. (The rumor is he wants to retire.) With the new team he agrees to a buyout ~$2M.

For the new team would he only count for the buyout price or $8M against the cap?

It would not happen like that.

Livingston's contract for next season is $7.6M or so, but only $2M is guaranteed if he is waived by June 30. If no one wants him, he will get waived before June 30 by someone and get paid $2M.

If GS does not want him next season, they will first try to trade him before June 30, with no salary coming back in return, to keep the $2M off their books. So they would include at least $2M cash as part of the trade, to cover the waiver cost, and probably have to also add something extra for the fact that the other team will be stuck with the dead cap cost.

To take him, the other team will have to have $8.3M in cap room right now, or a trade exception at least that big. So finding a team who can do that might not be easy, as there are few who would qualify. (DAL can. Not sure if anyone else can. Don't have time to look it up right now. But won't be many others, if any.)

Assuming no team wants to pay him $7.6M salary next season, he will be waived by someone (whether GS or someone else) before June 30. There will be no buyout. He will simply be waived for the $2M owed. Whichever team he is on will pay him and take the cap hit. They can stretch it if they wish. Given their payroll issues, obviously GS would prefer to bribe some team to take him and have the cap hit on their books not GS's.

If GS cannot find a trade partner, and they don't want him back, they can waive him and stretch the cap hit over 3 seasons, resulting in about $667K of dead cap money for each of the next 3 years. They would pay tax on that, if they are a taxpayer. That's the worst case scenario for GS.