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NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks

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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#41 » by old skool » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:00 am

The worst move possible is to become a taxpayer when it is not 100% necessary, as the tax increases the longer you are over the tax threshold. Contenders have to be come taxpayers, but delaying entry into the luxury tax today leaves a large amount of money that can be spent on salaries down the road. The Bucks are thinking ahead, which is a good thing.

Conversely, entering the luxury tax this years, means that there will be fewer dollars available for salaries in coming seasons. It is always good to delay entering the luxury tax if doing so does not make a huge difference to team success.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#42 » by Plossum » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:09 am

This sounds eerily similar to Clay Bennett not ponying up to keep Harden as they thought the extra tax wasn’t worth it. OKC didn’t offer Harden just $4.8m more over four years because of lux tax payments.

Not saying Brogs is comparable as a player here but it’s concerning when lux tax payments are paramount over winning.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#43 » by emunney » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:09 am

old skool wrote:The worst move possible is to become a taxpayer when it is not 100% necessary, as the tax increases the longer you are over the tax threshold. Contenders have to be come taxpayers, but delaying entry into the luxury tax today leaves a large amount of money that can be spent on salaries down the road. The Bucks are thinking ahead, which is a good thing.

Conversely, entering the luxury tax this years, means that there will be fewer dollars available for salaries in coming seasons. It is always good to delay entering the luxury tax if doing so does not make a huge difference to team success.


The complicated part is that the Bucks are close enough that a small difference in team success could decide a championship.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#44 » by humanrefutation » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:34 am

Plossum wrote:This sounds eerily similar to Clay Bennett not ponying up to keep Harden as they thought the extra tax wasn’t worth it. OKC didn’t offer Harden just $4.8m more over four years because of lux tax payments.

Not saying Brogs is comparable as a player here but it’s concerning when lux tax payments are paramount over winning.


That came to mind, too, though obviously they are not on the same level as players. In Bennett's case, they've paid a huge tax bill since then chasing a title that they might have already had if he was willing to fork over that cash to begin with.

When you're over the cap, there are so few avenues to improve your roster that you better be damn sure that punting on a season of tax is worth it competitively in the long run. We have a couple decent picks and a few spare parts to trade. That's pretty much it. Brogdon's bird rights were one of those avenues to improve and LED punted to preserve their bottom line. It remains to be seen if that was the right call for them, but as fans, I'm not sure what's to gain by making that case for them.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#45 » by FlagsFlyForever » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:38 am

Will the owners still be cheap when they are paying the repeater tax while Giannis is making nearly $60 million per year?
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#46 » by emunney » Tue Jul 23, 2019 5:46 am

ElPeregrino wrote:Will the owners still be cheap when they are paying the repeater tax while Giannis is making nearly $60 million per year?


You mean like in 10 years?
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#47 » by FlagsFlyForever » Tue Jul 23, 2019 6:10 am

emunney wrote:
ElPeregrino wrote:Will the owners still be cheap when they are paying the repeater tax while Giannis is making nearly $60 million per year?


You mean like in 10 years?

Specifically, in 2025.

My point being the owners have set themselves up to pay one of the highest payrolls in the league once Giannis' supermax kicks in. All this talk about them being cheap will seem silly at that time.




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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#48 » by Chapter29 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 9:53 am

M-C-G wrote:In my opinion we stayed under the tax and have a better overall roster. Hard to argue with that, just wish Midds wasn’t a five year deal. Other than that, I am good. These owners are going to have to pay tax at some point, no beef with that being down the road.


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We do have a better team IMO as well. We will save going over the tax for when we sign Giannis to his big deal.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#49 » by MickeyDavis » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:08 pm

I can see good arguments being made on both sides but bringing Harden/OKC in as a comparison? Come on now. When you have to use the disclaimer "I'm not saying Harden and Brogdon are the same player" (obviously true) it's pointless to bring it up.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#50 » by rrayy » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:19 pm

humanrefutation wrote:
skones wrote:The repeater tax with Brogdon in the fold and the new Giannis deal kicking in would be ABSOLUTELY ENORMOUS and that's never even brought up.


And? It's not your money.
Well, then you no longer can complain about Middleton's contract. It's not your money, so no reason to complain about it.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#51 » by EastSideBucksFan » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:23 pm

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Will really need to wait to see how it all plays out. If letting Brogdon walk, becomes what costs us a championship, the move is unforgivable. If Bucks can win it all this year, then Brogdon walking is no big deal. That's pretty much what it boils down to for me. Getting Giannis to sign the supermax is all that matters, and a championship this season would lock it up in my opinion.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#52 » by EastSideBucksFan » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:26 pm

Some more context

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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#53 » by jimmybones » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:37 pm

MickeyDavis wrote:I can see good arguments being made on both sides but bringing Harden/OKC in as a comparison? Come on now. When you have to use the disclaimer "I'm not saying Harden and Brogdon are the same player" (obviously true) it's pointless to bring it up.


This. How is this even a comparison?
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#54 » by step3profit » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:38 pm

Everyone who has ever run a team on basketball-gm.com knows you trade your rooks when their deals are up unless they are superstars. Then you sign 35 year old guys to 1 million dollar deals after paying a superstar. Preferably players who have a small '3' or 'r' by their names.

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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#55 » by All The Bucks » Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:21 pm

As a businessman I respect the way they avoided paying an outlandish price for a replaceable piece and then proceeded to adequately replace that piece while picking up a few assets in the process. Giannis is not a replaceable piece. That's when you pay the outlandish price.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#56 » by skones » Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:31 pm

humanrefutation wrote:
skones wrote:
humanrefutation wrote:

We can reasonably argue whether Brogdon was worth the $86 mil. I would have matched that offer. But I see reasonable arguments against it. Paying the tax isn't one of them, though.



Paying the tax requires context. Paying an enormous repeater tax bill as a result of Brogdon is entirely different than paying the tax when we resign Giannis. The owners are well aware they'll be paying it when Giannis resigns. You're sitting there calling people "shills" like an **** without looking at ANY of that context.


You're acting like the reason we'd pay the tax is solely because of Brogdon, when the reality is it's because of the entire roster, including the contract two times the size we just paid Middleton (who played worse than he did in the ECF). If tax considerations were removed, it sounds like you wouldn't have signed Brogdon, anyway.

I'm using "shill" because that's exactly what PP called himself for making the same case you're making. Your choice to call me a **** is because you're sensitive to that description of your arguments (not you, personally), which I find bizarre because that's exactly what you're doing - you're making a bevy of unsupported assumptions about the financial viability of a franchise owned by billionaires, who just got an arena significantly subsidized by the public, in order to defend their decision to take a cheaper route to support a title-contender.


You can't have it both ways. They let Brogdon go because they didn't want to pay the tax! SHAME! CHEAP! Well, they'd ACTUALLY be paying the tax because of the rest of the roster too! They kept around everyone they could and stayed under the tax (around 280M dollars in deals, almost 300m if you include the Bledsoe extension, WOW CHEAP!). Brogdon was a casualty. EVERYONE knew there was a very good chance that someone would be a casualty here. None of this is a surprise.

We prioritized Middleton over Brogdon. Come to terms with it, it's about time you do. Brogdon is the guy who specifically would have put us well into the tax in this situation and then sets us up for 200m dollar tax bills in two seasons. You're using shill in a way that says, hey, i'm just defending the big rich guys and I can't think for myself. You're also accusing me of making a "a bevy of unsupported assumptions" about the financial viability while making A LOT of assumptions on your own accord, acting as if there's just Scrooge McDuck's treasure chest lying around in the back waiting to be spent (that's not how this works). A billion dollars is a lot of money. Bleeding 200M, 300m, 400m over the course of a couple of seasons because of the repeater tax is also A LOT of money, and it's money teams DON'T generally flip the bill for, certainly not for a guy like Brogdon. When you're talking about the salary figures we are as it pertains to the NBA, a billion dollars isn't all that much money. Hell, Giannis himself is up for a QUARTER OF A BILLION DOLLARS next season.

People round here hear "billionaires" and just completely ignore the money at play in this league.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#57 » by vegaspacker » Tue Jul 23, 2019 3:13 pm

Wes Matthews, Korver, a 1st, 2 seconds, and Rolo kinda makes up for Malcolm.

What's the situation with Ersan? Is he still a consideration going forward?

We added a ton of depth at bargain barrel prices. Plus we have more mobility to make the right potential move for a quasi star. The post all star game transactions is where the most ridiculous moves happen.

If Rolo, Korver or Matthews prove to be reliable options at the 3pt line nice. That's gravy. If Hill has an epiphany or one of the three young cats... DDV, Wilson, or Brown surprises us we got bait.

Also, I think Midds salary although bloviating could be a matching piece for a geeky good potential move. So many options are here, Giannis has the keys to the vehicle. And.... now we have a few picks to tender this thing out.

Horst... you can wait and see the opportunity that befalls you. The more I think about it, the more I want this level 74 mage do his magi stuff.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#58 » by old skool » Tue Jul 23, 2019 3:35 pm

At some point, the extreme impact of the repeater tax will prevent the Bucks from signing players.

The recent spending decisions could have been made to avoid paying that tax this year, or they could have been made to delay the eventual repeater tax impact. I think the Bucks are wise to avoid reaching the repeater tax as long as possible while Antetokounmpo is in his prime. Having free agent flexibility while Antetokounmpo is a top NBA player should be a number one priority.

For years Bucks fans have complained that the issue with management was not a willingness to spend, but rather the lack of spending wisely. Until we see how this plays out, I think we should give the Bucks credit for being smart and assume that they are spending wisely.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#59 » by paulpressey25 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:22 pm

vegaspacker wrote:Wes Matthews, Korver, a 1st, 2 seconds, and Rolo kinda makes up for Malcolm.



Need to add George Hill to your list above. The Albert Nahmad tweet about keeping Brogdon, specifically didn't include Hill and his $9mm, hence George would have been pitched over the side.

So I'd view it as Brogdon dealt for Hill, 2020 Indy first, two Indy second rounders. Add in them signing Korver, Wes Matthews and Rolo, and you can argue that they actually now have a better and deeper team than last year.
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Re: NBA Luxury Tax Tiers and the Bucks 

Post#60 » by Iheartfootball » Tue Jul 23, 2019 4:25 pm

Big Dog Yank wrote:
Iheartfootball wrote:
paulpressey25 wrote:
I quoted the line above, because it is key to at least my take on this. You had to cost/benefit this specific player and circumstance.

If we had say Pascal Siakam and let him walk under the same circumstances, then yes, owners deserve scorn.

Or back in the day, the Pacers had to part with Brad Miller in his prime because they didn’t want to pay/afford the tax.

With Brogdon there were so many variables that made you hesitate on 4/$88, and that’s before you even reached the lux tax analysis.


That's fair and I understand you are just using Brogdon to illustrate a point. I didn't mean it in a way that this thread was pointless. It's actually the opposite. I just get frustrated when we (myself included) say things like the owners are cheap because they didn't match. It's so much more nuanced than that and it's probably why I replied to Nowak's post. I sometimes think about ownership the same way he does and want to blame them. However, they may be cheap but there could also be 10-100 more variables that go into the decision. I'm as skeptical as most when it comes to this ownership group but I'm trying not to comment deeply about their decision making process until I have more information.

Okay, back to not derailing your thread. :D


I don't want to further derail this thread, but it baffles me how anyone can still have a take like this.

Skeptical of this ownership group? You mean the group who saved the team from the sorriest mom and pop operation in the league? The group who built a state-of-the-art arena that, besides being an outstanding place to watch a game, has become one of the best concert venues in the Midwest? The group who, for all intents and purposes, saved the team from being relocated?The group who has revitalized an enormous chunk of downtown that was a ghost town for a decade and a half? The group who has established a foundation to provide youth education, community betterment and youth health & wellness programs around the city and state?

Is that the group you're referencing?

Look, LED have not been perfect, but let's try to imagine a reality where they didn't buy the team. Do you really think Senator Kohl would've had the foresight or connections to bring in a guy like Peter Feigin to pound the payment and get the arena built? No way-and without that, we have no team in this town to root for, the city still has a vacant parking lot where the vibrant Deer District stands and the state budget has a gaping hole in it where the Bucks' tax dollars sit.



It's based more on their basketball decisions than the business operations. They used $100m donation from Kohl and taxpayer money to fund the arena. For me that doesn't make them saviors, it makes them businessmen. I'm typically skeptical of business people and their decisions because it's rooted in how to maximize their own investment. Altruism in business is typically an illusion cloaked in a facade of goodwill for a write off (e.g. youth education and health & wellness programs). Not saying those aren't fantastic programs, they may be. But let's be clear, these guys aren't Jesus.

From a basketball decision perspective I don't understand the rotating 3 headed decision making thing they are doing. It muddies the water and can lead to an inconsistent vision in my opinion. I didn't like Kidd and they waited too long to fire him. Time will tell if not paying Brogdon was the correct decision but I think Horst & Co. are sticking with what worked last year and replacing him as best they can.

So yeah, I'm skeptical. I'm not saying they should sell and I'm not calling them saviors. Just keeping tabs.

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