tobysunsfan wrote:Scoot McGroot wrote:So, are the Clippers helping the Lakers here, or are the Lakers helping the Clippers? Or how do both the Lakers and the Clippers benefit from this?
What I'm trying to point out is that clearly those two teams haven't circumvented the cap because there's no reason they would help each other. But otherwise, each player would sign a contract that defines the payment for their play. If those players decide separately to give money to the other, that's their own deal. Players are not the team executives. They do however, have to handle taxes, gift taxes, and all sorts of other legalities on their own.
I'm not saying that the Lakers or Clippers are in collusion in any way. What I am saying is that it's possible if this type of stuff is allowed, for teams or players to circumvent the cap.
Let's say for arguments sake Giannis and LeBron shared a bank account. LeBron signed for the max this season, and Giannis is a free agent next season. By your logic, LeBron could say, have my salary next season as a gift, and you come sign for the minimum on the Lakers. By your logic, players are not the team executives, so they can do their own deals, so therefore in this scenario, where obviously the most ridiculous scenario has happened, it should totally be allowed.
Teams circumvent the cap. Players don’t. Players are not in control of a teams cap and legal structure and don’t answer to the league in this regard.
As for the whole Giannis and LeBron thing, if they want to take $40m less combined per year to play together, that’s not against the rules. Remember though, it takes 3 years for a team to gain full Bird Rights on a player, so, say Giannis and Lebron did this on their own, Giannis would be signing for the MLE at best next year, and then about $17.5m max the next year, before signing for a max after 3 full seasons.
The league would have nothing to say about this. But Giannis’ agent and the players association would absolutely hate this and push the players not to consider it. Lebron would be responsible for ALL the taxes on earning the salary, and then paying the gift taxes on giving the money to Giannis. He’d also be paying all his agent fees on the contract out as well. It’s a double or triple whammy in terms of cost to Lebron. Say he pays Giannis $40m of his salary out of pocket. He’d still be paying agent fees on it (limited to a max of 4%), so there’s about $1.6m. Federal, state, and local taxes would come out to just under 50%, so hypothetically another $18+m. Gift taxes on gifts over $1m are another 40%, so roughly another $15m.
Your arrangement would cost Lebron personally around $75m out of pocket for one year of this arrangement.
