A Brief History Of Luxury Tax

The NBA's luxury tax first came into existence in 2001, the year in which the league's funky new escrow system debuted. The escrow system, in layman's terms, is a system that withholds a certain amount of player's salaries and puts it into a separate account until the end of the following season's moratorium. At that point, when the league's annual audit is done (that's what the moratorium is for; calculating the numbers and stuff), then if the league-wide player salaries exceed a certain percentage of the league's overall revenue, that account is divvied up amongst the owners and the players never see it. Similarly, if the league wide salaries do not exceed that percentage, the players get it back. Essentially, it's a failsafe measure to prevent players from getting paid too much. Luxury tax is an extension of the escrow system, designed to put more money back into the owner's pockets if they feel the players are getting too much of it.

If that sounds like something that might excite you sexually, a longer description with all the relevant numbers and stuff was written by the seminal Larry Coon, and can be found here:

http://members.cox.net/lmcoon/salarycap.htm#Q15

As you might presently yourself fully be aware of, the luxury tax is an owner-friendly system also designed to prevent rich teams from simply outspending the rest of the competition. It is calculated by using a projection of the following year's Basketball Related Income (roughly 61% of it; a more detailed description of the calculation can be found here), and the idea behind it is simple - you can have a payroll of as much as you like, but if you cross that tax threshold, it starts costing you more. It's designed to be a deterrent, and to emphasise parity amongst the league's payrolls, thus tying in nicely with David Stern's slightly communist idea of all teams having a chance to compete.

Does it work? Let's find out.


The escrow system and luxury tax have now been around for 8 years, from 2001/02 through to the present day. In that 8 year period, there has been a luxury tax in 6 seasons. During the previous collective bargaining agreement (from 1999 to 2005), the luxury tax was not applicable in every season; the tax was only initiated in seasons where league-wide salaries and benefits exceeded 61.1% (recurring) of the actual BRI that year, and not projected BRI. Since that didn't always happen - salary spending in 2001/02 was only 59.8% of all BRI, thus there was no tax that year, nor was there one in 2004/05 when it totalled only 60.4% of BRI - in the years when there was no tax, teams could spend as much on payroll as they wanted without fear of reprisal.

Of course, they didn't know that at the time. Since the actual BRI was not calculated until the moratorium following the season's end, teams didn't actually know where the tax threshold was going to be until it was too late. They could project it, of course, but they had to make their roster moves around that projection, and that was never going to be an exact science. As such, teams would sometimes be caught out by their own guesswork, and become taxpayers when they didn't want to be.

The 2005 extension of the CBA changed that system to a more sensible one, where the tax threshold was calculated before the season's start based on a projection of that year's BRI. The tax was also no longer implemented based on whether a percentage of BRI was exceeded; from 2005 onwards, it become enforced every year, regardless of what happened with the escrow system.

Those changes gave us the system that we have now, where the salary cap and luxury tax are projected for the following year based on projected BRI, minus benefits, adjusted slightly for the accuracy of the previous season's projections, and finally divided by the number of teams in the league. The salary cap is calculated at 51% of that projected amount, and the luxury tax threshold is set at 61% of it; for this season, that leads to figures of $57,700,000 and $69,920,000 respectively.

(Again, all of the above save for the Family Guy and Wu-Tang references can be found at Larry Coon's CBA FAQ. It's a great resource for those of us really into forgoing social lives in pursuit of a finite understanding of the NBA's finances. For those more into full frontal nerdity, try the actual CBA itself, and see how long you can tolerate its excessive verbiage for before you are tempted to experiment with carbon monoxide. My record is about seven minutes.)



As mentioned earlier, there has been a luxury tax enforced in six out of the last eight seasons. There follows the amounts paid league-wide each season, and the teams that did it.


2008/09 Season:

- Knicks = $23,736,207
- Mavericks = $23,611,661
- Cavaliers = $13,707,010
- Celtics = $8,294,664
- Lakers = $7,185,631
- Trail Blazers = $5,899,356
- Suns = $4,918,136

Total: $87,352,665



2007/08 Season:

- Knicks = $19,723,946
- Mavericks = $19,613,295
- Cavaliers = $14,008,561
- Nuggets = $13,572,079
- Heat = $8,318,879
- Celtics = $8,218,368
- Lakers = $5,131,757
- Suns = $3,867,313

Total: $92,454,198



2006/07 Season:

- Knicks = $45,142,002
- Mavericks = $7,204,968
- Nuggets = $2,022,418
- Timberwolves = $998,536
- Spurs = $196,082

Total: $55,564,006



2005/06 Season: [Note: team specific figures rounded off.]

- Knicks = $37,200,000
- Mavericks = $17,300,000
- Magic = $7,800,000
- Pacers = $4,700,000
- Grizzlies = $3,700,000
- Spurs = $900,000

Total: $71,642,951



2003/04 Season: [Note: figures rounded off, annoyingly.]

- Knicks = $39,800,000
- Blazers = $28,800,000
- Mavericks = $25,000,000
- Timberwolves = $17,600,000
- Kings = $9,700,000
- Lakers = $8,300,000
- Nets = $7,300,000
- Sixers = $5,500,000
- Raptors = $4,100,000
- Pacers = $3,200,000
- Celtics = $1,600,000
- Pistons = $800,000

Total: $151,700,00 (rounded off)




2002/03 Season:

No team-by-team breakdown available.

Total: $173.4 million, ish.



And now, this year. There follows a projection of all team's projected luxury tax payments for the upcoming season.


2009/10 Season:

- L.A. Lakers = $21,421,066
- Dallas Mavericks = $17,891,715
- Boston Celtics = $14,582,720
- New York Knicks = $13,510,463
- Cleveland Cavaliers = $12,740,694
- Utah Jazz = $12,628,526
- Orlando Magic = $11,068,795
- San Antonio Spurs = $10,160,736
- Washington Wizards = $8,731,745
- Phoenix Suns = $5,622,091
- Denver Nuggets = $5,383,687
- Miami Heat = $3,937,105
- Houston Rockets = $3,354,694
- New Orleans Hornets = $3,331,809

Total: $144,365,846


(Note: for the most part, calculating a team's tax figure is essentially just looking at their team salary figure, and comparing it to the tax threshold. But there are a few subtle differences, the details of which can be found here. The most relevant one is the one that says "For players who signed as free agents (i.e. not draft picks), and make less than the two-year minimum salary, the minimum salary for a two-year veteran is used in place of their actual salary," a stipulation that affect Marcus Landry, Coby Karl, and others on this list. Also, the suspensions for Rashard Lewis and Jamaal Magloire have to be accounted for; teams are billed for only 50% of the money players lose when suspended by the league. God bless that Mr Coon.)



The most obvious thing that will stand out there is the sheer number of teams paying it. It's an unprecedented amount of them, and the tough economic climate is the reason why. League revenues were supposed to go up, taking the cap and tax thresholds with them, and teams had budgeted accordingly in previous years. But then the credit crunch hit, revenues went down, and so did the cap. As a result, a lot of teams that weren't expecting to be taxpayers now are. And that's why that list is so long.

Of course, this list is still subject to change. For tax calculations, a team's salary figure from the last day of the regular season is used, and there will be a lot of changes before then. Some players will be traded, others signed, several more cut, and some players will have this year's salary number retroactively altered if they meet (or miss) their performance bonuses. Since all this is in the future and hasn't yet happened, an accurate figure is incredibly hard to predict, and therefore an accurate assessment cannot be made until the season's end.

But as things stand, that's where we are. It's still pretty impressive.

Were the above numbers to be a static exhibit, the amount of tax that would be paid is the staggering $144,365,846, and it won't go down a huge amount. There's many a month left until the trade deadline, and even though there aren't a huge number of cost-cutting options available for over-the-tax teams out there, the few that there are will almost certainly be utilised. Nevertheless, any inroads that can be made into that figure will be comparatively small. There just simply aren't the means to cut much salary right now.

The teams below the tax stand to gain a tidy rebate this year. Teams that do not pay the tax are eligible for a payment of 1/30th of all the money collected as tax, whereas the teams that pay it get none. The rest of the money collected is reserved by the league for "league purposes"; that could mean many things, but a lot of it goes to the league's revenue assistance plan.

In the 2008/09 season, $87,352,665 was paid in luxury tax (see the breakdown above). 23 teams did not pay it, and 7 teams did. Each non-taxpaying team was therefore eligible for a rebate of $2,911,756 - one thirtieth of the overall tax kitty - and the league kept the remaining undistributed $20,382,277 - seven thirtieths of the overall tax kitty, i.e. the shares of the taxpaying teams that won't get it - for themselves.

This year, as you can see from all the tax that's projected to be paid, that rebate's going to be a lot higher. If the $144,365,846 figure above is all paid as tax, that will mean each non-taxpaying team is eligible for a significant rebate of $4,812,195. And no matter how rich you are, $5 million is quite a lot of money. That rebate, plus the rebate teams get from the escrow system, can go some ways to offsetting a team's salary commitment.

For example, last year, the New Orleans Hornets had a payroll of $66,858,141; to offset that, they gained a $2,911,756 luxury tax rebate, as well as a $6,467,847 escrow rebate (the players got none of their escrow back due to league wide salaries being so far in excess of the designated BRI percentage for them, so it was returned to the owners). That combined $9,379,603 made for a tidy 14% refund on their player salary expenses, and lessened their overall salary commitment to $57,478,528.

In contrast, the Dallas Mavericks had a player payroll of $94,646,833 last year. That meant a luxury tax payment of $23,611,661 (when things such as Dirk Nowitzki's one game suspension and Devean George's retroactive bonus were included), boosting their overall salary commitment to $118,258,494. As a taxpayer, they didn't get a luxury tax rebate, and the escrow rebate brought their overall payroll commitment down to only $111,790,647, roughly double what the Hornets paid.

Such is the advantage of not being a taxpayer.



So, if you want to team to cross over into tax territory in order to make your desired transaction, ask yourself if it's worth both the extra tax payments and the loss of that rebate to the owners. Because it probably isn't.

Sam Presti's Survival Strategy In A Post-Apocalpytic Dystopian Nightmare

Simple question: Did the tough economic climate affect NBA team's spending plans as much as MSM scaremongerers would have you believe?

Not-so-simple answer: Kind of.

This summer saw a team that could have had nearly 8 figures of cap room opt not to use any of it. The Oklahoma City Thunder did pretty much nothing with their offseason once draft day was completed, and having won a total of 23 games last year, it's justifiable to ask why that was. There follows some exploratory maths, which get a bit dull and confusing.


If the Thunder had completed their buyout of Earl Watson (saving them $3.125 million; for argument's sake, let's assume that it could have been done earlier than July 17th), not signed James Harden, B.J. Mullens and Serge Ibaka until their cap space had been used, renounced all these guys that they don't want, not bothered to trade for Etan Thomas, kept Chucky Atkins and waived him, they would have had the following payroll:


Nick Collison - $6,250,000
Nenad Krstic - $5,160,832
Kevin Durant - $4,796,880
Russell Westbrook - $3,755,640
Jeff Green - $3,516,960
Earl Watson (waived) - $3,475,000
Damien Wilkins - $3,300,000
Thabo Sefolosha - $2,759,628
D.J. White - $1,036,440
Shaun Livingston - $959,111
Kyle Weaver - $870,968
Chucky Atkins (waived) - $760,000

Total = $36,641,459 for 10 players.


To that total, add the cap holds of $3,336,800 for Harden and $933,500 for both Mullens and Ibaka, take away all the cap holds linked to above (which at the start of the offseason also included cap holds for unwanted players such as Desmond Mason and Mickael Gelabale) and the Thunder would have had themselves a total team salary of $41,845,259. Against a salary cap of $57,700,000, that would have meant cap room of $15,854,741. And that's pretty much the max.

(If bits of that don't make sense to you, such as the talk of cap holds for draft picks and free agents, don't worry about that for now.)



Had they done this, the Thunder would have the second biggest free agent player this past offseason, second only to the Pistons. However, the Thunder didn't use their 8 figures of possible cap room. They didn't use any of it, in fact. They didn't make a single move this offseason that required any cap space, which is why they continue to rock massive cap holds on such seminal names as Danny Fortson and Malik Rose (over $21 million added to the cap in those two alone).

What they did instead was trade Wilkins and Atkins to Minnesota for Etan Thomas, taking on an extra $3,846,088 of salary this season just for the joy of getting future second round picks. They then followed tradition by signing their three first rounders to 120% of the scale, boosting those earlier figures of $3,336,800 and $933,500 to $4,004,160 and $1,120,200 respectively. Finally, they made their only two free agency signings of the summer:

Kevin Ollie and Ryan Bowen.

They could have had as-near-as-is max cap room. Instead, they got the two least talented players in the league. No offense. (They tried to make it three when they also signed Michael Ruffin, but roster numbers got the better of him. Sadly.)

The Thunder still have the lowest payroll in the league, a modest $48,383,101, and could have nearly $9.5 million in cap room tomorrow if they can bear to parted from The Fortson and friends. But they still haven't done so. They've shown no intention of doing so all summer. And until over-the-tax teams starting waggling cash and picks incentives towards the Thunder for them to take on their bad contracts when the trade deadline comes around - just like teams did with Memphis all of last year - then they're not going to use their cap room any time soon either.



The obvious question is why. Why would the Thunder not use this massive potential asset? Why would they turn down the opportunity to be one of the few buyers in such a seller's market? Why weren't they in there soliciting players like David Lee, Paul Millsap and Ben Gordon, using this prime opportunity to add one more significant piece to an already impressive young core? Did they whiff on an opportunity? Were they mismanaged?

No, I don't think so. As far as I see it, it was a combination of two things;

1. Truly quite a crap free agency class. The three aforementioned players were probably the pickings of the market, and two of them were restricted, which would have made the Thunder heavily overpaying to get them. They also would have had to bid outrageously to outbid the Pistons for Gordon, since Detroit themselves overpaid him, and while there's no real evidence to suggest that Oklahoma City attempted to get Gordon, there's also no real evidence that they should have done.

2. They don't have a whole lot of money. Having cap space and having money are not really the same thing.

Oklahoma City aren't a big budgeted franchise. As mentioned above, they have the league's smallest payroll, and spent all of last year trimming the remnants of Seattle's payroll. Attendance for the new franchise has been impressive in the early going, but the $75 million that it cost to move the team - combined with the $325 million that it cost to buy it - seems to have stymied the Thunder's spending on players. They've signed Nenad Krstic for three years and unsuccessfully tried to trade for Tyson Chandler's big contract, but that's been about it. And it isn't long until they're going to have to pony up for Kevin Durant's max contract. (That is, unless they trade his plus/minus-killing arse away before then. Although that might be hard to do, since apparently he's difficult to give way for free.)

But is this unwillingness to spend limited to the Thunder only? Quite what is the difference between spending during this summer's recession and during last summer's honeymoon period? Let's look at some more numbers.




Listed below are the future salary commitments for all NBA teams, including this season, but not including luxury tax payments. Note: for the purposes of consistency, all options and partially guaranteed contracts are assumed to be being paid in full. Even those that won't be.

1st: Orlando Magic - $317,268,369
2nd: Los Angeles Lakers - $256,433,829
3rd: Toronto Raptors - $244,926,542
4th: New Orleans Hornets - $238,288,724
5th: Golden State Warriors - $234,876,874
6th: Dallas Mavericks - $228,559,817
7th: Philadelphia 76ers - $225,715,686
8th: Washington Wizards - $217,956,499
9th: Detroit Pistons - $216,397,593
10th: Utah Jazz - $211,782,244
11th: Denver Nuggets - $209,996,915
12th: Cleveland Cavaliers - $197,756,154
13th: Portland Trail Blazers - $197,607,482
14th: Indiana Pacers - $189,539,684
15th: Sacramento Kings - $182,546,117
16th: Milwaukee Bucks - $181,912,234
17th: Atlanta Hawks - $181,775,571
18th: Charlotte Bobcats - $180,263,002
19th: Boston Celtics - $172,718,480
20th: Chicago Bulls - $169,916,272
21st: Phoenix Suns - $169,532,243
22nd: San Antonio Spurs - $168,787,128
23rd: Minnesota Timberwolves - $165,310,707
24th: Los Angeles Clippers - $157,306,417
25th: Houston Rockets - $147,199,150
26th: Memphis Grizzlies - $127,671,869
27th: New York Knicks - $124,240,768
28th: Miami Heat - $121,060,368
29th: New Jersey Nets - $118,253,823
30th: Oklahoma City Thunder - $109,551,956

Total = $5,565,152,517. Or, to put it in words: five billion, five hundred and sixty five million, one hundred and fifty two thousand, five hundred and seventeen dollars.


(Makes you feel a bit weird to see it all totalled up like that, doesn't it?)



And now, the same statistic, but from this time last year. The following is the future salary commitments for all NBA teams as of October 26th 2008;

1st: Orlando Magic - $294,700,756
2nd: Washington Wizards - $289,258,879
3rd: Philadelphia 76ers - $280,843,432
4th: Golden State Warriors - $266,578,475
5th: New Orleans Hornets - $259,494,157
6th: Dallas Mavericks - $256,486,158
7th: Charlotte Bobcats - $241,276,414
8th: Milwaukee Bucks - $240,182,828
9th: Sacramento Kings - $238,980,548
10th: Chicago Bulls - $233,647,431
11th: Cleveland Cavaliers - $230,050,946
12th: Boston Celtics - $227,210,745
13th: New York Knicks - $223,651,682
14th: Los Angeles Lakers - $218,983,731
15th: Denver Nuggets - $218,283,798
16th: Utah Jazz - $216,382,116
17th: Phoenix Suns - $215,488,477
18th: New Jersey Nets - $213,824,140
19th: San Antonio Spurs - $196,644,633
20th: Toronto Raptors - $194,241,647
21st: Los Angeles Clippers - $193,352,090
22nd: Minnesota Timberwolves - $192,651,934
23rd: Indiana Pacers - $178,713,794
24th: Miami Heat - $174,614,367
25th: Houston Rockets - $170,637,835
26th: Detroit Pistons - $165,711,468
27th: Atlanta Hawks - $157,119,737
28th: Memphis Grizzlies - $146,551,493
29th: Portland Trail Blazers - $133,235,971
30th: Oklahoma City Thunder - $121,422,133

Total: $6,390,221,815

Difference between 2008/09 and 2009/10: $825,069,298

[Note: none of these figures are guaranteed to be 100% accurate, because I've reverse-engineered them, but at worst it's 98.5%. Also note: the $158,312,000's worth of extensions given to Danny Granger, Jason Maxiell, Martell Webster and Andrew Bynum were signed after October 26th 2008, and therefore weren't counted towards their team's totals above. Nor is the $18 million that reappeared on Portlands's cap for Darius Miles. Similarly, LaMarcus Aldridge's extension from last week is not included, because I don't know what it is yet.]


$825 million is a lot of freaking money, even when split over 30 big money franchises. That figure alone highlights the difference in spending between this year and last. But here's another way of looking at it.

This summer, $1,275,302,921 of new player salary was given out. That total includes minimum salary deals, rookie scale contract, extensions......everything.

Last summer, however, $1,885,122,482 of new player salary was given out. That's an decrease of $609,819,561 in new expenditure from one summer to the next. And that's a lot.




Of course, there are mitigating factors for that. The crappy 2006 draft class has had something to do with it; as I mentioned here, only three players have gotten extensions from that draft class, and only a couple more have a chance of getting one. The 2010 free agency market is another huge factor (one that you may not have heard of, due to the minimal press coverage its received), and many teams are trying to avoid clogging their cap in eager anticipation of the impending free agency anti-climax coming up next offseason. When that day comes, spending should ramp up again, and the current contingency plans for it may well explain some of the decline in salary expenditure.

But more than anything, it appears that the economy's affect on player spending has not been overstated. Working purely on averages, NBA teams have $20 million less on players this summer than they did last summer, a large amount of money regardless of the number of years that it is spread over. Times are tough, and we're all having to make small sacrifices right now. (Personally, I'm forgoing all haircuts. They're too expensive anyway.) The NBA is no different; as we've now seen, it's stopped spending like it used to as well.

And so that might explain why the Thunder picked Ryan Bowen over Paul Millsap.



(The picture that opened this post had literally nothing to do with the rest of it.)

More Creative Financing In The NBA

Here's a longer list of things that were not included in the original Creative Financing post, either because I forgot to include them, or (in one instance) because the sweet prince who called our hotline with the information had not yet come forward. Remember; all calls are anonymous and you could receive a cash reward for information.

(Wait, no you couldn't. That's the slogan they use on Crimewatch. Ignore that.)


- As a part of the new scheme of turning this website's salary information from a static exhibit into a working reconstruction of life in First World War France, there now exists a page that lists all remaining salary cap exceptions for every NBA team. Of note on this list is the curious case of Channing Frye, the former Blazers and Knicks forward whose transformation from the next Dirk Nowitzki to the next Malik Allen is almost complete. The Suns signed Frye last month to a 2 year, $4,139,200 contract; not coincidentally, that is the same amount as the full value of the Bi-Annual Exception. However, the Suns didn't actually use their Bi-Annual Exception to sign him. Knowing that they wouldn't be using the full MLE to sign somebody due to their payroll concerns, the Suns cleverly (and creatively) used an equivalent chick of their mid level exception instead. As the name would suggest, you get to use the Bi-Annual Exception a maximum of once every two years, so if the Suns used it this year, they wouldn't get it next year. But if they roll it over, they do. It's pretty shrewd, when you think about it.

(Teams that should have done this but didn't include Washington - who used their BAE on Fabricio Oberto, and who won't use their MLE - and Chicago - who used their BAE on Jannero Pargo and who also won't use their MLE; however, if their plan for 2010 cap space comes off, it won't matter.)


- Less shrewd is the fact that the Suns appear to have used most of the rest of their MLE on re-signing Grant Hill. The fact that he got only an 8% raise in the second year of his contract backs this up. Why would the Suns do this? They had Early Bird rights on him, meaning that they could re-sign him to a contract beginning at the value of the mid level exception, without using the actual mid level exception to do so. They would also have been able to give Hill a 10.5% increase from the first year to the second. But, as I've said above, they didn't. Indeed, it appears they used their MLE to re-sign him. So either the document I'm looking at is wrong, the Suns renounced Hill at some point for no reason whatsoever, or the Suns just used their MLE when they completely and totally didn't need to.

If you're a Suns executive, feel free to set me straight on this.


- The Blazers' offer sheet to restricted Jazz free agent Paul Millsap was oft described as "toxic". The four year offer sheet started at $7,692,932 - which represents every last dollar that Portland had under the salary cap - before dipping to an even $7,600,000 in the second year. The final two years were for $8,103,435 and $8,603,633 respectively, bringing the contract's total worth to an even $32 million.

Furthermore, the Blazers did something fairly rare when they included a maximum 17.5% signing bonus into the contract; put simply, this means that Millsap receives 17.5% ($5.6 million) of the entire value of the contract up front. They did this so that it might deter the Jazz (pressed financially this season) not to match it. But ballsily, they did so. And doing so will work in their favour in the long run; for the next three seasons of his deal, whichever team owns Millsap will have $1.4 million less in obligations to pay him than his listed salary will indicate. If ever they decide to trade him, this will be a welcome reprive for the recipient team.

You probably knew all that, but there it is again anyway.


- What you may not have known is a strange thang that happened afterwards. The Blazers had to go on a hell of a renouncing binge in order to be able to make that offer sheet, and they purged some of the game's all time greats from their salary cap in order to do so. [Note: for a fuller explanation of renouncing and cap holds and stuff, go here.] Finally cleans from Portland's page of the salary report were the seminal names of Chris Dudley, Channing Frye, Raef LaFrentz, Voshon Lenard, Shavlik Randolph, Michael Ruffin, Luke Schenscher and Detlef Schrempf, some of whom had been out of the league for years, and none of whom meant anything to the Blazers.

However, after the Jazz matched the offer sheet, the Blazers unrenounced Shavlik Randolph. [You're allowed to unrenounce people in only one circumstance; when your enounced them in order to sign a RFA to an offer sheet, which then gets matched.] This meant that Randolph was now put back onto their salary figure, once again available to be signed and traded, but most significantly eating into their cap space.

Why is this important? It isn't. It might have been had it meant that they couldn't then afford to sign Andre Miller, but they could, and thus the Randolph unrenouncement made no impact on anything ever. All it means is that, if they decide to re-sign Randolph, they now have non-Bird rights on him as opposed to no rights at all. This means next to nothing, though, since Non-Bird rights are about as much use as a paper condom. Randolph's previous salary was the minimum salary, and all the non-Bird rights allow is for the Blazers to re-sign him for 120% of next year's minimum salary, something which they aren't going to do. If they're going to bring back Randolph, it's going to be for the minimum, and since the internet currently contains unsubstantiated rumours which state that the Blazers will be bringing Juwan Howard to training camp this year, it doesn't sound like they're even going to bring Shavlik back for that.

So then, why did they do it? Well, why not, I say. I got a blog post out of it. Everyone's a winner.


- Would you like an example of how trade bonuses (kickers) work? Hope so, because you're about to get one. Feel free to skip it if you're easily bored.

The following is how John Salmons' trade bonus was calculated after his trade from Sacramento to Chicago back in February.

Salmons' 2008/09 salary before the trade was for $5,104,000, followed by $5,456,000 in 2009/10, and finally an extra season in 2011/12 for $5,808,000 that Salmons had an early termination option on. He was traded on February 18th, the 114th day of the season. Including the day of the trade, there were 57 days remaining in the season.

There are 170 days in an NBA regular season. If you don't believe me, count them yourself; since this is dull and boring to do, I implore you to believe me. As 113 days of the season gone, so had 113/170ths of Salmons' salary for that season; therefore, only 57/170ths of that season's salary was still "remaining".

Therefore, the amount of Salmons' remaining salary (including the option year) was for $12,975,341. That total breaks down as following:

Remaining salary, 2010/11 - $5,808,000
Remaining salary, 2009/10 - $5,456,000
Remaining salary, 2008/09 - $1,711,341 ($5,104,000 divided by 170, times 57)

(Note: salary that falls under option years is not normally to be included in "remaining salary" when calculating trade bonuses; however, Early Termination Option years are the exception.)

Salmons had a 15% trade kicker, the maximum allowed under the CBA. This means that, in the event that he was traded, he'd get an extra 15% of his remaining salary as a bonus, in order to ease the pain of having to move from one luxury privileged job to another. 15% of his remaining salary was $1,946,301; this was the amount of his trade kicker.

That trade bonus is spread across the cap evenly amongst the remaining amount of guaranteed years of the contract. Option years are NOT included, and the trade kicker is NOT prorated like the amount of remaining salary was above. Therefore, Salmons' $1,946,301 bonus was to be split evenly between the two remaining guaranteed non-option seasons of his contract; 2008/09 and 2009/10; $973,151 for each season.

As a result, Salmons' new salary numbers became $6,077,151 (2008/09), $6,429,151 (2009/10) and $5,808,000 (2010/11, ETO).

Just trust me that that was more boring to type than it was to read.



- Eddy Curry does not have conditional guarantees in his contract relating to his weight. Nor does Glen Davis. Nor does Jerome James. But perhaps they all should do, because it's entirely possible. Two such contracts have been signed this summer; the Grizzlies' contract of Marcus Williams is for the minimum salary of $855,189 ($825,497 on the Grizz's cap), with guaranteed compensation of $500,000. The remaining $355,189 becomes guaranteed in 15 different stages; on 15 separate dates throughout the season, Williams has to turn up weighing equal to or less than 207 pounds, and a body fat amount of less than 10%. Each time he does so, he's guaranteed an extra $23,679. Similarly, the Kings signed Sean May to a one year minimum salary contract of $884,881 ($825,497 on their cap); however, only $784,881 of it is guaranteed. The other $100,000 becomes guaranteed if May weighs equal to or less than 265 pounds on September 30th OR October 27th.

(The word "or" is an interesting qualifier there. It's not mine.)


- Ever since Kiki Vanderweghe cemented their future with the Kenyon Martin contract, his replacement Mark Warkentein has had to work very hard to avoid the luxury tax. When you commit a near-9 figure contract to a guy worth less than half of it, cap management becomes all the more important, particularly when you have a genuine max player to pay as well, and an owner who owns a brilliant football team,but who isn't too keen on the idea of tax.

Warkentein didn't start well, paying Nene $60 million that he hadn't earned on the premise that he might do one day, and giving Reggie Evans a completely unnecessary 5 year contract to be the backup to the backup. But since then, he and the Nuggets have turned it around. Nene has lived up to his presumptuous salary, and Denver was able to take advantage of the always generous Billy King when they dumped off Evans's salary for that of Steven Hunter, a slightly smaller one that was also one year shorter. They've since been able to move that deal onto the Grizzlies, for the cost of some cash and a first round pick, completely absolving themselves of the deal. They made a similar deal towards the deadline last year, when they were able to move Chucky Atkins' salary to Oklahoma City in exchange for Johan Petro's smaller deal. They gave up a first round pick to do so, but they received a second round pick in the deal too. (The first rounder they gave up was the 26th pick in last year's draft, and the pick they got back was the 34th; let it be known that I'd rather have an unsigned Sergio Llull than a signed Taj Gibson.) Warkentien also managed to create the fine Allen Iverson deal, where the Nuggets got the better player and saved a boatload of short term salary in doing so. The Nuggets have managed the rare but special feat of being able to save money and improve their basketball product at the same time, not letting the bad Martin deal cripple their short and long term improvements. We should look up to that.

Unfortunately, they're going to struggle to dodge the tax again. Even after the Hunter dump, the Nuggets are still awkwardly in the tax territory and with less than a full roster to speak of. It's already cost them Linas Kleiza, and they don't have any more basketball assets that they can really lose. As such, they've had to get creative. And that's where Ty Lawson comes in.

It's never really mentioned, because it's never really important, but most rookie scale contracts contain performance incentives. So widespread is it, in fact, that every first rounder signed this season has them except for Tyreke Evans, Jonny Flynn, Austin Daye, Eric Maynor, Darren Collison and Wayne Ellington. (Yes, even Blake Griffin has them.) Lawson has them, too, and his case gives us a fine example of quite what these incentives can be. To earn the full 120% of his rookie contract that he signed for, Lawson has got to make five promotional appearances for the Nuggets, play in summer league, play in another two week summer skills and conditioning program, and play 900 minutes next season. As well as do all that suitcase carrying and doughnut fetching that's considered mandatory for a rookie in the NBA. (Although the contract doesn't stipulate the suitcase and doughnuts bit.)

In signing Lawson to a deal like this, the Nuggets may have given themselves a small saving this season, which gets them one step closer to breaking even. Since all money saved by the Nuggets is all money that can potentially be spent by Arsenal, I'm all for this.


- And finally, another example of how not to creatively finance. Does it involve Otis Smith? Oh yes. Yes it does.

In the weeks leading up to the start of last season, the Magic decided they needed a third string point guard. They were right. They did. They only had two, and one of them was Anthony Johnson. One injury to Jameer Nelson, and Ol' Fatneck would suddenly become their only option. At that point, they might as well just fold the franchise. (Or trade for Rafer Alston. Same sort of thing.)

They hunt around, and eventually pick a good one. They decide upon signing Mike Wilks, a career journeyman who puts the journeyman into journeyman. Since leaving Rice University in 2001, Wilks has spent various amounts of time with the Kings, Bucks, Hawks, Timberwolves, Rockets, Bulls, Spurs, Cavaliers, Sonics, Nuggets and the Wizards. He has appeared in 229 games over parts of six seasons, and there's a reason he's been getting all these look-ins; he's all right. Wilks will always be disadvantaged by his 5'10 frame, but he's not bad.

With that in mind, the Magic signed Wilks to an unguaranteed contract for training camp, somewhat expecting him to make the team but absolving themselves of all liability if something better came along. However, during a preseason game on October 16th, Wilks tore his knee up. Badly. He completely tore his ACL, slightly tore his MCL, and badly sprained his meniscus, knocking him out for the season. Because he was under contract to the Magic at the time, the Magic were now liable for his salary until he returned to full health.(That's the rule. Same as any job, really.) And this meant his contract became guaranteed.

This is why the Magic kept Wilks on the roster for half a season, despite him not playing any games; they were stuck with paying him anyway, so they might as well keep him around. They only shifted him from the roster when they were able to include him as salary figure in the Alston trade, sending him to the Grizzies, with whom he stayed on the roster until the end of the year. That was Mike Wilks's year in a nutshell - two teams, 7 months, 1 injury, 0 minutes played, over a million dollars earned. Could have been worse, I suppose.

The same thing happened to the Heat. Always willing to play the training camp game, Miami obliged us once again last year by bringing in the full compliment of 20, even when most of the extra signings (Omar Barlett, Tre Kelley, Eddie Basden, Matt Walsh, David Padgett) had no real chance of making the team. Along with Padgett, they signed former Davidson point guard Jason Richards right after summer league, to a contract that had only $50,000 guaranteed. However, Richards too blew out his knee, and so the Heat were liable for his salary until the day he recovered. And that saw them have to pay him for the full season.

The worst part about it all was that Richards's now-guaranteed salary meant that the Heat were now going to be taxpayers, when previously they'd budgeted to be just under it. As a result, they had to salary dump Shaun Livingston, now the Thunder's premier backup. Bad times.

The lesson here; if you're a decent basketball player, but of only a fringe NBA talent, do your damndest to get a training camp gig somewhere. Accept $0 guaranteed money if you have to. Just sign the contract. And then take a dive. It's a particularly good idea if you're broke. Antoine Walker, take note.

(This isn't just an excuse to take cheap shots at Orlando, by the way. Wilks was a good signing, an NBA calibre third string point guard, with whom they just happened to get highly unlucky. They did nothing wrong; these things just happen sometimes. It is, however, an eye opener. These are things that you don't really consider a possibility until they happen. Dallas had better find an Erick Dampier-sized straight jacket next summer.)

Creative Financing In The NBA

If you Google the term '"creative financing" otis smith', you'll find quite a few hits. It's long been a favoured phrase for Orlando Magic general manager Otis Smith, and his most famous usage of the phrase came in the run-up to the 2007 offseason. Smith used the term "creative financing" to describe how the Magic were going to handle having maximum cap room, juggling signing other team's free agents with retaining Darko Milicic. It was a fairly generic term that said something without really saying anything. And it only gained its resonance after Smith used all his money to give Rashard Lewis a ridiculously, amazingly, biblically terrible contract

You'll also, slightly depressingly, find this website fourth in those search results. There's a reason for that. "Creative financing" is something that I've harped on about for a while. The financial side of the NBA gives me a jolly; watching and learning how the NBA teams manage (or mismanage) their salary cap space, the luxury tax threshold and all their exceptions gets me off in ways that it really shouldn't. I don't know why it's fun, I only know that it is. I think you agree.

Therefore, there follows a list of some of the better examples of creative financing in the NBA today, some of the ways in which executives and cap experts have manipulated the system, staved off the shackles of oppression, and beaten the terrorists.


- The Bulls set a precedent by signing four players to descending contracts at the same time. At one point, the contracts of all four of Kirk Hinrich, Andres Nocioni, Smiling Joe and Sulking Ben had contracts that shrunk on a year-by-year basis. The idea of this was to maintain future salary flexibility to allow them to retain Ben Gordon, Luol Deng and Tyrus Thomas down the road as well. It didn't work, though; even though they paid them backwards, the Bulls overpaid all four, then overpaid Deng as well, and those combined with a staggeringly powerful fear of the luxury tax unbecoming of a team with such hefty profits (and an irrational hatred of the man) led to Gordon leaving as an unrestricted free agent this summer. Which sucked. Still, it could be worse. They may well have maximum cap room in 2010. (Yay! Because cap space went so well for us last time.)

- The Hawks are currently trying something similar. In the last six weeks, they've re-signed all three of Marvin Williams, Mike Bibby and Zaza Pachulia, all to pretty decent value contracts. All three also have contracts that dip in value in the 2010/11 season, a crucial offseason for the Hawks if they are to be able to pay to keep their star player, Joe Johnson. Knowing this to be true, GM Rick Sund has tried to set himself up to be able to pay all four players without going into the luxury tax. It's a good idea, in a way. But the downside of it is that this means the Hawks are going to be grazing their balls against the powerful stone grinding wheel that is the luxury tax threshold, and all they'll have done is retaining a good yet inadequate core. Of course, they would have had some financial flexibility, but they decided to use it all on Jamal Crawford, instead of re-signing the thoroughly comparable Ronald Murray for a third of the price. It's a strange decision.

- Quite a few players have taken second year dips in multi year contracts. The Magic (the creative financing GENIUSES that they are) once did it with Tony Battie, a move which enabled them to give Lewis even more completely unnecessary money than before. The Raptors have done it with Jarrett Jack, as they'll be struggling to stay under the tax next season. Others to have signed contracts that either descend or that have the occasional dip in them include Kris Humphries, Devin Harris, Speedy Claxton, Jarron Collins and Marcus Camby. But it's not common.

- Contract guarantees can be fun, too. There's way more leeway to them than there is often considered to be. Most unguaranteed or partially guaranteed contracts are guaranteed against lack of skill; that is to say, 'if we don't think you're good enough, we're cutting you.' Furthermore, any of those include dates on which the contract will become guaranteed if the player is still on the roster. But you can get way more creative than that if you want to. One such example is that of Matt Harpring; the Jazz re-signed Harpring to an oversized 4 year $25 million contract, but with conditional guarantees on the fourth year. Harpring were to only be guaranteed $4.5 million if he either:

a) missed 47 games combined during the 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons due to injuries to his right knee, or
b) missed 35 games in the 2008-09 season only due to injuries to his right knee.

Neither of these happened. Harpring gutted out the injury, as well as a concurrent serious injury to his ankle, and saw through all three seasons. It came at a cost, though; he's now about to retire. What a trooper, though.

- Leon Powe had something similar but different going on with his first contract from the Boston Celtics. Powe signed a three year minimum salary deal with the first year guaranteed, but with performance-related guarantees on the other two years. His second year salary became guaranteed if Powe either made the 2006/07 rookie team, or if his point, rebound and assist averages added together to total more than 14.0 in more than 41 games played. His third year had a similar guarantee, but with the threshold raised to 16.0. It turns out that this was quite a good idea, as Powe became a valued contributor while playing for the cheapest possible price. Shame about the latest knee injury.

- There's not much flexibility for creativity with rookie scale contracts. They follow a strict formula - two guaranteed years, two option years - and even though players and teams can negotiate the contract's value to between 80% and 120% of the scale amount, almost everyone gets the 120%. (The only ones I can think of that haven't are Ian Mahinmi, George Hill and Sergio Rodriguez.) However, this season, the Indiana Pacers found a new way to make things interesting. When signing Tyler Hansbrough, they gave him the customary 120%, but with an interesting caveat; all four seasons of the contract are only 80% guaranteed. (Note: that's all that rookie scale contracts have to be guaranteed.) The purpose of this isn't entirely obvious; if Hansbrough really sucks or dies or something, the option years won't be exercised anyway, so having a partial guarantee on them doesn't make much of a difference. But it's interesting because it's creative. And, dammit, that's what we're after.

- Speaking of creative, check out Brandon Roy's guarantee conditions. Intense.

- It might be the Mavericks, not the Magic, that are the kings of creative financing. (A cynic would say that they need to be, considering that they overpay almost everyone. That cynic would have a point.) Particular favourites of Donnie Nelson and friends include conditional guarantees based on championship wins (given to Jerry Stackhouse and Greg Buckner) and team based performance incentives (see this). Having unguaranteed final seasons in contracts is a good ploy of theirs; Erick Dampier has an unguaranteed 8 figure final season in 2010/11, with conditions that he's never going to meet, giving the Mavericks a massive trade chip to play with. Buckner's contract - which they initially signed, then gave away, but have now brought back - has only a small percentage of his final two years guaranteed. You probably already know about the last year of Stackhouse's deal, and the uses that had. And you may also have known that the last year of Jason Terry's contract is only $5 million guaranteed as well.

But the Mavericks have saved their best unguaranteed contract trick for last. After the Magic matched the offer sheet that Dallas gave to Marcin Gortat, the Mavericks found themselves with a full MLE again. Rather than use on an MLE calibre player, they instead decided to spend $4.5 million of it on Drew Gooden, a poor player with the worst defense in the NBA and an increasingly bad understanding of offensive continuity. The contract, though, has a caveat; only $1.9 million of the $4.5 million is guaranteed. And there's no guarantee date.

It's fairly normal for players to sign partially guaranteed one year contracts. If it wasn't common practice, training camp would suck. But it's rare for players earning more than the minimum to do it, and it's the first time I've ever seen it on a contract this size. It's actually quite a clever ploy, because it gives the Mavericks quite a trade chip. In a year when so many teams are over the tax, and so many teams need to make instant salary savings, unguaranteed contracts have to be considered even hotter shit than usual. And by signing Gooden to one, the Mavericks give themselves a pretty mean trade chip between December 15th (the first date Drew can be traded) and January 10th (the date all contracts become guaranteed). He was, without a shadow of a doubt, signed with this intent in mind. So expect it to happen.

As for what's in it for Gooden.......well, not a lot. $2 million for three months work is never bad, but for this to have been the best he could get, his other offers must have really sucked.

- And finally, here's an example of how not to creatively finance. Naturally, it involves Otis Smith. And it also involves the man in the opening picture, James Augustine.

Augustine was drafted by the Magic in the 2006 draft, and signed a two year rookie minimum contract with the team. He stayed with the team for the whole two years, barely playing, and was became a restricted free agent. The second year of his first contract was only 25% guaranteed until July 30th, and the rule with qualifying offers is that they have to be at least the same amount of guaranteed money and the same guarantee dates as the final season of the previous contract. So when Orlando tendered him a qualifying offer, Augustine accepted it immediately, and was thus under contract for the 2008/09 season for $972,581 (the amount of the QO = minimum salary + $175,000), of which $243,145 (25%) was guaranteed, with a guarantee date of July 30th 2008. Orlando then waived him before that date, meaning that they essentially paid Augustine a quarter of a million dollars to have him under contract for two weeks in mid-July.

It's definitely financing, no question about it. And it's definitely creative. But it was also really, really thilly.

Otis Smith's job became far easier and far more secure when the Magic's NBA Finals appearance prompted the aptly named Rich DeVos to start stumping up luxury tax dollars. Imagine what would have happened, though, if that hadn't happened. There'd be no Marcin Gortat. There'd be no Brandon Bass. There might not have been any Vince Carter trade, and there might not have been any Matt Barnes signing. The Magic would be relying on the man who coined the term "creative financing" to do that exact thing. And it's hardly something he's renowned for.

I commend the Magic's offseason. They've done pretty much everything right. Even the little things, such as the inclusion of Ryan Anderson into the Carter trade, were done correctly. Otis Smith has had a good summer. But Magic fans should be very, very grateful to ownership. Spending is easier without a budget.

Qualifying Offers = Lies

If your team didn't agree to an extension with its starlet young player this past offseason - such as is the case with the Atlanta duo of Josh Childress and Josh Smith, the Chicago duo of Luol Deng and Ben Gordon, amongst others - then you've probably experienced a modicum of conversation as to whether that player will take the one year qualifying offer this offseason rather than the security of a long term deal, leaving the distinct possibility that your team will lose a key player and important asset, for jack shit in return. Talk of this possiblity happening is particularly widespread in the case of Gordon, who hasn't done much to deny it.

Let me half-arsedly set your mind at rest - it's really not that likely.

Or rather, it should be really unlikely. It might happen, but history suggests that it shouldn't. This is a list of all the rookie scale players to have accepted the fifth year qualifying offer in recent times, accompanied by a headshot for no reason other than cosmetics.



Melvin Ely

Season before free agency: 9.8 points, 4.9 rebounds, 51% shooting
Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 3.0 points, 1.8 rebounds, 36% shooting
Season after that: 3.9 points, 2.8 rebounds, 47% shooting


Melvin Ely is crap. He has had one year of non-crapness in 7 attempts. That one season was, conveniently, the final one of his rookie contract. Never justifying his draft position, this one year gave Ely the chance to make a bit of money, especially given that this was probably his only other chance at a multi-year contract. (Ely was 28 at the time, after joining the league at age 24. No one seems to remember this.) Ely took Charlotte's one year QO of $3,308,615 (which may or may not have been the only contract that they offered) in preference to taking Phoenix's multi year offer, or one from the Warriors.

Ely then played like his usual wank, and is now on a minimum salary contract with the Hornets.





Vladimir Radmanovic

Season before free agency: 11.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 41% shooting
Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 9.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 41% shooting
Season after that: 6.6 points, 3.3 rebounds, 42% shooting


Seattle dodged one hell of a bullet here, when Radmanovic turned down their exceedingly generous offer of a 6 year, $42 million. Why he did this, I don't know. Maybe he thought he was worth more. Or maybe he just hated Seattle. Either way, Seattle reacted, dealing him to the L.A. Clippers for Chris Wilcox, a far better player whom they managed to re-sign for half of what Radmanovic turned down.

Radmanovic did manage to somehow coerce a full MLE contract from the L.A. Lakers, a contract which totalled 5 years and $30.427 million. But, when combined with his qualifying offer of roughly $3.1 millionish, Radmanovic managed to lose almost $10 million on the deal, as well as save Rick Sund from himself.





Mickael Pietrus

Season before free agency: 11.1 points, 4.5 rebounds, 49% shooting
Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 7.1 points, 3.7 rebounds, 44% shooting
Season after that: N/A


Pietrus has always been a very flawed player, but with the onset of the new Warriors system under Don Nelson, many of these were able to be reasonably well covered up. In the fourth season of his rookie deal, Pietrus turned in comfortably the best season of his four year career, and was courted heavily by Miami. His agent claims to have had four teams offer their full MLE to Pietrus, which makes it odd that he didn't take any of them.

In the end, Pietrus was stuck with the one year, $3,470,771 qualifying offer from Golden State. From there, the inevitable has happened - he has regressed. His stats are backwards, his weaknesses are no better than they were, and his team just missed the playoffs. Suddenly, Pietrus's package seems less attractive. (Giggidy.)





Stromile Swift

Season before free agency: 9.4 points, 4.9 rebounds, 47% shooting, 1.5 blocks
Season spent on Qualifying Offer: 10.1 points, 4.6 rebounds, 45% shooting, 1.5 blocks
Season after that: 8.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 49% shooting, 0.8 blocks


Two key things to remember with Stromile's choice to sign the QO:

1) It was for $6.2 million, more than he would have gotten on the open market for the first season of any contract.
2) Memphis made it clear that they would match anything, and wouldn't entertain many sign and trade offers.
3) He really, really didn't want to be there.

(That's three things, but you get the idea.)

Financially, Stromile either breaks about even by turning down the QO and signing a four year MLE deal (which was the deal he signed with Houston after the QO year expired), or he's maybe even slightly ahead on the deal. Unlike most players, his play didn't decline under the QO, and while his numbers have suffered slightly in the last three years, his play remains pretty good.

He did not get his wish for getting out of Memphis, though, as he was traded back there after only one season in Houston. Tough break.






Aaaaaand........that's everyone this decade. I would go back further and include players such as Michael Olowokandi (a pretty resounding example of why not to turn down extensions), but it becomes too difficult to find the right numbers, so I won't. Those 4 are the only rookie scale players to have taken the qualifying offer since the year 2000.

They're 1-4, with only Swift making the right move. (This is unless Pietrus is ridiculously, insanely fortunate.)



First off, it's pretty obvious that 4 people in 4 drafts is not a huge amount of people to accept the qualifying offer. That goes without saying, given that 124 people were drafted in the first round of those 4 drafts. But I said it anyway.

Secondly, note that the one to have made a decent decision to take the qualifying offer was a second overall pick, which had a huge impact on the size of the offer in question. For reference's sake, here is a list of all the qualifying offers for those fourth year rookie scale players from the 2004 draft who did not get extensions:


Emeka Okafor: $7,082,635
Ben Gordon: $6,404,749
Shaun Livingston: $5,809,705
Josh Childress: $4,844,355
Luol Deng: $4,452,574
Andre Iguodala: $3,800,625
Andres Biedrins: $3,609,636
Robert Swift: $3,579,131
Sebastian Telfair: $3,543,834
Kirk Snyder: $3,313,598
Josh Smith: $3,167,882
J.R. Smith: $3,028,241
Dorell Wright: $2,910,104
Delonte West: $2,762,828
Tony Allen: $2,744,299
Sasha Vujacic: $2,605,559
David Harrison: $2,601,474

(Everyone else either got an extension, or have already been waived.)


Not all of these players will get a qualifying offer, because the team does not want them for that price, or indeed any price. In two cases (Swift and Livingston), the qualifying offer might actually be an advisable route, given the serious injuries from which both are struggling to recover. But only in a few cases is the qualifying offer of a significant threat to be a viable option: Emeka Okafor (who turned down a 5 year, $60 million eztension), Ben Gordon (who turned down a 5 year, $50 million extension), and maybe some of the lower players (Allen, Telfair).

Bizarrely, Okafor and Gordon have both had worse years since turning those extensions, which could mean anything. It could make them more likely to take the security while they can still get it, or it could make them more liable to have a third attempt at a successful contract year push.

The other factor here is the deep free agent class, that affects everybody in this list. Pessimists theorise that this may mean more players take the one year QO and make themselves available for the 2009 free agent market instead. Optimists might say that instead, because of the lack of money out there, those offers from their current teams suddenly look alot more lucrative and sensible. You can probably guess which of those two schools of thought I subscribe to.

Either way, it's extremely difficult to imagine those two (plus others, such as Deng and Iguodala) turning down $50+ million, twice. Especially since they haven't done anything to justify turning it down once.




HALF BAKED CONCLUSION FROM HALF-ARSED ANALYSIS:

There is not a lot of recent history on which to deduce whether taking the qualifying offer is a wise/probable decision or not. This, in itself, is indicative of the fact that it's a highly unlikely scenario. And when what little precedent there is shows the move to be a generally unwise one, that only reaffirms the idea that the likelhood of a player choosing to accept the qualifying really is nothing to fear.

Well, except for the two UConn boys.

Why John Freakin' Stockton Was So Freakin' Fantastic

A conversation with a friend about the awesomeness/awfulness of DeSagana Diop - and you can probably guess which side of the fence I am on regarding that - led to me to write about how great John Stockton is.

Come re-live that fun journey with me.



I try and keep an open mind on certain basketball philosophies. There are some players out there whose worth on the court is so mysterious that you really have to question their very presence on it, and yet, for whatever reason, they remain out there. A lot of them get regular rotation minutes. Some of them get regular rotation minutes on decent or good teams. And I always endeavour to understand why.

As an example, for many years, Jason Collins started on the New Jersey Nets. Not only did he start, but he would also play over twenty minutes a game (up to the tune of 31.8 in 2004/05). A quick glance at his statistics, though, makes you wonder why the hell this was. Collins has never shot over 43% in a season, which must be pretty dumbfoundingly difficult to do as a 7 footer, especially an athletic 7 footer with Jason Kidd as your point guard. (Even Michael Ruffin managed this once, and he did it armed with Bryce Drew leading the breaks. Bryce effing Drew.) Collins also has a rebounding average worse than Eddy Curry's, with a career average of a tumultuous 8.8 boards per 48 minutes. And worst of all was his PER, which last year was a can't-even-think-of-an-adjective-shit-enough-for-it 3.3. (Only this year, when it hit 3.1, did the Nets think "hmmm, maybe we could find a player with a more positive impact on the game if we try". Impressively, they did.)

I listened to arguments as to why Collins merited the court time that he got. On a good team, he would play more than half the game, despite seemingly not doing a single thing well. I watched closely and tried to figure out what it was that he was good at, and I listened to people paid to be flattering about him (i.e. Iain Eagle) try and polish this turd as shiny as it could get. I could see that Collins was a versatile defensive player, big and strong enough to defend the tough post players, but also fleet footed and agile enough to stay in front of the quicker tall forwards as they made their way to the basket. I also understood that he was Jesus Collins, Lord Of The Handoff (giggidy), and that while he couldn't grab any rebounds of his own, he cleared out the lane well enough while boxing out for guards to come in and sweep rebounds off of the floor. (See?!? Kidd owes all those rebounds to Collins! And his rebounding during tenures on previous teams were just lucky.) I also accepted the argument that maybe Nets head coach Lawrence Frank had a raging man-boner for him and just couldn't let it subside, for this argument is often applicable to NBA coaches. (See also: Chris Duhon with Jim Boylan, Lindsey Hunter with Flip Saunders, and Orien Greene with anybody to have ever coached him.)

I considered it all. And then I disregarded it all. This was because - and let's be honest here - Jason Collins was (is) a massive huge great big fat negative of a basketball player. There's no point in being a little things player if you can't do any of the big things well. And anyway, shouldn't "little things" players be able to shoot above 50% from the free throw line?

(Oh and by the way, how in the hell did Collins go from a near-80% shooter to below the Wallace Line in 4 short years? What changed? How do certain players - usually big men - manage to get so bad from the line so easily as they approach their prime years? See also: Magloire, Jamaal)

A similar situation occurs with DeSagana Diop. For whatever reason - and this has become much more prevalent since he was traded away - columnists and idiots alike would eulogise The Diop as if he were some kind of integral piece to the Mavericks championship puzzle, ignoring for a moment the fact that the Mavericks didn't actually have a championship puzzle (but that's a rant for another day). Indeed, Karate Diop is better than Jason Collins, which makes the situation slightly less deplorable. And Lasagna did give the Mavericks a skill with his rudimentary shot blocking that they otherwised lacked outside of the misshapen marvel that is Rick Dampier.

[Please feel free to look elsewhere while I burn through my own supply of extremely bad self devised DeSagana Diop nicknames. I'll get over it soon.]

But overall, DeSagana Diop was not, is not, and will probably never be a good basketball player. He used to be abhorrent, so his status as a reasonable to crappy backup centre is an improvement, yet this alone does not make him good.

This was the hard line stance that I took in our conversation, and prepared to back up my claim by using a piece of trivia that I last used in March 2006, about how Diop was on course to spend the most full seasons in the NBA of any player to average less than 2 points per game for his career (and "full seasons" is a key distinction there). However, to use this piece of trivia, I had to check that it was still true.

Sadly, it wasn't. A recent offensive explosion and the subsequent giddying heights of three points per game with the Mavericks this season have boosted Garnerchop to a career average of 2.1 points per game (or that's it was at the time of writing - if he's been on a scoring rampage since then, adjust accordingly), which undermined my premise and made me feel rather empty inside. How could I talk about Daisy Gardener being one of the worst offensive players of all time when he averages quite such a tremendous amount of points? I felt like such a twat.

Still, not one to be outdone, I rebounded (unlike Jason Collins), and offered up something new in my constant quest to win petty arguments with uninteresting trivia. While looking up Jop's career points average, I also happened to notice that his career high in points in a single game is a fantastic 10 points, achieved 4 times, 2 of which came this season. (Michael Ruffin has a career high of 14, for those keeping score at home, and you've probably noticed by now that I like to use The Muffin as my barometer when it comes to mentioning historically bad offensive players. His profile explains this in more depth.)

Those 4 explosive outings came in 409 career games. How can a man not score more than 10 points in 409 games? How is that possible? Wouldn't you do it by accident one day? At one point, wouldn't your teammates decide that enough is enough and conspire to give you enough touches to crack that elusive 11 point barrier? (And these things do happen, if your team is bad enough. See Mark Madsen's seven three point attempts in a single game in the most disgustingly shameless piece of tanking in NBA history.)

Seemingly, his teammates haven't ever thought of this. So if the Nets fall out of the playoff race this season, on purpose or otherwise, then we need to push this agenda forward. Let's get Diop to 20. In fact, 15 will do. Someone start a t-shirt campaign.



Anyway, this piece of fascinating Senegalese trivia led me on to another related one.

In 1504 career games, John Stockton never once grabbed at least 10 rebounds in a regular season game. Stockton also never had ten steals in a game either, meaning that ne never achieved a triple double, which is pretty astonishing for a man who averaged a double double over 19 seasons and 1504 games. (Note - he did once have a triple double in a playoff game, but it pisses on my chips a little to mention that, so pretend that it didn't happen.)

This discovery, which is surely a harder feat to not-achieve than Diop's points total, led me into an exploration of the man and the legend that was John Freakin' Stockton, and led me to compile this concise but considerable list of reasons quite why he was brilliant.


REASON NUMBER 1: John Freakin' Stockton played 1504 games in 19 NBA seasons, and for those doing the maths at home, this means that he only missed 22 games in his entire career. He had perfect attendance records in 17 of his 19 seasons, playing all 82 games in 16, all 50 games in the strike shortened 1998-99 season, a mere 78 in 1989-1990, and a pathetically dismal 64 games in 1997-1998. For the sake of reference, Marcus Camby has cracked the 64 game barrier only three times in 12 years, and has never played more than 72.

REASON NUMBER 2: John Freakin' Stockton played 1504 games and never grabbed 10 rebounds in a game. (The lesson here, as should be obvious - if you aggressively pursue rebounds, you'll shorten your career. So things are looking up for Jason Collins already.)

REASON NUMBER 3: John Freakin' Stockton just let it go.



Stockton played until he was 41 years old, and inevitably towards the end of his career he had a few years in which his performance slowly trailed off. But right up to and including his final season, Stockton continued to perform at a high level, starting for a Utah Jazz team that he led to a 47-35 record and the playoffs, all while averaging as-near-as-is 11 points, 8 assists and 2 steals a game. He also shot .483 that season, which is absolutely remarkable when you consider that this was 2003 that we are talking about, a season that did not favour shooting percentages.

But when faced with the decline of both his own skills and the Jazz's short term future, Stockton chose to walk away while he was still near the top of his game. This may seem like a normal or sensible thing to do, but recent precedent shows it to not be so normal after all.



So far in this 2007 season (including preseason and offseason), assorted stars of varying pedigree have either expressed an interest in returning to play one more season, or have actually done so. Allan Houston re-signed briefly with the New York Knicks before being waived in preseason in favour of Fred Jones. Chris Webber couldn't keep away and signed with the Golden State Warriors. Reggie Miller and the Boston Celtics had a brief two way flirtation before Reggie decided against un-retiring to play for only the second team of his NBA career. And Gary Payton's agent also contacted the Celtics, asking if they would return his love and affection and signing him for one more half season. (They didn't.)


Now forgive me for being a bit cynical here, as it's all I know. But why oh why might Payton want to do this?

Possible reasons:

a) He thinks he's still got it.
b) He's run out of money.
c) He wants to win an NBA title, and thinks he can get one with only the token gesture of suiting up every now and then.


If it's point A, then he's very, very wrong.

If it's point B, then he's going to have to make lifestyle changes to make the prorated veteran's minimum into an amount he can live comfortably off until his NBA pension is due.

And if it's point C, then he's pathetic.


Unfortunately, it's probably point C. And, in Gary Payton's case, it's an even more pathetic gesture than usual. For you see, Gary Payton has now achieved the almost-unachievable: he's now done this coattail riding act with three different teams. I can't think of any other instance in which that has happened, and frankly nor would I want to.

To make matters worse, Payton already has a ring from doing this, when he won with Miami back in 2005/06. So why's he hanging out desperately trying to win a ring, when he's already got one? Where's the pride in coattailing two of them, or does he feel ashamed by his first one and needs a second to restore pride? I can't see either scenario being all that profitable to his soul. And you know Gary Payton's got soul.


I don't have a problem with players that latch on with contending teams for less money than they could have gotten elsewhere, just to try and win a championship. That's not a problem with me. As any NBA "pundit" or "expert" will tell you - and I use that term very loosely - it's "all about" the rings. That is certainly the argument used to demean most players without them (or even those with them, if you're Kobe Bryant), and the alternative is to do what Reggie Miller did and stick around with a team that has no chance of winning the title just because you'll get more money that way. This is hardly a more dignified way to see out the end your career, even if it does lead to people praising you for your "loyalty", even if they misinterpret your loyalty to the chequebook as being your loyalty to a franchise.

Karl Malone, for example, played it just about right - he turned down the huge amounts of money and pleas of loyalty offered by Utah to go and spend two years for far less money trying to win a title with the L.A. Lakers. But once this bid failed, he took off. He did not go to another team elsewhere. Not again. Malone took his shot, missed, realised that his skills and health were on the way out, and threw in the towel once and for all. This was an impressive feat, especially given that he was within touching distance of one of the NBA's untouchable records - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's all time points scored record.

But this isn't really about the rings. Instead, it is about the good or great players just going away and not bothering us any more, in general.



When he retired as a player, Reggie Miller went on to become a TV personality. An annoying one. So did Jon Barry. So did Magic Johnson. So did Kendall Gill, Steve Smith, Greg Anthony, Mark Jackson, Scott Williams, and a good many other players. And almost universally, they are bad at it. There must be a reason why this is. Maybe it's stubbornness and the interference of their long-term memory on their cognitive capacity. But they just are bad at it, for whatever reason. Only a few shine in this broadcasters role, and most of those shine more for their entertainment value more than their actual ability to analyse.

Some former players go into coaching, irrespective of their abilities in this area. They can't live their lives as young up-and-coming basketball players any more, so they make sure that they are around to watch those of others develop. (It's either coaching, or a cameo in a Spike Lee movie.) Almost universally they are bad at this, too. For the most part, the better the player, the worse the coach or general manager they make. (There are some exceptions, such as Joe Dumars. But for every Joe Dumars, there's three or four Kevin McHale's.)

Worse still, some of the game's true all time greats hang around awkwardly at events such as All Star weekend, demonstrating their complete lack of touch with the modern NBA game, and occasionally making matters even worse by taking the court and proving that they aren't in any way the player that they used to be. It's deflating to watch, and should be made illegal. (There's potential for a second t-shirt campaign here.)



But John Stockton doesn't do any of this.

John Stockton just played until he shouldn't, and then took off. He didn't swan out, interfere with things that weren't his business to interfere with, or humiliate himself at All-Star weekends. He followed his career's path until he reached the end, and then he left.

And that's why he'll always be John Freakin' Stockton.