Omer Asik and Jeremy Lin’s contract situations
July 8th, 2013
In light of one or both of these two being about to be traded, there exists a new realm of questions about this two unusual, nearly-novel deals.
The questions surround what they’re being paid, and what they’re being charged to the salary cap. People don’t know which set of figures to believe, and the confusions stems from the fact that those two questions actually have two different answers.
“Salary” and “cap number” are usually assumed to be synonymous with each …
There IS a difference between “team option” and “unguaranteed”, and it DOES matter
July 3rd, 2013
Several years ago, I wrote a piece called Creative Financing in the NBA, that sought to address and highlight a few quirky salaries and salaries mechanisms handed about that season.
In that piece, I also spent a long time addressing the difference between team options and unguaranteed salaries. Often times, unguaranteed salaries are reported in the mainstream press as being team options, even though the two mechanisms are different. And often times, this is fine, because the differences don’t …
Salary Bookkeeping, 2013
July 1st, 2013
July 1st is (the date on which one season ends and the next one begins, and thus June 30th (and the week preceding it) is an important cut-off date for certain transactions.
Players with player or early termination options had to decide if they were coming back; the few players with team options awaited an uncertain future; players eligible for QO’s had to see if they got them.
All the results are in now, and there follows a list of …
Bulls might waive Nate Robinson to save money (and possibly for another reason, one for which I have no evidence)
December 19th, 2012
K.C. Johnson reports that the Bulls, despite being a number four seed without having their MVP on the court, are sorely tempted to waive Nate Robinson.
In one of the most unheralded high quality moves of the summer – unheralded because the dominant Bullsean narrative of the summer was rightly one of cost-cutting and player-dumping – the Bulls were able to sign Robinson to not only a minimum salary contract, but a partially guaranteed one at that. Of the …
Nazr Mohammed and Trade Kickers
December 4th, 2012
Even though he signed a one year minimum salary contract using the Minimum Salary Exception, Nazr Mohammed has a 15% trade kicker in his current contract.
Trade kickers in contracts are somewhat rare. They are particularly rare in small contracts, as becomes obvious upon a study of the current trade kickers in the league today:
Ray Allen – 15% – $3,090,000
Andrea Bargnani – 5% – $10,000,000
Nic Batum – 15% – $10,825,000
Chris Bosh – 15% – $17,545,000
Jose …
Zach Randolph may or may not be about to get a pay rise
July 19th, 2012
In April 2011, Zach Randolph received a four year, $66 million extension that will pay him through the 2015 season. Notwithstanding the very valid arguments that a man who doesn’t have any athleticism in the first place is going to decline slower than most, and that Memphis have to pay particularly big dollars in order to retain quality their quality players, it is unmistakably a big contract.
The contract called for a $15.2 million salary in 2011/12, a $16.5 million …
Creative Financing in the NBA, 2011
January 20th, 2012
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| The only beardless picture of Rashard Lewis I could find. It’s a part of him now. |
“Creative financing.” A fun term, one that’s actually employed by financiers and accountants, yet one brought into the world of the NBA when it was used, once, in a pre-emptive justification for one of the least creatively financed transactions of a generation. Nevertheless, even if the man who gave reverence to the phrase isn’t the role model for its usage, creative financing does …
What Happened Prior to July 1st Other Than A Bunch Of Ultimately Unproductive CBA Negotiations
July 2nd, 2011
Even though a lockout is upon us, one which might last us through until the very end of existence in late 2012, there’s still some bookkeeping to be done. July 1st is (or should be) the date on which one season ends and the next one begins, and thus June 30th is an important cut-off date for certain transactions.
Players with player or early termination options had to decide if they were coming back; the few players with team options …
Tax Payers, Trade Kickers, And Other Deadline Day Bookkeeping
February 26th, 2011
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| He looks happy. And why shouldn’t he. |
That was one of the most interesting trade deadline weeks you’ll ever see.
Fourteen trades, one kind of funny near trade, 50 players traded, 3 players signed, 4 players waived, 16 draft picks traded, 1 rights to swap traded, and two absolute Stone Cold Stunners of trades that no one expected. And these weren’t trades like Sam Cassell and cash for a 2016 top 55 protected second rounder, either. These were trades …
Finances of the Terrence Williams/Sergei Lishouk trade
December 16th, 2010
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| The only picture of Joe Smith ever taken in which he is not smiling broadly. |
Yesterday, a three way trade went down between the L.A. Lakers, Houston Rockets and New Jersey Nets that saw four picks, three players and one set of redundant draft rights get rehomed just in time for Christmas.
– Houston dealt: Lottery protected first-round draft pick to New Jersey; draft rights to Sergei Lishouk to L.A.
– Houston received: Terrence Williams from New Jersey.
– …
How much centres get paid
October 4th, 2010
Apropos of nothing, here are the total contract values of all centres in the NBA, not including those on minimum salaries (or with really close to minimum salaries, such as Samardo Samuels). In cases where a player’s position is debatable or flexible, discretion is used, and the player’s primary position is used (i.e. Pau Gasol wouldn’t be listed at centre, even though he essentially backs up there, because he starts at power forward). In the case of someone like Al …
Addendum to the Xavier Henry thing
September 18th, 2010
In the recent Creative Financing In The NBA post, I wrote at great length about the Xavier Henry situation. In the span of about 27,000 words, I tried to explain all the nuances of this largely unprecedented and highly unattractive situation, using as many real-life examples and corollaries as I could find.
After that time, far more significant media personalities ran with the story. Starting with NBA.com’s David Aldridge – who ran a very similar piece that even used the …
Creative Financing in the NBA, 2010
August 12th, 2010
Last year, I wrote a couple of posts under the heading of “Creative Financing in the NBA.” Inspired by seeing a series of quirky salary techniques that I had not previously seen in my three long and sexless years of compiling NBA salary information, I was inspired to steal Magic GM Otis Smith’s favoured phrase without permission, and use it to describe some of the financial anomalies that the offseason transactions had puked over our spreadsheets. The posts were reasonably …
Changes In 2010/11 Salaries Due To Performance Incentives
July 10th, 2010
The worst part about maintaining the internet’s premier NBA salary information resource is that the information is never static. It is ever-changing. Due to things such as conditional guarantees, trade kickers and the like, rarely do contracts ever stay the same. This is particularly true because of the science of performance incentives.
Performance incentives can be included in contracts for almost any reason, including (but not limited to) All-Star selections, championship, or team wins. The only rules are that any …
The amount of cap room teams will actually have, updated, again
July 8th, 2010
This is an update of the update of the earlier post that detailed the amount of cap room teams will have. It is updated to reflect everything that happened at the draft, including, in the case of the Kirk Hinrich trade, things that haven’t happened that soon will.
More importantly, it is updated to reflect the fact that we now know where the salary cap is going to be; with the calculations all down, the NBA has announced that …
2010 Free Agency, Preliminary Round
July 1st, 2010
Thank you for your patience as we resolve the issues that have plagued this website in recent days. We’re on top of it now. Sort of.
The free agency season is upon us, and a lot of housekeeping had to be done before we could get going. Players with player or early termination options had to decide if they were coming back; the few players with team options awaited an uncertain future; players eligible for QO’s had to see if …
The amount of cap room teams will actually have, updated
June 19th, 2010
This is an update of the earlier post that detailed the amount of cap room teams will have. It is updated to reflect the Kings/Sixers trade that was just completed (Andres Nocioni and Spencer Hawes for Sam Dalembert), to reflect some exercised options, and to edit the fact that I typoed a bit in the Timberwolves entry.
It’s a carbon copy of the initial post, save for those tweaks.
Atlanta Hawks
Committed salary for 2010/11: $47,630,214 …
The amount of cap room teams will actually have
June 12th, 2010
Lots of people and lots of places are claiming knowledge of the cap space of various NBA team in anticipation of this summer’s free agency bonanza. Most, if not all, have done so misleadingly inaccurately.
Without wanting to sound too douchebaggy (sorry), let’s try to get this right. 100% accuracy is not guaranteed, but 99.7% accuracy is. All salary information is taken from this website’s own salary pages.
NOTE: All cap space amounts are calculated to an estimated salary …
Current Trade Kickers
June 11th, 2010
Trade kickers are a salary mechanism that increase a player’s salary when they are traded. They are both important and difficult to accommodate when formulating trade scenarios, and thus it’s useful for them to be known. Kickers – technically known as trade bonuses, but colloquially as kickers, which we’ll stick with here – can only be bothersome to teams and emphatically benefit a player. As such, they’re far from commonplace. But there’s enough of them out there, and it helps …
Wesley Matthews’s impending free agency
May 20th, 2010
A while ago, I wrote about Anthony Morrow’s impending free agency, breaking down how much he could sign for and why. If you have not read it, please do so, and I won’t stab this puppy.
Morrow’s situation is not unique, for his is a situation that arises every offseason. Lots of players’s first contracts are two-year minimum salary deals, and those who manage to make it to the end of them are usually worthy of new contracts at …
Anthony Morrow’s impending free agency
May 10th, 2010
Of all the possible free agents this upcoming offseason, Golden State’s Anthony Morrow is one of the restricted free agents that is garnering the most attention amongst fans. Well, amongst Bulls fans he is, at least.1
Morrow only really does one thing; he shoots jump shots. He is not much of a ball-handler, nor much of a defender, nor much of an athlete, nor much of a slasher, nor much of a finisher around the basket. But he does …
The Finances Of The Trade Deadline Deals
February 21st, 2010
In the last week, more than 10% of the NBA was rehomed. 17 teams conspired to make 13 trades, and 43 players in the league were traded (along with one that isn’t in it). A possible 14 draft picks changed hands, too, along with enough cash to support Iceland for a week. Three players were waived to accommodate incoming players (Chris Richard, Ricky Davis, Kenny Thomas), and one just wasn’t asked back (Garrett Temple…
Thunder acquire Eric Maynor and Matt Harpring for PETER FEHSE
December 23rd, 2009
I have only 48 things to say about this deal.
1) As his profile suggests, I have long regarded Peter Fehse as a yardstick for a person’s NBA knowledge. If a fan knows who Peter Fehse is, they are hardcore and deserve your respect.
Short story short, Peter Fehse is a lanky German with lots of hair, who was drafted in the second round in 2002 as an absolute longshot based on his combination of height and athleticism. He …
A Brief History Of Luxury Tax
November 2nd, 2009
The NBA’s luxury tax first came into existence in 2001, the year in which the league’s 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), then if the league-wide player salaries exceed a certain …
The Purpose Of Waiving Deron Washington Was….I Don’t Know.
October 27th, 2009
Yesterday, the Detroit Pistons waived 2008 second-round draft pick and flopper extraordinaire, Deron Washington. They had initially signed him back in August to be their 14th and last man, giving him a two-year minimum salary deal with $250,000 guaranteed in the first season. Yet after bringing in Chucky Atkins on an unguaranteed one-year deal for training camp (a move that they won’t have foreseen prior to the Washington signing), the Pistons began to feel that Atkins was more deserving …
