Raptors Salary Cap Situation (and planning for the future)

[DanH]

Considering MU needed to use their elusive cap space to get bird rights on an unproven 2nd rounder I'd say that shows tremendous foresight from Raptors management. Well done MU, well done.

It's generally a good idea. You're talking about half a million in cap room versus long term control. Smart teams find cap room to make that offer. It's part of why I don't buy the logic that the team is really in on Van Vleet - they did not make a similar effort to sign him to a three year deal - he's only locked in for two.

[DanH]

Question Re the new CBA and trading a player now eligible for an extension.
Let's assume I'm talking about Cousins.

If Sac-town offers Cousins a Supermax this summer and he says "no", it proves he does not want to re-sign there. Sacremento would then have a chance to trade him so he does not leave for nothing the following summer.

Could a team trade for Cousins in the summer of 2017 and immediately sign him to a contract extension? My impression is that it could not be a super max as he's been traded. But can a traded player be extended a year early now?

This would likely benefit everyone as the receiving team could come to an agreement and not worry about him being a one year rental.

Nothing's concrete until we see the legalese, but there are no reports of the extend and trade rules changing, which means a team would still have to wait 6 months to offer a good extension. The supermax extension would definitely not be an option, as it is only for players who are with the team they've been with since their rookie deal.

[RDV]

We do, we had to use cap space to be able to do it. It looks like in future teams won't have to set aside cap space or the MLE to be able to sign their 2nd rounders to long term deals.

Considering MU needed to use their elusive cap space to get bird rights on an unproven 2nd rounder I'd say that shows tremendous foresight from Raptors management. Well done MU, well done.

[Lupe]

Question Re the new CBA and trading a player now eligible for an extension.
Let's assume I'm talking about Cousins.

If Sac-town offers Cousins a Supermax this summer and he says "no", it proves he does not want to re-sign there. Sacremento would then have a chance to trade him so he does not leave for nothing the following summer.

Could a team trade for Cousins in the summer of 2017 and immediately sign him to a contract extension? My impression is that it could not be a super max as he's been traded. But can a traded player be extended a year early now?

This would likely benefit everyone as the receiving team could come to an agreement and not worry about him being a one year rental.

If this is the case it only benefits the Kings as more teams would be willing to gamble on him. Although it might also give cousins some leverage to simply tell teams he doesn't want to play for that he would not sign an extension.

Very interested to see if this is actually possible or not.

[Rudy Bargnani]

Question Re the new CBA and trading a player now eligible for an extension.
Let's assume I'm talking about Cousins.

If Sac-town offers Cousins a Supermax this summer and he says "no", it proves he does not want to re-sign there. Sacremento would then have a chance to trade him so he does not leave for nothing the following summer.

Could a team trade for Cousins in the summer of 2017 and immediately sign him to a contract extension? My impression is that it could not be a super max as he's been traded. But can a traded player be extended a year early now?

This would likely benefit everyone as the receiving team could come to an agreement and not worry about him being a one year rental.

[DanH]

Mostly descriptive this week - next week I'll be going into the nitty gritty and outlining this summer in detail, and I'll post a breakdown here when I do. Of course, views over there are always welcome.

[Ebonhawke]

BTW, Dan's put up some analysis of the impact of the new CBA and the Raptors on that 'other' Raptors' website

[DanH]

Dan, wasn't Norm signed to a 3 year term and do we not have his full bird rights.

We do, we had to use cap space to be able to do it. It looks like in future teams won't have to set aside cap space or the MLE to be able to sign their 2nd rounders to long term deals.

[JawsGT]

Term sheets have leaked - BBall insiders has a breakdown:

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/un...pas-agreement/

Some stuff not previously rumoured:

- increase in cash to be traded
- increased trade disparity allowed (up to 175% from 150% on low salary trades, not clear if the higher salary trade limits are increasing as well)
- shorter moratorium each summer (July 6th noon end)
- rookie scale cap holds now 120%, so no benefit to waiting to sign them
- minimum exception contracts could be longer than 2 years, allowing teams to sign second rounders to 3-year deals (rumour is up to 5 years) with full Bird rights at the end without having cap space to do it with

One more month and the document itself should be available.

Dan, wasn't Norm signed to a 3 year term and do we not have his full bird rights.

[DanH]

Term sheets have leaked - BBall insiders has a breakdown:

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/un...pas-agreement/

Some stuff not previously rumoured:

- increase in cash to be traded
- increased trade disparity allowed (up to 175% from 150% on low salary trades, not clear if the higher salary trade limits are increasing as well)
- shorter moratorium each summer (July 6th noon end)
- rookie scale cap holds now 120%, so no benefit to waiting to sign them
- minimum exception contracts could be longer than 2 years, allowing teams to sign second rounders to 3-year deals (rumour is up to 5 years) with full Bird rights at the end without having cap space to do it with

One more month and the document itself should be available.

[DanH]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Do you think it's possible to keep Lowry and Patterson without going into luxury tax?
Like we'd have to trade cojo most likely right to keep both?

We'd have to lose a lot more than CoJo to avoid the tax if paying both. In all likelihood, we hit the tax just paying Lowry.

[Rudy Bargnani]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing.

Do you think it's possible to keep Lowry and Patterson without going into luxury tax?
Like we'd have to trade cojo most likely right to keep both?

[DanH]

Hmm, thinking Lowry might be eligible for that DPE extension, which could make this summer interesting. Opens the door to him opting into next year's player option and getting a big extension after that. Would need to make all-NBA this year. And I'm a little unclear on whether he's eligible at all. The description I've seen reported is players either need to be with the team that drafted them, or have to have been traded during their rookie scale deal. Lowry was traded on his rookie scale deal, but not to us, so he's in a gray area, and with nothing official yet I'm not holding out much hope on getting a solid answer on this until January when the deal gets ratified and posted.

Hey look at that, actually got an answer to this. He's not eligible (having been traded after his rookie scale deal). So, back to plan A, re-signing him in FA to a 4 or 5 year deal.

[DanH]

Hmm, thinking Lowry might be eligible for that DPE extension, which could make this summer interesting. Opens the door to him opting into next year's player option and getting a big extension after that. Would need to make all-NBA this year. And I'm a little unclear on whether he's eligible at all. The description I've seen reported is players either need to be with the team that drafted them, or have to have been traded during their rookie scale deal. Lowry was traded on his rookie scale deal, but not to us, so he's in a gray area, and with nothing official yet I'm not holding out much hope on getting a solid answer on this until January when the deal gets ratified and posted.

[DanH]

Tidbits I'm seeing leak out from various sources about the new CBA agreement. Windhorst, Aldridge, and Albert Nahmad in particular.

-> 45% increase in minimum, rookie scale, MLE, BAE salaries.
-> Increase in maximum salaries relative to cap (about 5% increase)
-> BRI definition might be changing, salary cap could go even higher than predicted
-> Minimum roster size increasing to 14 players. Max to 17, but two need to be two-way D-League deals.
-> Cap holds increasing as well (no confirmation on how much, rumour was ~50% more than previous holds)
-> Over 36 deals becoming over 38 deals - no real impact on Raps (or 99% of contracts signed)
-> Veteran extensions will actually be a thing - can be signed 2 years after contract signed, can be 4 years in length (or longer for some players who've been with a team for a while) and in special cases (quaifiers like all-star appearances, etc) can receive a raise in an extension like a rookie scale guy can.