Dispelling some myths about this off-season

[Stifle Tower]

Stop thinking of AK's expiring contract as an assett. The market for expiring contracts has shifted from a sellers market to a buyers market. Now teams are paying to have other teams absorb the expiring.

If the Jazz had to 'pay' OKC a Eric Maynor in order to have OKC absorb a partially insurred 6million dollar contract, what is it going to cost the jazz to unload AK's 17 mill?

Apples to oranges. It depends on whether a team is looking to dump salaries or if they are willing to take back salaries.

In the case of Harpring, the Jazz wanted to dump his $6M in salary so they wouldn't have to pay a tax penalty on that amount. The Jazz were unwilling to take back salaries so they had to A) only negotiate with teams under the cap and B) give up an additional asset to get a deal done.

Contrast that with New York. New York wanted to obtain an expiring contract so they would have cap room in 2010 to spend on FA's. They gave up a ton of assets to Houston to obtain T-Mac.

There are two scenarios to consider with AK - and it depends on what the Jazz do relative to Boozer. And to a lesser extent, Korver, but I don't see the Jazz bringing him back.

The luxury tax threshold is expected to be about $68M.

1. If the Jazz do NOT re-sign Boozer and Korver, they'll be pretty close to this amount - perhaps a couple million over (depending on how much it will cost to retain Matthews and Fes).

2. Re-sign Boozer and all of a sudden, the Jazz are looking at a payroll around $85. With the luxury-tax penalty, that balloons to $100M. No WAY in HELL Miller will pay that kind of money.

Under scenario #2, the Jazz HAVE to dump AK's salary this summer or at the deadline without taking back anything (or very little) in return. Simply letting his contract expire does no good. The Jazz have to wipe it off their books at the deadline to avoid the tax penalty. To do so would require a trade to a team under the cap, and the Jazz would really have to sweeten the pot.

Under scenario #1, the Jazz are very near the tax threshold, meaning they could take back $17M in salary and just pay a few million in luxury tax. Or, for example, take back $15M in salaries (which is within the 115% +100K rule for the other team) and maybe even get under the threshold. There may not be the volume of teams looking to dump longer-term deals that there were this season, but there will be some. And in this case, maybe the Jazz can get a solid veteran with say, a 3-yr deal, the rest in expirings or contracts that can be bought out and pick up a one or two future 1st-rounders (which would likely be lottery-protected).

 

[mellow]

That NY deal was crazy, I would like to have known if NY called KOC about Boozer & Korver expiring contracts before McGrady? But I can't recall another team paying for expiring contracts in some time, even on draft night teams were paying to get rid of salary: Chicago paid Washington a 1st round pick to take on Hirich's contract. New Orleans paid OKC draft position to take on Morris Peterson's contract.

Maybe that changes again to a sellers market next February, I don't know who's looking to clear space for 2011 or who the marquee FAs will be (are AK and Zach Randolf 'top tier' ???) But given the uncertainity of the CBA and the jazz's salary mess I suspect other teams will just sit back and watch them suffer long before they help them out. I guess there is always the outside chance that the jazz FO will get very aggressive......

 

[theNBAnerd]

a few responses...

Myth #1: Andrei’s trade value will increase toward the February deadline

this one is more true than people realize. it's easy to say, "trade AK's expiring contract," but the scenarios in which the jazz could do this would be few and far between. unless it's a salary dump (in which case the jazz would be the team surrendering the assets), a team has to either really want AK or really want to dump non-expiring salary. so if AK's one year and 17M sounds bad, do you really want to take back elton brand's 3 years and 43M? so that leaves us with the following: does an under-the-cap team really want AK bad enough to trade for him without sending back undesirable contracts? the nets, heat, knicks and bulls didn't clear cap space to go after AK. they'd have to strike out on a long list of marquee names to talk their fans into AK being an acceptable contingency plan -- and that's coming from one of this board's few remaining AK believers.

where i disagree with infection is that AK is just "bad salary." AK is overpaid, there's no question about that. but "bad salary" can't impact a game in that many ways. "bad salary" is tmac earning 23M to sit behind the bench in an armani.

Myth #2: Carlos Boozer can/will be used in a sign-and-trade

inf, you're wrong here. S&T isn't as complex as you think. i still think it's a long-shot option in boozer's specific case given the math involved (more on that in a sec), but you treat it like you need a team of army engineers to make it work. S&Ts happen.

the math: the S&T option generally works because it benefits everybody. player gets more money, new team gets a player they couldn't have gotten otherwise, old team gets an asset. but those first two are only true if you're talking about a max deal. if you're talking about a max deal, the old team can do max years and 10.5% raises, taking a contract starting at 16M to a much higher total than if there's one less year and 8% raises. but if the player isn't going to command a max salary anyway, then the new team can offset that by just raising the first year salary. in other words, if team X wants to surpass the jazz's offer of a deal starting at 10M with max raises, they'll just offer 12M and get him without surrendering any assets.

so what does all that mean? boozer's not going to get the max, so the bulls, nets, knicks and heat wouldn't need to give anything up to offer him a similar contract to what the jazz could offer with bird rights. if another team wanted him that DIDN'T have the cap space, then they'd have to explore sign and trade scenarios.

at the end of the day, though, likeliest scenario is that he re-signs or he walks.

Myth #3: We will use the mid-level exception

not a myth. we'll have to use a decent portion of it to retain matthews. i could make the case that they shouldn't use more than about 3M of it on him, but the fact is, they'll use it, or they'll lose matthews. but you're right, they won't use it to find a quality free agent from another team.

Myth #4: We will fix the big-man issue

i threw up a little when you made the jarron collins reference. but ya, not a lot of quick fixes here. if our big man picture looks drastically different next year, it will be because of internal improvement.

Myth #5: We have a plan as to which players we will bring back and will execute that plan aggressively

true. i think you always have a plan and a contingency plan... but you don't have to look any further than last july 1 to realize that players can exercise their rights just as easily as you can exercise yours. i think if the jazz had gotten their way last summer (and i had gotten mine), then boozer would have opted out and given them a 12.67M buffer on their team salary.... of course, if that had happened the team would have won 45 games and missed the playoffs, but still.

Myth #6: We can use our trade exceptions

also false. look, you're not going to get an allstar w/ trade exceptions, but a lot of teams will find themselves in similar positions to where the jazz were at last year: if we could only get rid of player X, we'll lessen our tax blow, and we'd be willing to surrender these assets to do it. obviously a lot depends on the other pieces in our own salary puzzle, but i guarantee you that any over-the-tax team with guys in that 4-6M salary range will make multiple calls to KOC next season

 

[vslice02]

Good post NBAnerd. Only thing I disagree with is about the MLE.

Myth #3: We will use the mid-level exception
not a myth. we'll have to use a decent portion of it to retain matthews. i could make the case that they shouldn't use more than about 3M of it on him, but the fact is, they'll use it, or they'll lose matthews. but you're right, they won't use it to find a quality free agent from another team.

Teams over the cap are allowed to still go over the cap to resign their own FA's. The MLE is used to allow teams over the cap to sign free agents from other teams. So Utah can resign Matthews without using any of the MLE on him.

 

[theNBAnerd]

Good post NBAnerd. Only thing I disagree with is about the MLE.

Teams over the cap are allowed to still go over the cap to resign their own FA's. The MLE is used to allow teams over the cap to sign free agents from other teams. So Utah can resign Matthews without using any of the MLE on him.

that's actually not true. it would be true if the jazz had matthews' bird rights, but they don't. they only have his "non-bird" rights, meaning they can sign him to 120% of his previous salary ($549,106), 120% of the minimum salary ($914,634), or the amount needed for a QO ($937,195), whichever is greatest. since 937K isn't going to be enough to re-sign him, the jazz will need to use a different exception to sign him. the bi-annual exception would work, but it's only $2.08M (might be too low a price for matthews) and can only be used for a max contract length of 2 seasons with an 8% raise in year two. so unless matthews will accept a two-year, $4.33M offer, the jazz will have to use some of the MLE to retain him.

 

[Chad Feldheimer]

"so unless matthews will accept a two-year, $4.33M offer, the jazz will have to use some of the MLE to retain him."

More like 4.33 per season for 2 to 3 years.

 

[theNBAnerd]

"so unless matthews will accept a two-year, $4.33M offer, the jazz will have to use some of the MLE to retain him."

More like 4.33 per season for 2 to 3 years.

that's my point, is that the bi-annual won't be enough, so the jazz will definitely be cutting off a slice of their MLE for him.

that said, 4.3M per season is too much for matthews. i know i'm one of the only jazz fans who believes that, but the historical value of guys who play that same role is not 3 yrs 13M. sorry.

 

[Chad Feldheimer]

that's my point, is that the bi-annual won't be enough, so the jazz will definitely be cutting off a slice of their MLE for him.

that said, 4.3M per season is too much for matthews. i know i'm one of the only jazz fans who believes that, but the historical value of guys who play that same role is not 3 yrs 13M. sorry.

I'll bet ya on that one. Matthews will get more than 4 million a year for at least 2 years most likely 3 years.

 

[theNBAnerd]

I'll bet ya on that one. Matthews will get more than 4 million a year for at least 2 years most likely 3 years.

i'm not saying he WON'T... i'm saying he SHOULDN'T.

i'm working on a jazzbros.com post about this, but in a nutshell: guys who played that role for championship teams very rarely made the kind of money you're talking about. we can't pay him the full MLE (6Mish) and still have a salary construct that allows us to assemble a title-contending team.

 

[beantastic]

I think someone that compares to what Nerd is saying might be a Trevor Ariza. Ended up in Houston makes just under 6 mil a year and he put up fairly similar numbers. You could argue he scored more points but he was shooting 13.9 attempts per game @ .394% for 14.9 ppg vs Wes at 6.9 attempts per game @ .483% for 9.4ppg. He does have an obvious rebounding advantage and you can blame that on either height or the fact that Wes was rebounding behind some good rebounders in Memo, Milsap, Booz, and AK. Anyway point is Should Wes get what Ariza got or is Ariza being overpaid?

 

[InGameStrategy]

i'm not saying he WON'T... i'm saying he SHOULDN'T.

i'm working on a jazzbros.com post about this, but in a nutshell: guys who played that role for championship teams very rarely made the kind of money you're talking about. we can't pay him the full MLE (6Mish) and still have a salary construct that allows us to assemble a title-contending team.

Um, Ron Artest evidently had that same MLE Ariza deal (5 years, $33 million). No I don't think that Matthews should get the full MLE, but I won't be surprised if he gets $3M to $4M+. After all, a poorer-contributing CJ did; fortunately Miles is miles ahead of that level of two years ago.

 

[silesian]

Myth #1: Andrei’s trade value will increase toward the February deadline

Only two options exist in which Andrei could be dealt at the deadline: 1) a contender wishing to add another piece to make their final push and 2) a team under the cap looking to acquire talent by absorbing bad salary.

There is a major flaw in your "myth bust" is that you are missing the most obvious reason: a team trading longer-term contracts for an expiring contract in order to free up cap space to use in landing free agents next year. There are dozens of examples of this happening in recent years.