[CBA Circumvention Article] Question(s) for Bima or any attorney that can decipher legal docs

I'm not a lawyer either, so maybe you'd rather wait for one. And, I just get little red Xs for your legal docs. But, I thought the CBA had some general language to allow the central office to declare anything circumvention if it violated the spirit of the CBA. What you propose sounds like a violation of the spirit.

But, we just suffered through a year of rookies at PF. I don't know why you'd want to suffer another.

 

Not only is it a violation of the spirit of the CBA, but the other team would have nothing to compel them to make the other end of the deal with you.

 

Why is the CBA getting into circumcision issues?

 

The CBA is not a set of restrictions, it is governing document that explicitly states how the league is to be governed between the players and the teams. If the CBA doesn't say you CAN do something, then you can't do it.

You can of course make handshake deals, but my point was that if the other team backs out on you there is nothing you can do.

 

Larry Coon as always has the answer for you.

The trade you keep on proposing is a clear attempt to circumvent the rules regarding maximum cash transactions per year/trade, and the salary cap hold of an unsigned draft pick, so the NBA would have excellent cause to disallow the transaction and most likely take away future draft picks from the Rockets.

However, there is a very simple way to accomplish the same thing mechanically while still being legal under the CBA. The Rockets could agree to trade Robinson for a pick on draft night, like in the 2006 Shane Battier/Stromile Swift trade. For cap reasons, that transaction could not be completed until after the July Moratorium when Shane's BYC status expired, but was locked in during the draft. Concerning the present day Rockets, they could easily agree to trade Robinson on draft day (making the pick for the other team), but delay the final execution of the deal until July 10th, after the moratorium. If Dwight does not sign with the Rockets, the deal can be completed as as originally agreed to. If Dwight does want to come to the Rockets, the Robinson/draft pick swap can be folded into a 3-way sign-and-trade with the Lakers. This would give LA the largest trade exception in the league, but would not count against the luxury tax, freeing them to spend as much or as little as they deem necessary for next year despite being far over the salary cap.

Two transactions between two teams within a very short time frame reeks of circumvention, but a single transaction being folded into a larger deal to generate trade exceptions is very commonplace and legal.

 

basketballholic,

Your trades are illegal, but not because of circumvention, but because you are trying to execute parts of the PF trade at different times. You can't trade the PFs this month, then, as part of the trade, have the other team send you a player/asset later at the time you designate -- in this case, after we sign a free agent.

Future compensation is clearly not allowed in NBA trades. Indirectly it is via the Traded Player Exception, but even then, you are not allowed to name that player (or asset) earlier. Except where the TPE applies, all parts of the trade (salary-matching, etc) must execute simultaneously.

If two teams try to break those rules to make a behind-closed-doors agreement to make a future trade based on getting a FA or not, then, yeah, that's circumvention or tampering.

 

Show me where it says you can do it in the CBA.

 

Show you what? That trades have to be executed simultaneously, except if a TPE is generated. If you don't believe that, then read the explanation of what a TPE is.

This isn't even about circumvention. Your trade must execute at the same time.

But dude, your trade can happen. It just has to happen the same day we get Howard. And that is likely a scenario Morey is working on.

Circumvention does not detail trade timing. But the trade rules do. Also, this is why you have never heard of a "Player/Asset To Be Named Later" as part of NBA trades like you do in MLB.

 

Maybe I'm not understanding your deal here.

You said trade them our PFs into their cap space, meaning we'd receive nothing.

Then after that we'd trade them our first in 2014 for whatever player they drafted.

Is that correct?

 

Not the way you explained it, it isn't.

Didn't you say that you did not want their draft pick or our PFs to count on our salary cap until you completed signing Howard in July....such that, for a temporary period of time, our PFs are off our bookc AND we have rights to the player/pick but he doesn't count against our cap, either?

That means the trade starts in June and doesn't finalize until after signing Howard, yet everyone involved in the trade is off our books. That's not allowed.

 

No, after re-reading it seems like he's saying trade the players to them for nothing, just to free cap space and then trade our 2014 pick for whatever player they took in the draft.