I hate to admit this, but I have tried to understand the salary cap and I have actually read some of the rules about it, but it seems like Einstein's Theory of Relativity is easier to understand when you start throwing in the trade exception, mid level exception, Larry Bird rights, etc. My question is, and anybody who knows this please speak up, who all has not been signed other than Norris, Colson and Bullard? I'm going to go ahead and count Shandon with Mo, but I guess I'm really wondering about Langhi, Eddie, and TMo. Are they not signed because they have to wait on everybody else? Isn't there some cap on what rookies can make? If there is, and Eddie as well as Tmo are still unsigned, then when are they going to sign? I guess what makes it even more confusing is that they along with Langhi are all playing on the Rockets summer league teams, so it's not like they are going to go somewhere else. Any help would be appreciated.
Gee, thanks everybody for clearing the mystery of the salary cap up for me. It is so crystal clear to me now.
Ok Manny here goes, The NBA has a soft cap ($42.5 mil) and a hard cap (about $54.0 mil - derived by league revenue at the end of the following year/not really hard, just considered that way because going over this amount may cause a team to pay a league imposed luxury tax) The soft cap is used to derive all team salary moves. Players are in one of three catagories: 1. Signed and counting against the cap. 2. With the team, contract expired as a FA, and counting against the cap as a percentage of their salary (this percentage can vary up to 300% depending on a players Bird rights status) 3. FAs not on the team/unsigned that have zero cap burden until signed In addtion to the players each team may or may not have exceptions. There are several types of exceptions. These include: 1. Rookie exception (a team may sign their first round pick even if over the cap) These count against a team's cap if the team has a 1st round draft choice. 2. Minimum player salary exception (league minimum is $1.0 mil for players with 10+ yrs. in the NBA, if under 10 yrs, teams can pay less) 3. Bird exception (allows a team to go over the cap and sign a player to the league scale max contract if the player has been with a team for 3 consecutive yrs.) 4. Early Bird exception (similar to above, but a player must be with a team only 2 yrs. and the team can sign the player for 175% of his previous salary or the avg. league salary (greater of the two) for two yrs to six yrs. Player may also get 12.5% raises) 5. Non-Bird Exception (again similar to above, but for one yr. FAs with a team that may resign for 120% of their previous contract or league minimum salary (greater of the two). May be up to six yrs and player limited to 10% raises. 6. $1.0 mil (actually $1.3 mil this season - it ramps up each year until 2005) exception (granted to every team each year for use for signing FAs) 7. Mid-level exception ($4.5 mil this year (value changes each year to 108% of the league average salary)- also granted to every team each year for use for signing FAs - may be split up to sign several players) NOTE: This exception and the $1.0 mil exception are not granted to teams $5.8 million (total value of the two exceptions) below the cap ($42.5 mil). 8. Traded player exception (eg. We trade Walt to Chicago for nothing (assuming they have cap room) and they send us Walt's salary cap value - in this case $5.0 mil which is granted as an exception if we are over the cap) A team basically trades cap room for a player while the other team trades a player for cap room or can use the exception to get another player. Essentially, this process may also work in reverse. A team may trade this exception (you can only own this exception if you are over the cap) for a player. A trade exception may be split. Several trade exceptions may be combined. They basically become a lump sum exception a team may use as a whole or in parts. There are a couple other exceptions, but for now this is a good basis for understanding on exceptions. NOW All that being said...exceptions count against your salary. ugh! (eg. you have $38.0 mil in salary and unsign/unrenounced FAs, you also have your $1.0 mil.($1.3 mil), mid-level ($4.5 mil) and a traded player exception (lets say $3.0 mil). This would give you $46.8 mil against the cap. (yes, you may use the exceptions as explained above for actual salaries/players). Now lets say you renounce one of your free agents that was making $4.5 mil last year (simplified, see below). You now have $33.5 mil in salaries against the cap. You are $9.0 mil below the $42.5 cap. You automatically loose all your exceptions because the total value of your drop below the cap is greater than the total value of your combined exceptions ($8.8 mil). The FA you renounced above would actually count against the cap more that his actual salary. This is where bird rights come in. Bird rights assume a team will resign a veteran player to a new contract and assigns a higher value to that player until renounced. In the case above lets say that player was not coming off a rookie contract, had been with the team for 3 yrs. and was only making $4.0 mil. His unrenounced value would actually be $8.0 mil against the cap. Confused... You should be. Check a couple of resources and that may help. Realgm explains where teams are currently. Unfortunately, it frequently has errors. The Rocks numbers are correct, but they made mistake with exceptions and renouncements so they do not have the Rocks true situation. HCrispeeP We need to figure out the Rocks true cap situation. I will start on that after this post. Manny also try Larry Coon's NBA Salary Cap/Collective Bargaining Agreement FAQ I hope this all helps to some degree..... Keep the faith. It takes a while to get this. I can tell you it was a b!tch to write. ROCKET!!!
ROCKET!!!- We lost the TPE when we went under the cap to resign Mo. You can not have both usable cap space and a traded players exception at the same time. We didn't have to renounce it. We flat out lost it. According to my numbers, before we resign Moochie and and sign Griffin (he counts for about 300K more when he's signed than when he's unsigned) as well as Morris/Hill, we have about 1.3 mill in cap space. Cap space can be used the same as a traded player exception.
Thanks, ROCKET!!! In all fairness, my question is not an easy one to answer and I can see why MLB (players, that is) would not want to go to a salary cap. I will definitely take your advice and look at these other sites. However, when I hear things like that we are still paying Matt Maloney and that we had to renounce Devin Gray, that is when I really get confused. It's like why in the hell is Devin Gray still on our books!!?? I can understand Barkley but not him.
Manny I intended to wait until I could answer all your questions, but you shamed me into a premature reply. SA is HisssTowwwReee . Colson and Bull have been exorcised, "I renounce thee in the name of ...", although a slightly less demanding ceremony. The Mooch IMO, is HisssTowwwReee as is the Wiz, if ever a Wiz there was. (I think the addition of Rice and Hill makes the Mooch expendable and sets the stage for Jahidi Hidi Ho + = the Wiz come Sept. Although we could sign Mooch to an early bird, wouldn't be prudent) We have enough cap space to sign the draft picks,(3 including Hill) and roster space w/IR for everyone including Mooch, Jahidi + and even Bull, but the Rocks say they can't garauntee Bull a roster spot. Tmo and Hill would not be garaunteed contracts, expendable but won't cost much, relatively speaking. Mooch would be garaunteed and more costly. Probably + also. If the Rocks won't pack the IR for Bull, would they for Mooch? I say no, but they might do it just to prove me wrong. (It's happened before) It might best be expressed in the following equation: New Roster = Old Roster-(HA+SA+MB+MN)+(GR+YH+JW+(+)+EG+TM) Where Y equals Hill's first initial that I can't remember. It will make more sense in October. Maybe.
NIKEstrand, Yea, I'm with you, but I do not see how we got so far below the cap to sign Mo and loose our exceptions. We renounced CB and Los. Just befor the signing of Mo and after the renouncements I still have us @ +$32. mil and our exceptions at $13.2 mil. How did we get further than $13.2 below the $42.5 mil cap???? I can not see it! Pls. explain your line of thinking......thanks ROCKET!!!
Smoke: Thanks for the info. Do you or anyone else know why Devin Gray was still on our books and what's up with still having to pay Baloney?
Manny, I left out a fourth catagory of player/cap type. Waived/retired/injured players. We signed Maloney to a contract and then waived him. Not only are we obligated to pay him, but his salary counts against the cap. Barkley retired and his contract was up. We don't owe him money, but a percentage of his salary counted against the cap until renounced.
ROCKET!!!- We had to if we were able to resign Mo. The exceptions count against the cap, and we used pure capspace to resign Mo. There's no way we could have signed Mo without losing all of our exceptions. All of those exceptions would have counted against our cap and made it impossible to sign Mo - he had no exception rights to sign other wise, and clearly didn't use MCE. Once we renounced MCE the amount below the cap where we lose changed. In either case, the Rockets had to make further renouncements to be able to accept Rice for Shandon. Rice makes more than 15%+100K than Shandon. crispee outlined it before - It's not possible to use our cap space and keep exceptions. Cap space is more valuable than an exception(s).
Nikestrad, I get the concept. I just don't see how we got the numbers to work. That is why I was asking your help....Thanks, again. If you could lay out the numbers it would be most appreciated.
Since everyone seems to be on the subject of the exceptions and salary cap, was the player exception Dallas received in the trade not the one that we received from Toronto? If it wasn't, I thought a team had to be under the cap in order to take back less salary (i.e. pippen deal). I understand very little about the cba so please refrain from flaming me.
Manny Like ROCKET!!! explained, about waived players, Devin was waived and cleared the waiver, meaning noboody picked him up. That made us responsible for his salary and his rights. As a FA this year, he counted against our cap until we renounced his rights.
ROCKET!!! Get the CBA and look at the beginning definitions. Look at the definition for "Room." It is black and white that you either get spending room or exceptions....NOT BOTH!!! I have confirmed this with Larry Coon, and he even wrote a new FAQ just for it, after I showed him all the media confusion in Houston.
Crispee, Yea, I printed that just a little while ago. I still have the same question regarding our cap space that I posed to NIKE. I can not get to the number that allowed us to sign Mo T - $13.2 mil under the cap (the total value of our exceptions). Any thoughts?
Your numbers must be wrong. The Rockets do not make contract's public, so RealGM and the Chronicle are often assuming. btw: by my numbers, our exceptions added up to $12.1m.
