I know that NBA Stars are insured and if they get injured, the insurance companies might pay for some of the salaries. Is this true in the case of T-mac and Yao Ming? If yes, then Morey should use the money to sign a good player or players, even if going over the luxury tax
Holy crap... Dude, we did. We signed ariza with yao's DPE. Did you have a dream about this after reading that article or something..?
That is not what i mean DPE is a salary cap thingy. i'm talking about the insurance company paying for some/all of the injured salaries with regards to t-mac and yao ming, thus saving the team and franschise money.
OK, it has been reported that many teams want T-mac because he is injured and comes off the book next season. it has also been reported that part of t-mac 22 million salary will be paid by an insurance company, so wouldn't that be the same for yao. Again, i not talking about cap space or luxury tax, but the actual earning of the injured superstars( with huge salaries). If Les can save money by not paying the full amount to yao and t-mac(due to insurance), i feel that he should be willing to go over the luxury tax to compete next season.
My understanding is that insurance money will pay TMAC's contract until he is healthy enough to play so that all depends when he returns but if it is in Feb as expected he will save quite a bit of money there. I am not positive on Yao but I can only assume its the same and if thats the case he wont pay anything on Yao this season. I think Les will be aiming to avoid paying any Tax BUT and this is a huge BUT if they right deal came along I dont think he will stop Morey from making the move to better the team but I doubt it would be on older players more like young athletic wings or bigs that can grow with the team.
It is my understanding that insurance will be covering 80% of Yao and Tracy. Assuming Yao's out for the entire year and McGrady's out until late January, that would mean about $23M of their combined $39M is picked up by insurance. Les isn't free to just spend that, since cap restrictions still apply. But it makes it easier for him to cross the tax threshold without feeling the hit. He forfeits the $3M that teams under the tax receive in tax redistribution, and the tax is a dollar for dollar hit, so that $23M affords him $10M in "play money" I highly doubt we end up going past $5M over the tax - crossing this year is fine, but that can put us in a terrible position for the following, when the tax & cap are supposed to plummet, and we no longer have the saving grace of insurance. Have to be careful.
Yes, we can collect about $40 million in insurance. However, all of it still counts against the salary cap. We've already spent $5.7 million of that. Logically, one would think we could spend $18 million, with a luxury tax doubling that to $34 million and still break even. However, there are a few issues with that theory: - Not many players want to be 1-year rentals. If you give them more than 1 year, you eat into your spending flexibility in 2010. - If you go over the salary cap, you don't get the luxury tax revenue that is spread across non-tax paying organizations. That's additional money out the window, basically. - I don't think there's a rush to compete for anything this year. We're not going to win a championship, so what's the point of adding a 1-year rental other than to waste money? Our young guys should get the opportunity to grow this year which is more important that being a #8 seed in the playoffs and getting bounced quickly.
Also note that Les Alexander spent $6 million of his own money of draft picks this year. He's did it last year too, and probably the year before that.
