If........ Charlie Ward retired, obviously it would open up a roster spot. Would his salary still count against our cap if he retired? Could he possibly retire and become a coach? In other words, we get him to retire and lose his contract off the books, but we still honor the money committment by paying him to coach for us. JVG likes him but he isn't gonna be much good to us besides charting shots or something. Maybe we could get him to retire and then we have a spot for somebody like Baxter? Then we still have Moochie, Baker, and Wesley as trade bait.
To get his roster spot the Rockets can just cut him. He doesn't need to retire. His salary will still count of course. With Spoon gone, I can see the team cutting Ward to give Baxter a spot if they want him on the team.
I understand we can cut him but if we cut him, his salary obviously counts against our cap. If he retires, can we erase his salary? Or if we cut him and his salary does count against us and we sign somebody like Baxter for the league minimum, does their deal count against our cap since it is a league minimum deal or does the league cover that salary and it doesn't count against us?
Ward was never in any danger of getting close to anyone's "prime". He sucked in the past, he sucks now and I bet he will suck more in the future.
I'm sure one of our capoligists will correct me, but I don't think league minimums count against the cap. So we can bring Baxter on without a problem even though we are over the cap and have used the MLE (Swift) & LLE (Anderson). There is a zero chance of Ward retiring so why even discuss it?
I doubt Ward will get cut. He's a good guy to have around. Hard worker, professional. Plus, JVG likes to keep three PGs on the roster, and DA isn't really a true point, and he and Sura are both big time injury risks. It wouldn't hurt to keep Ward around. Now that we've added DA, we already have 10 rotation guys (not including Ryan Bowen), no use in getting rid of Ward when we really aren't going to have the minutes for another impact player. Charlie's a professional and a good lockerroom guy. We may as well keep him around. I don't see why people on the board dislike him so much.
I think a team can only exercise the amnesty clause once a year. So just one player can be cut every year. Someone correct me if I am wrong.
Amnesty is a one-time only deal, it will not be availible after this season, or atleast until the current CBA expires. Also, the amnesty cut can only be used on one person if im not mistaken, besides, the amnesty cut deadline has already passed.
All min contracts do count in salary/lux tax calculations, though they all count same (don't punich older vets), something like 800-900K. I do hope we cut him to make room for Baxter. I don't know how if Ward retired this would impact things.
We can cut Ward at any time (or he can retire) but his salary still counts fully against the cap and the luxury tax. We can also buy out his contract, in which case it still counts, but can be taken over a longer period of time.
