If we sign Deke to the veteran minimum, not only does he not count against the luxury tax, the NBA pays a good chunk of the salary. Remember that San Antonio had to give up Scola to get under the tax threshold. There is no way we get back an asset, like a pick, in exchange for a salary dump. Even Head. We will have to give up an asset, in addition to the player, to get the deal done.
Now that's what I thought! (except I thought we paid a part of the salary [[the 2 year $797k?, and the league paid the rest). Which effectively negates the impact of the luxury tax (since the tax we pay is in lieu of actually paying the player! That in mind, I think Damon Stoudamire firms up as a real shot at making the roster - he's a 10 year vet who would only cost us $797k (while making $1.3million). I've got a hunch we'll take a stab at a 7 footer - (see Woods, Loren from last season) and since Marcus Campbell is in camp, it would make sense for him to be the one included - the bonus is that he only costs $445k My projected roster would therefore be: Alston/ Brooks/ Francis/ Stoudamire McGrady/ Barry/ Head Ming/ Dorsey/ Campbell Scola/ Landry/ Hayes Artest/ Battier Mike Harris is unlucky again at the start of the season, but as a minimum salary guy who is available, he could probably be drafted onto the roster at some stage of the season should we feel comfortable making a move. Yeah - we'd pay a couple of million in tax - but worse things have happened in life!
To my understandings, only the league's reimbursement wont count against salaries and LT. For a 10+ year veteran minimum, 797K will count as salaries and the team needs to pay LT if its salaries are over the LT threshold.
Jackie Butler is no longer on the Rockets' payroll. His "bloated contract" had a TEAM option for 2008-09, which the Rockets obviously declined to pick up when they waived him last year. It is Justin Reed who had the PLAYER option for 2008-09, which was obviously exercised when he was waived. But his salary is only about $1.75M. Given the logjam of players on last season's training camp roster, the Rockets should feel lucky that this is the only leftover salary commitment for players not on the team.
That is correct. All minimum players (regardless of experience) count towards the salary cap and the luxury tax at the minimum level for second year players. This even includes rookies. In most cases, the team pays the player the second year veteran minimum, with the league kicking in the rest of the salary. For rookies, I think the team just pays the rookie minimum without any help from the league. However, for salary cap and luxury tax purposes, the rookie's salary counts at a higher level than the actual money being paid to him. This rule was put in place to discourage teams from rounding out their rosters with a bunch of rookies instead of veterans in order to minimize their luxury tax exposure.
What's that? I have never heard about that part in NBA salary cap. But there is a minimum team salary which is 75% of salary cap, ow, there will be a surcharge
