In my newfound attempt to branch out from my focus on the Miami Heat and find interesting storylines from across the NBA, I offer the following description of the case of Kyrie Irving, the star point guard of the Cleveland Cavaliers who is rumored to be unhappy with his current team. 

Cleveland Cavaliers basketball fans had their worst nightmare realized when LeBron James left the state of his birth and took his talents to the South Beach in the summer of 2010, where he has gone on to reach the NBA Finals in three consecutive seasons with the Miami Heat, winning two championships and vying for more.

The scars of James’ departure four years ago are far from healed. And yet, now, Cavs fans are being forced to deal with speculation as to the possibility of losing its new star, Kyrie Irving.

Irving’s four-year rookie-scale contract, signed in December of 2011, runs through next season. That’s more than a year away. But the Cavs will get better insight into his intentions far sooner than that.

That’s because NBA rules stipulate that an extension to a rookie-scale contract can only be executed from the day following the July moratorium preceding the player’s fourth season to the following October 31. This is a confusing concept, so let’s reiterate: an extension to a rookie-scale contract must be executed before the player even plays the final season of his rookie-scale contract.

For Irving, the window begins this coming July 10. If he hasn’t executed an extension at some point between July 10 and October 31, he would no longer be eligible for one. He’ll have to wait until the summer of 2015 to sign a new contract.

The Cavs will certainly offer Irving a maximum contract extension once they’re allowed to on July 10, and if he hasn’t signed it by the end of October, they’ll know he’s not wholly committed to his current franchise, and his fate will become a constant distraction for the Cavalier organization for the entirety of next season.

But the Cavs aren’t without significant leverage.  Read more…

It has been suggested that the Miami Heat were engaged by the Philadelphia 76ers with an interesting proposition at the Feb. 20 NBA trading deadline. It has been suggested that Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie proposed a trade to Heat general manager Pat Riley of Evan Turner, in exchange for Udonis Haslem and a future first round draft pick.

Riley reportedly rejected.

Did he do the right thing? Well, that’s for you to decide.

The Mechanics

Let’s get a couple things out of the way before we begin.

First, the rumored trade, as described, doesn’t work. It violates salary cap rules.

Taxpaying teams like the Heat can only take back up to 125% of their outgoing salaries, plus $100K, no matter how much salary the team is sending away.

Haslem makes $4.3 million this year. He can therefore only be traded for a player(s) who makes as much as $5.5 million. Turner makes $6.7 million.

When trades are rumored about, oftentimes only the vital components are leaked. The technical details are often either not yet established or not considered vital, and are therefore not leaked alongside the rest of the trade. If indeed this rumor is true, that may be what’s happened here, particularly because the solution is simple. If the Heat were to add an expiring contract to the deal – say, for example, Rashard Lewis – the trade would be legal.

Second, there’s the matter of the draft pick. The concept of including a first round draft pick is quite vague. When would that pick be conferred? What protections would be attached to it?

The Heat’s current predicament answers these questions, and quite nicely.  Read more…

Update (3/8/14): The Heat have signed DeAndre Liggins to a second 10-day contract. Once this one expires, the Heat can’t offer him another one. By league rules, the Heat would need to offer Liggins (at least) a rest-of-season contract (at any time through the end of the regular season) or nothing.

The Miami Heat have made the first use of their NBA D-League affiliate after purchasing operational control this season, with Tuesday’s questionable signing of swingman DeAndre Liggins of the Sioux Falls Skyforce to a 10-day contract.

Liggins had been playing with the Skyforce as an unaffiliated player, and was free to sign with any NBA team.

The 6-foot-6-inch, 209-pound Chicago native was originally recruited out of high school as a point guard by the University of Kentucky for the incoming class of 2008. He spent his first two years mostly coming off the bench, but in his junior year, coach John Calipari decided to start him as a shooting guard. After his junior season, he elected to enter the 2011 NBA Draft.

Liggins was selected with the 53rd overall pick by the Orlando Magic. He spent the year with the Magic on a one-year minimum salary contract, barely playing. He went on sign with the Oklahoma City Thunder for the 2012-13 season, during which time he had multiple assignments with the D-League’s Tulsa 66ers.  Read more…

The Miami Heat have dumped the contract of Roger Mason Jr. at the Feb. 20 trade deadline, in a move that saves owner Micky Arison $1.05 million and opens up a roster spot to utilize either on a current free agent or on a player to be waived over the next 10 days.

The Heat will send Mason Jr. to the Sacramento Kings, who are expected to immediately waive him. They’ll also send $786,095 in cash to complete the deal.

While that amount of cash may seem random, it actually isn’t.

Mason Jr. is a 10-year N.B.A. veteran. He is playing under a one-year contract. He is earning $1,399,507, the minimum salary for a player with his tenure. However, he is only required to be paid $884,293 of that amount, equal to the minimum salary for a two-year N.B.A. veteran. The league will reimburse the rest at the end of the season. Therefore, he really only costs the smaller amount, and only the smaller amount is included in team salary for cap and tax purposes. They do this so teams won’t shy away from signing older veterans simply because they are more expensive than younger veterans.

As for the mechanics of how the reimbursement works, he is to be paid his full prorated salary of $8,232.39 per day (equal to his $1,399,507 salary divided by the 170 days in the regular season), until the total reaches $884,293. At that point, he continues to get paid his fully prorated salary but the league reimburses the rest. With the regular season having started on Oct. 29, he earned that much by Feb. 13, 2014. Since that time, his services have essentially been free of charge for the Heat.

However, since the contract has now been traded, the reimbursement will get allocated to the respective teams based on the number of days accrued with each team. Therefore, while the Kings will be responsible for the $452,782 remaining on his contract for the 55 days left in the regular season, they will actually only owe $286,095 after accounting for the reimbursement.

The Heat essentially covered his remaining salary obligations for the Kings, and then topped it off with a $500,000 profit, which serves as the only impetus for Sacramento to make the deal.

In order to send something back, which is required in all trades, the Kings will return the Heat a 2015 second-round pick which is protected for selections 31-49 and 56-60. If the pick ultimately falls within either of its protected ranges and is therefore not conveyed, then Sacramento’s obligation to Miami will be extinguished. This essentially means that the Heat will only get the pick if it lands between pick numbers 50 and 55.

While this range may seem random, it actually isn’t.

The Kings intended to provide enough protection on the pick to ensure that it will never be received. Such trades are commonplace in the N.B.A., and are typically accomplished by trading away a second-round pick on condition that it lands within the last five of the draft. However, the Kings have previously traded the pick to the Boston Celtics with that condition. So, now, the Celtics will receive the pick if it is among the last five, the Heat will receive the pick if it is among the previous five, and the Kings will retain the pick if it is among the first twenty of the second round, as is likely.  Read more…

This post has nothing to do with the Miami Heat but I, as a salary cap person, love intricate luxury tax maneuvering. And the situation described herein is particularly entertaining to me. It should be noted that the idea for this post was not my own. It stemmed from an incorrect post I read elsewhere, for which I happily provided the correction, and then decided to write an accurate version for myself, in my own words, with my own emphasis, and using my own storyline. It’s long and it’s tedious, but the end result is utterly spectacular (well… spectacular for people who are amazed by how teams maneuver around luxury tax issues).

Most of us assumed that when the Chicago Bulls acquired the contract of the unremarkable Andrew Bynum in trade last month, it was to drop them below the luxury tax.

It was. But the process has been far more complicated than most of us, apparently including Bulls management themselves, realized.

For a long time, it appeared as if Bynum would be shipped off to Los Angeles, so that the Lakers could capitalize on his unintendedly valuable contract.

The nature of Bynum’s contract essentially meant that he was auditioning for the Cleveland Cavaliers from the date he was signed on July 19 all the way through the guarantee deadline on January 7, an audition he failed. Bynum’s deal called for a $12.25 million salary this season, of which only $6.0 million was guaranteed. Next season’s salary of $12.54 million was fully unguaranteed. Therefore, a two year contract was really just a six month commitment. But it also meant that any team which acquired his $12.25 million salary in trade could immediately thereafter terminate his contract, thus reducing his salary and resulting cap charge from $12.25 million to $6.0 million.

The Lakers have been luxury tax payers for six straight seasons. They were in position to leverage that $6.25 million delta to sneak below the tax for this season, producing huge up-front savings. And because they are unlikely to be taxpayers next year as they tear down their roster and rebuild, two consecutive years below the tax would have had an added benefit – no “repeater taxes,” which are paid by taxpaying teams that were also taxpayers in at least three of the previous four seasons, for the Lakers for the entire life of the current CBA, which will almost certainly be terminated after the 2016-17 season.

It was a potentially massive financial windfall for the Lakers at a cost of just the expiring contract of Paul Gasol (and another irrelevant throw-in to make the math work).

The Cavs had been after Gasol since this past summer, when they had extensive discussions with the Lakers, and were more than eager to make the swap. But the Lakers were demanding more for Gasol than just the massive financial savings. The Cavs refused.

That’s when the Bulls swooped in.  Read more…

The Indiana Pacers added size and depth Saturday when they signed center Andrew Bynum to a contract for the reason of the season.

The Pacers had $2.15 million left of their full-midlevel exception. However, starting January 10, it has been prorating down at a rate of 1/170 per day. As of Saturday, it was valued at $1.859 million, which was roughly equivalent to the amount by which the Pacers were below the luxury tax threshold.

They ended up using $1 million of it on Bynum, earning him $441K more than the minimum.

The move still gives the Pacers additional room below the tax to make roster moves, if necessary.

Bynum, who will join the Pacers next week, will back up All-Star Roy Hibbert along with Ian Mahinmi. Also featuring power forwards David West and Luis Scola, the Pacers will have some of the best depth in the N.B.A. at the big man positions.

The move also kept Bynum away from the rival Miami Heat, who beat the Pacers in seven games in last season’s Eastern Conference finals.

Five teams were interested in Bynum, including the Heat, but it was the Pacers who had a roster spot and the space under the luxury tax to add him now.

The Heat had the ability to match and outbid the Pacers for Bynum because they have all of their $3.183 million taxpayer mid-level exception still remaining, which has been prorated down to $2.752 million as of Saturday.

However, the Heat currently have a full roster of 15 players and a luxury-tax bill of $15.5 million, meaning signing Bynum would have been expensive.

Matching the offer from the Pacers would have cost the Heat $3.2 million, increasing total payroll obligations to nearly $108 million for the season, though that figure is still below the team’s projected payroll prior to the Joel Anthony trade.

There were methods the Heat could have employed to reduce that cost substantially.

Trading away both Roger Mason Jr. and Toney Douglas, if such trades were possible, would have created a cash flow positive scenario for the Heat, even after paying Bynum his million. It would have also opened up an additional roster spot with which to attract a wing player who specializes in long-range shooting and defense.

In the end, however, the Heat were only willing to offer Bynum the minimum, at a cost, when including the tax, of $1.1 million. It wasn’t enough.

The Feb. 20 N.B.A. trade deadline is now officially less than a month away.

The Miami Heat started their dealings early this season, shipping Joel Anthony to the Boston Celtics along with a million dollars and two draft picks (one second-rounder and another that was originally Philadelphia’s and will likely become a pair of second-rounders). In return, the Heat got a player from Golden State, but this deal wasn’t about Toney Douglas as much as it was about the benjamins.

Anthony, who lost his role to Chris Andersen last season and had been a reclusive presence on the court ever since, ultimately became a casualty of the Heat’s cash crunch and managing partner Micky Arison’s desire to creep closer to the luxury-tax line. He didn’t get there, not with this deal, but it did save him around $20 million, and it did eliminate one of the obstacles to reshaping the roster after this season, when LeBron James, Dwyane Wade and Chris Bosh can all opt out of their existing contracts.

Now, it’s conceivable that only Norris Cole ($2.0 million) and Udonis Haslem ($4.6 million option) will be under contract on July 1, as Arison, Pat Riley and the Heat try to retain James, Wade and Bosh, and perhaps Mario Chalmers, Ray Allen, Michael Beasley and even Greg Oden.

That’s the long-term vision.

The short-term? The trade did nothing to advance the cause. The Heat, championship material as they are currently constructed, nonetheless have various needs that have yet to be addressed.  Read more…

The Miami Heat have traded center Joel Anthony to the Boston Celtics, as part of a three-team deal, in exchange for guard Toney Douglas from the Golden State Warriors.

The Heat also sent the Celtics $1 million in cash and a pair of draft picks to complete the deal: A 2016 second-round pick and a lottery protected first-round pick originally acquired from the Philadelphia 76ers that will become a pair of second-rounders in 2015 and 2016 if the Sixers fail to make the playoffs this season and next.

The trade isn’t about Joel Anthony and isn’t about Toney Douglas.

It’s also not about Greg Oden, who appears to be on the verge of moving into the Heat’s rotation, or about Andrew Bynum, and how money freed up from today’s trade might make such a signing more financially palatable.

The trade is, more than anything else, a continuing recognition that the harshest elements of the new Collective Bargaining Agreement will take its toll on how the Heat do business.

This past summer, it was the amnesty release of Mike Miller. Then it was declining to utilize the mid-level exception. Now it’s moving Anthony’s untenable contract off the books, a move, when accounting for his 2014-15 salary will save the Heat at least $20 million.  Read more…

Note: This post has been updated from December 6 to reflect recent events.

The Miami Heat organization appears to be content with its current roster.

The team’s three stars – Dwyane Wade, LeBron James and Chris Bosh – are all producing career highs in scoring efficiency while playing career lows in minutes, a strategy designed to preserve their health and endurance for the playoff run ahead. The team can afford to implement such a strategy because it has the most and highest quality depth in the Big Three era. And it still has a potentially game-changing piece in Greg Oden who has yet to play this season but is reportedly making strong progress toward that goal.

The team is feeling so comfortable with its roster, in fact, that it, somewhat surprisingly, chose to guarantee the contract of Roger Mason Jr. and, in doing so, kept its roster at the full 15-player maximum, despite the fact that a seemingly wonderful alternative in Andrew Bynum had become available on the free agent market and had listed the Heat as a preferred destination.

If the Heat is to reciprocate that interest, it first needs to clear a roster spot. With its already monstrous payroll and limited backcourt depth, the preferred way to do that is to trade away the untenable contract of seldom-used center Joel Anthony.

They must move quickly. The Heat has only until the Feb. 20 trade deadline to execute a trade prior to the end of this season. And Bynum is currently an unrestricted free agent who can sign with any team at any time.

Anthony is being paid $3.8 million this season, and he has a player option for next season at the same value which he is sure to exercise. When including the tax, he will cost the Heat $11.8 million this year and as much as $17 million next year. The Heat can save all but the $1.7 million of that and counting they’ve already paid him in salary for this season. What would you trade in exchange for $27 million?  Read more…

In a move that has the Chicago Bulls thinking about the future but could have major implications for the Miami Heat in the present, the Bulls executed a significant trade with the Cleveland Cavaliers Tuesday morning. They sent forward Luol Deng to the Cavs in exchange for center Andrew Bynum, three future draft picks and huge payroll savings.

The Bulls get a first round draft pick owed to the Cavs by the Sacramento Kings, which is top-12 protected in 2014, top-10 protected from 2015 through 2017, and, if not conveyed, converts to a 2017 second round pick if it is in the top 55 and nothing if not. They also get second round picks in 2015 and 2016, acquired by the Cavs from the Portland Trail Blazers. Finally, the Bulls will be able to swap positions with the Cavs in the first round of the 2015 draft as long as the Cavs’ pick is outside the top 14.

In addition to the draft picks, the Bulls will recognize huge payroll savings because Bynum’s current $12.25 million salary is only $6 million guaranteed. The trade will cut about $7.8 million off their cap and get them out of the tax. Chicago will save about $6.8 million in salary payouts and $12.3 million in taxes, as well as qualify for a tax distribution (paid to teams below the tax from half of the tax proceeds of teams above the tax) currently estimated at $3.2 million. That’s more than $22 million in instantaneous savings⁽¹⁾.

In order to recognize the savings, the Bulls will terminate Bynum’s contract shortly. He’ll then be placed on waivers at 5:00 pm, where he’ll remain for the following 48 hours, during which time other teams may assume his contract. No team in the league has the necessary cap space (or a large enough trade exception) to claim him. At 5:00 pm on Thursday, Bynum will become an unrestricted free agent.

Rumor has it that he wants to join the Los Angeles Clippers or the Heat.

Should the Heat be interested? Absolutely!  Read more…