getting down to bass tax

There's been word that a lot of teams are going to go over the tax threshold next year, because the cap is rising so much next summer that a one-time tax hit will be worth it, and there won't be any likely repeater tax (double-tax?) the next year.

So what happens if a lot of things go our way this summer?
Any salary cap experts out there?
Can those trade exceptions we have be used to sign free agents from other teams, or only our own free agents?

Top free agents aside, there are plenty of scenarios where the Celtics cap space limits could easily be tested to the max, especially since we're about to see deals that look insane this summer but will look fair or great in a couple years.

It's hard to fathom what it actually means when we hear that the cap is going to almost double within two years. Huge jump in salary cap after next season, and then another huge jump in the cap after that.

To over-simplify it, it basically means that whatever you think a free agent is worth this summer, you're probably off by 50-100%. The media isn't talking about it yet, but the deals are about to leave the basketball world flabbergasted. Much like Jeff Green's deal left a lot of Celtics fans flabbergasted.

And the shock-value of most of these deals is going to be even higher because teams will break their own traditional standards just knowing that it will be a one-time tax hit.

It means Luol Deng might make more money next year than he did last year, even if he is basically on the decline. Two years, 26 million total is the type of deal he can probably expect this summer. Shocking, right?

And Roy Hibbert, he without the Larry Bird stamp of approval, may very well make the same 15 million dollars his player option is worth just by turning it down and signing a new longer-term deal. Wild! And that 15 million per may very well end up being from a team that only wants him as a backup center!

Tyson Chandler may very well get a two year max deal, or close to it. ridiculous!

It's going to be a very wild summer, and a lot of money is going to be made, and a lot of salary tax revenue is going to be headed to the NBA office coffers.

So let's look at a couple scenarios, or one interconnected scenario:

Danny signs Tobias Harris to the mini-max, I believe it is for him, which is like 16 million per. Expensive now, but much easier to "grow into" when the salary cap and market do all the growing for you.

I believe that would leave Boston with about 8 million in cap space, as is. Jae Crowder alone is probably worth that cap space, even with Harris on board.

But then there are other players FAs who would be a good fit in Boston, and who we could get if we only had more cap space.
Even an Omar Asik would be a great defensive role player off the bench, and situational starter. He was exposed a bit this season as a bit of a one-two year wonder, but he still would fill a valuable role for the Celtics off the bench.
If Danny amnesties GWallace, that opens up another 7 million, so I think we'd be up to 15 million. And I believe if we use that money before re-signing guys like Crowder, we can still sign those current Celtics, it would just put the Celtics over the cap for a one time tax hit.

15 million could probably get Jeremy Lin and Darrell Arthur, a defensive role player who can backup the 4 and the 5.
15 million would also get you Hibbert, who will be "overpaid" based on the fact that everybody will be getting overpaid over the next two years.
15 million would also get you Kosta Koufos with room to spare. He's about to get PAID.

I know all these numbers sound insane, and they are, but that's just the reality of what the market is going to be this summer.

I just don't know what the trade exceptions we have mean, so I'll look that up.
But money numbers aside, there's definitely a great opportunity to really improve the team this summer, to a degree I'm just now starting to realize.

Gyso is the man with all the answers as far as a salary cap and rules.

my understanding is those trade exceptions can only be used if we are above the cap. just like the mid level exceptions.

right now the Celtics are at about $42M in salarys on the books. but we have Crowders tender ( around $1.2M or so I think), our two draft picks ( around $3M). That moves us up to $46M plus . with the projected cap at around $66-67M.

BUT, we have many holds on our cap now also , most are small and form being over the cap for many years . players like Shaq, Wallace and other I believe. I am not sure anymore what those total, but they DO count against our cap until Danny renounces them.

the bigger holds this off-season are our UFA's. Their cap holds are 150% or last salary I think.

Bass's hold is something like $10.3M
Jerebko's is around $6.7M
Datome is $2.5M

of course we can sign the above players for less and lower the cap hit.

but right now with all the holds we are still OVER the cap for next season. A such Ainge can still use those trade exceptions ( the biggest I think is around $12M or so).

of course Ainge can renounce all cap holds including rights to Bass, Jerebko and Datome and have around $21-22M in cap space to sign anyone he wants. He'll lose those trade exceptions if he does and can't sign bass, Jerebko or Datome in that case.

I hope Gyso will correct anything I have mistaken here, so we have the into at 100%.

either way Danny has an interesting decision to make, it would seem.

Thanks a lot for that excellent info.

I'm reading a F.A.Q. about the CBA. Like, if we do go over the cap and use that big 12 million dollar trade exception on, say, Kosta Koufos, do the Celtics pay luxury tax on whatever amount is over the tax limit?

I've found this so far:

ROOKIE EXCEPTION -- Teams may sign their first round draft picks to rookie "scale" contracts even if they will be over the cap as a result

here's a link that shows at least some of the cap holds (perhaps all I am not sure of this website, sorry).

its a bit outdated as it was last updated at the beginning of the season. but for cap holds it seems fairly on target.


http://data.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/celtics.jsp


another link that maybe explains the cap situation a bit clearer than I can:

http://www.celticsblog.com/2015/2/21/8084067/salary-cap-update-post-trade-deadline

rambone wrote:Thanks a lot for that excellent info.

I'm reading a F.A.Q. about the CBA. Like, if we do go over the cap and use that big 12 million dollar trade exception on, say, Kosta Koufos, do the Celtics pay luxury tax on whatever amount is over the tax limit?

I've found this so far:

ROOKIE EXCEPTION -- Teams may sign their first round draft picks to rookie "scale" contracts even if they will be over the cap as a result

Gyso is a the man for 100% answers.

but I believe that we can use those trade exceptions to go over the luxury tax also.


I also like Koufos as an "under the radar" type of FA signing, but I would hope for more in the $5-6M range myself. I only see him as being able to share the Pivot with Zeller, not replace him as the starter. but if Koufos is the "fireworks" this off-season, I think a lot of Celtic fans would be at least mildly upset...LOL.

Trade exceptions can't be used to sign any free agents.
They can only be used for trades.
Regular trades or sign and trades.

kdp is correct.
IF Boston wants to get under the salary cap to sign other teams free agents, they will have to renounce the rights to their own free agents and will lose the trade exceptions. If they do that and want to re-sign Bass or Jerebko, they could re-sign them using a different exception. Bi-annual or mid-level exception or sign them to a veterans minimum contract, which of course, Bass or Jerebko would not do.

Boston cannot amnesty Wallace.
They could waive him via the stretch provision which would lower his salary cap number for the 2015-16 season from $10.1m to a little over $3.33m.

There's a lot of teams that will have money to spend this summer.
There will be a lot of competition for players services, which will mean there will be bidding wars and very high dollar contracts offered.

thanks, tjmakz.
I can't remember why Cleveland wanted our trade exception so bad last year, since they got LeBron in FA. I guess they just wanted it to free up cap space to sign LeBron.

So maybe they're only valuable if you trade them, assuming their valuable to another team for cap space reasons.

I just read that there's one exception to renouncing a player, where you can un-renounce him.

If say Bass was renounced because we wanted to make a big offer to Tobias Harris, but our offer sheet was matched by the Magic, then we could un-renounce Bass.

Yeah, getting Koufos would have roughly the same effect as trading up for WCS. We'd still have a need for a big boy to play situational minutes at center.

A Tobias Harris/Roy Hibbert front-court would actually work quite well, similar to how West/Hibbert worked well up until this year. It would also make re-signing Crowder make sense, since Crowder would be a good role playing starting SF next to Harris and Hibbert. Crowder could take the tougher defensive assignment and Harris the easier one.

But it sounds like getting both Harris and Hibbert and Crowder is next to impossible.

rambone wrote:I just read that there's one exception to renouncing a player, where you can un-renounce him.

If say Bass was renounced because we wanted to make a big offer to Tobias Harris, but our offer sheet was matched by the Magic, then we could un-renounce Bass.

You cannot un-renounce a player.

rambone wrote:A Tobias Harris/Roy Hibbert front-court would actually work quite well, similar to how West/Hibbert worked well up until this year. It would also make re-signing Crowder make sense, since Crowder would be a good role playing starting SF next to Harris and Hibbert. Crowder could take the tougher defensive assignment and Harris the easier one.

But it sounds like getting both Harris and Hibbert and Crowder is next to impossible.

Who would Boston trade for Hibbert?

looks like I got stretch and amnesty mixed up too. But the odds are Wallace gets stretched, even if I hope he stays as an assistant coach.

You can unrenounce in one specific case:

42. Can the renouncement be renounced? In other words, can a team un-renounce a player and then sign him using a Bird exception?

Only in one specific circumstance -- when they renounce one or more of their players in order to create enough cap room to sign another team's restricted free agent, but the restricted free agent's original team matches the offer sheet and keeps him. If that happens, the team can rescind the renouncement.

However, a team can't rescind a renouncement if doing so takes them from below the salary cap to above it; or if they are already above the cap and rescinding the renouncement takes them farther above the cap than they were before the renouncement. This closes a loophole -- it prevents a team from rescinding a player in order to make an offer, then if the offer isn't accepted using the resulting cap space to sign another free agent, before rescinding the renouncement to get back the renounced player's Bird rights.

I think Hibbert is going to decline his player option, so no trade necessary, but it doesn't look like we'd have nearly enough cap space to sign Harris And Hibbert.

yep, at BEST Ainge can sign one max player , or two- $10M players, three $7M players, four...well you get the idea.

he CAN have as much as $21M or so to use....or nothing.

rambone wrote:You can unrenounce in one specific case:

42. Can the renouncement be renounced? In other words, can a team un-renounce a player and then sign him using a Bird exception?

Only in one specific circumstance -- when they renounce one or more of their players in order to create enough cap room to sign another team's restricted free agent, but the restricted free agent's original team matches the offer sheet and keeps him. If that happens, the team can rescind the renouncement.

However, a team can't rescind a renouncement if doing so takes them from below the salary cap to above it; or if they are already above the cap and rescinding the renouncement takes them farther above the cap than they were before the renouncement. This closes a loophole -- it prevents a team from rescinding a player in order to make an offer, then if the offer isn't accepted using the resulting cap space to sign another free agent, before rescinding the renouncement to get back the renounced player's Bird rights.

I had never heard of this loophole or have never heard that is has been used.

does that 21 million include stretching GWallace, or would that add an additional 7 million to 21 million?

tjmakz wrote:

rambone wrote:You can unrenounce in one specific case:

42. Can the renouncement be renounced? In other words, can a team un-renounce a player and then sign him using a Bird exception?

Only in one specific circumstance -- when they renounce one or more of their players in order to create enough cap room to sign another team's restricted free agent, but the restricted free agent's original team matches the offer sheet and keeps him. If that happens, the team can rescind the renouncement.

However, a team can't rescind a renouncement if doing so takes them from below the salary cap to above it; or if they are already above the cap and rescinding the renouncement takes them farther above the cap than they were before the renouncement. This closes a loophole -- it prevents a team from rescinding a player in order to make an offer, then if the offer isn't accepted using the resulting cap space to sign another free agent, before rescinding the renouncement to get back the renounced player's Bird rights.

I had never heard of this loophole or have never heard that is has been used.

I just stumbled upon it while looking for trade exception details.

I suspect Bass gets renounced, especially with the small chance we could unrenounce him if we strike out on Tobias.

But it's hard to see a role for Bass in Boston, other than 4-5 million per to come off the bench and be a good lockerroom guy.

It sounds like if Danny just waits a couple weeks to sign his rookies, that gives Danny another couple/few million for free agent signings, since the rookies can be signed after even though it puts them over the cap.

So that should bring the cap space up to at least 23 million, and that's before Wallace is stretched.
Does that sound about right?

Nope, looks like those rookies have cap holds.

What if Gerald Wallace is traded – would there be room for two max free agents? How about using the stretch provision?

Wallace is owed $10.1 million next season. If he were wiped off the books (presumably for a 1st round draft pick,) the Celtics would have $31.8 million in cap room. This would enable them to sign two max players with six or fewer years of experience, but still only one max free agent with more experience. If Wallace were stretched, he would be on the books for the next three seasons at a little under $3.4 million per year. Without additional moves, this would not offer the Celtics the cap space for two max players.

celticsblog(dot)com/2015/2/21/8084067/salary-cap-update-post-trade-deadline

Rambone,

I would love to have Bass back at 5M to be a role player, good guy type veteran leader. He would be worth every penny in that role.

IMO, Bass and Crowder are the two most prototypical of "Celtic-type" players on the team.  Of course, defining a "Celtic-type" player could take us through next season.

Sam