The CBA, and How It Relates to the Nets:
1) The Salary Cap: The CBA sets a cap every July; this year’s will be around $60 million. The Nets are over the cap at $84.5 million, so can only acquire free agents through cap exceptions.
2) The Luxury Tax: a tax paid to the league and to teams under the tax, by teams over the tax line, of around $72 million next year. The further over the tax line you are, the more tax you pay. The Nets will pay this tax. Teams like to avoid the tax to receive distributions, instead of paying tax, and will dump salaries in deals to do this; the Nets can capitalize by looking to acquire these dumped players.
- Also, as a taxpayer, the Nets can acquire 125% + $100,000 of salary sent out in any deal. Nontaxpayers can acquire higher amounts of $:
i. Nontaxpayers sending out under $9.8 million may require 150% + 100K outgoing salary. If sending out $9.8-19.6 million, may acquire outgoing salary + $5 million. If sending out more, taxpayer rules apply.
3) The Apron: The apron is the line $4 million above the tax, around $76 Million next year. The Nets are over the apron, which poses many restrictions.
- A team that performs a sign/trade transaction must be under the apron at completion and is then hard capped at the apron for the season. This makes acquiring Dwight unlikely as I outline here: https://brooklynsbeat.com/2013/05/16/dwight-to-brooklyn-let-it-go/.
i. Note: You can only send out your players in a sign/trade.
- A team that uses that $5.15 million Midlevel Exception is hard capped at the apron for the season. The Nets are unlikely to use this exception
- A team that uses the Bi-Annual Exception of $2 million is hard capped at the apron for the entire season. The Nets are unlikely to use this exception
4) The Cap Exceptions: these can be used to exceed the cap.
- Available to teams above the apron like the Nets:
i. Minimum Salaries: All teams may use these. For next season, these range from $490,180-$1,399,507, depending on how long the player has been in the NBA. The Nets will use this exception.
ii. Mini Midlevel Exception: Teams above the apron receive this exception of $3.2 million instead of the Midlevel Exception; the Nets will likely use this on Bojan Bogdanovic though if they don’t, they can spread the $3.2 mill among multiple players.
iii. Bird Exception: Nets may exceed the cap to keep their players.
- Unavailable to teams above the apron like the Nets:
i. Midlevel Exception; Bi-Annual Exception; Sign/Trade Power:
5) Adding Cap Flexibility, the Stretch Exception: This allows the Nets to cut a player, and spread their cap hit over twice the years + 1 on their deal.
- Example: If the Nets stretched Gerald Wallace, they’d pay him the remaining money on his deal over 7 years. If another team were to sign him, Nets would only pay the difference due to the offset.
6) The Amnesty Provision and Andray Blatche: Andray Blatche as an amnestied player receives $8 million next year: part from the Wizards and part from his new team, which offsets the Wizards’ payment but DOES NOT provide Blatche with additional money. This means the Nets cannot be outbid for Blatche.
7) Facilitating Deals with Cash: Teams for 2012-2013 may insert up to $3.1 million cash in deals, expiring July 1. The Nets have not used any of this $ and may use it to buy picks as they did with Tyshawn Taylor and Toko Shengelia last year. On July 1, the $ expiries and the Nets get $3.2 million for 2013-2014.
****Nothing in this post should be used as legal or financial advice, or viewed as 100% accurate. This is merely my view of the CBA provisions as relevant to the Nets in the 2013 offseason.****
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