(07-03-2023, 01:18 AM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: Question for you….
Curry is reported as BAE, but it isn’t final yet. It fits under the TP MLE as well. Is the TP MLE a hard cap trigger?
What I’m thinking (possibly) is if the Mav’s don’t use the BAE, trade for a non-free agent (so not a S&T) and only use a 10% trade spread, can they exceed $172mm? I’m not saying it is likely. I’m just trying to think through all of the possibilities. Thanks
You are correct in that NONE of the players have actually signed and NONE of the trades have actually been submitted and made official. There is plenty of opportunity to pivot and change course.
HOWEVER ....
The issue with the hard cap at Apron 1 is that there are multiple ways to trigger it, and it becomes absolute once triggered. And most importantly, the mechanisms to add to your payroll become extremely stifled.
So let's say you decide to make Curry a TxpMLE instead of BAE. What happens then?
Then in your planning, you can't sign anyone else over the minimum. And more importantly, if you are going to do trades, your 7.5M trade spread vanishes, as does the 200% and 125%, and in its place you only have 110% to work with. The Bertans trade doesn't open up much of a window at all to take back salary, because his 17M+10% is now only bringing back Holmes + 6.7M (or maybe even only 4.9M, if the TK is included) +250K. Adding McGee only increases that spread by about 575K.
So here's the money point: If you are hard-capped, even if you trade ALL your tradable players, you probably don't have the ability to have a payroll that goes up to Apron 1, even though you can exceed it. Play with it on paper and it becomes readily apparent how much different that world is, with almost no trade spread to work with. Trades get HARD to match.
There is not a workaround where you can easily fly past the Apron. The CBA designers worked hard to make it so that it becomes very hard to add salary once you try to surpass the Apron. What we would like to do -- we want to go past the Apron and spend more, and still do the same additions -- they cut off those openings. You can't spend the full MLE or the BAE. You can't do the Bertans trade 1st, using the 7.5M spread + more, because then that hard caps you at Apron 1.
Hope that helps.