01-14-2020, 08:20 PM
We now interrupt our regularly scheduled bickering about Powell (he sucks, no he's great, no he sucks) to talk a little capology and strategy...
In Hollinger's piece yesterday in The Athletic he put out a list of players teams SHOULD be targeting in trade. In the middle of his piece was this little gem:
"Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Charlotte – What?!?!?! Hear me out. Kidd-Gilchrist could be a sneaky piece for teams that find themselves blocked from trading for high-salary players.
There are several teams that don’t have enough matching salary to acquire players with high-teens salaries like Andre Iguodala, Evan Fournier or Dennis Schröder. But most of them have juuust enough to swing a deal for Kidd-Gilchrist.
Why does this matter? Because teams could conceivably do back-to-back trades that acquire MKG and then legally turn and flip him for a player like Iguodala – the rare but occasionally useful “stepladder” trade. (We did a kind of similar thing in Memphis in 2015, when we didn’t have a trade exception big enough to acquire Matt Barnes, but did have one big enough to acquire Luke Ridnour … who we then traded for Matt Barnes).
If the Lakers coveted Iguodala, for instance, they could package DeMarcus Cousins, Quinn Cook and Troy Daniels to Charlotte for MKG and Willie Hernangomez — generating a $9.5 million trade exception for the Hornets while saving them over $2 million in salary the rest of the season. (The Lakers can take Hernangomez into the Cousins injury exception. L.A. would likely have to throw in $1 million cash to cover Cook’s guarantee next year, if not more. Using Hernangomez to offset Cooks’ salary and taking Daniels into a minimum exception allows the trade exception to be $9.5 million – the difference between Kidd-Gilchrist’s salary and Cousins’.)
The Lakers could then turn and send Kidd-Gilchrist to Memphis straight up for Iguodala, attaching, say, second-round picks in 2023 and 2025 to finish it off. They’d finish all this with 14 players and still be $1.4 million from the tax line – enabling them to add a buyout guy with their last spot."
So, for the moment ignore his specific idea. This is about the concept. There are a couple of versions of this that might benefit Dallas:
TPE Based - Easy to understand. Trade for someone making $11,925,000 or less and then trade them for someone making that number plus $5mm. For instance, Dallas could take expiring Andre Roberson into their TPE at $10,740,000 and flip him for someone making up to $15,840,000. Marvin Williams, for example, at $15.0mm could be had for our TPE AND Dallas might get a little something for saving OKC $10mm.
Lee based - One issue with the TPE example is you can't aggregate Roberson with anything else once you have him. But, you can do a Lee + Something to get to a temporary player and then flip the temporary player. For instance, Lee + Roby gets you to the expiring Tyler Johnson. Then, Tyler Johnson can be flipped for Gallinari or Serge Ibaka. Obviously you can send out bigger amounts in the original deal with Lee. The main point is you can get to about a $10 million spread above your outgoing by doing this in two steps.
Thought it was worthwhile to mention as this little trick opens up some possibilities we haven't been able to reach without sending out players we want to retain.
In Hollinger's piece yesterday in The Athletic he put out a list of players teams SHOULD be targeting in trade. In the middle of his piece was this little gem:
"Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Charlotte – What?!?!?! Hear me out. Kidd-Gilchrist could be a sneaky piece for teams that find themselves blocked from trading for high-salary players.
There are several teams that don’t have enough matching salary to acquire players with high-teens salaries like Andre Iguodala, Evan Fournier or Dennis Schröder. But most of them have juuust enough to swing a deal for Kidd-Gilchrist.
Why does this matter? Because teams could conceivably do back-to-back trades that acquire MKG and then legally turn and flip him for a player like Iguodala – the rare but occasionally useful “stepladder” trade. (We did a kind of similar thing in Memphis in 2015, when we didn’t have a trade exception big enough to acquire Matt Barnes, but did have one big enough to acquire Luke Ridnour … who we then traded for Matt Barnes).
If the Lakers coveted Iguodala, for instance, they could package DeMarcus Cousins, Quinn Cook and Troy Daniels to Charlotte for MKG and Willie Hernangomez — generating a $9.5 million trade exception for the Hornets while saving them over $2 million in salary the rest of the season. (The Lakers can take Hernangomez into the Cousins injury exception. L.A. would likely have to throw in $1 million cash to cover Cook’s guarantee next year, if not more. Using Hernangomez to offset Cooks’ salary and taking Daniels into a minimum exception allows the trade exception to be $9.5 million – the difference between Kidd-Gilchrist’s salary and Cousins’.)
The Lakers could then turn and send Kidd-Gilchrist to Memphis straight up for Iguodala, attaching, say, second-round picks in 2023 and 2025 to finish it off. They’d finish all this with 14 players and still be $1.4 million from the tax line – enabling them to add a buyout guy with their last spot."
So, for the moment ignore his specific idea. This is about the concept. There are a couple of versions of this that might benefit Dallas:
TPE Based - Easy to understand. Trade for someone making $11,925,000 or less and then trade them for someone making that number plus $5mm. For instance, Dallas could take expiring Andre Roberson into their TPE at $10,740,000 and flip him for someone making up to $15,840,000. Marvin Williams, for example, at $15.0mm could be had for our TPE AND Dallas might get a little something for saving OKC $10mm.
Lee based - One issue with the TPE example is you can't aggregate Roberson with anything else once you have him. But, you can do a Lee + Something to get to a temporary player and then flip the temporary player. For instance, Lee + Roby gets you to the expiring Tyler Johnson. Then, Tyler Johnson can be flipped for Gallinari or Serge Ibaka. Obviously you can send out bigger amounts in the original deal with Lee. The main point is you can get to about a $10 million spread above your outgoing by doing this in two steps.
Thought it was worthwhile to mention as this little trick opens up some possibilities we haven't been able to reach without sending out players we want to retain.