Trade & FA 2023-24: Stein-Ingram Trade Inevitable| LAL Want Lebron Back On Any Terms

[F Gump]

REALLY seems like Dallas can pay more, if they want…

https://x.com/ericpincus/status/1756040572647936459?s=61&t=Zmns3TEXDYnIJIXeN05-eQ

Yes, of course. They CAN. But it's incredibly unusual for a player who is waived after the deadline to be  paid more than the ROS minimum.

The reasons WHY are all voluntary.

In general they have to do with how the rules whittle down any differences in over-minimum offers (the details are complicated, but involve NBA subsidies, and "set off" paybacks to the old team to partially compensate for the money previously paid), and issues for many teams of the tax line, apron line, limits on what they are allowed, etc. Teams also consider that player X already got paid for a full season contract, so it's not like he needs EXTRA pay beyond the minimum.

For example, I've seen suggestions the Mavs would offer over $4M for SD or someone. Since they are only ~$2.6M below the tax line, and might want to do other things later in the event of an injury, that just makes no sense. 

The common approach is that the teams offer ROS minimum, and you either want to play here for 2 months, or you want to play there for the same money. The team pays about $0.7M, then NBA pays him about $0.35M of off-the-cap subsidy money, and there is no set off for that size of deal. Once you go over the minimum, there is no NBA subsidy, and the right of set off comes into play (contracts typically have a set off factor of HALF of any amount above minimum, limited by the amount they already paid for the rest of season). Technically there can be somewhat of a difference if the number is bigger, but because of all the people who get paid on the side (ie, the NBA and the old team) instead of the money going to the player, teams don't like to play that game.

It's voluntary. Teams CAN go above minimum if they have cap allowance and wish to do so. But it's very uncommon.