With the Eagles season officially going down in spectacular flames before we even reach December, I suppose it's time to forgive and forget the NBA's most recent unthinkable act. Unless
Jeffrey Kessler somehow finds a way to twist some arms and get this thing into a courtroom, where he's been desperate to get it from the jump, the NBA lockout is about to end with the first games to be played on Christmas.
It looks like we've got a season, minus 16 games. Though the season has yet to be finalized, we do know there will be 66 games, there will be at least one back-to-back-to-back for every team, but no more than three, and there will only be 18 out-of-conference games for each team. That last bit means the Sixers won't play in every city, though you'd think they'll play every team at least once.
The timing of the schedule actually probably works in the Sixers favor. Typically, they're on a monster road trip to allow the Ice Capades to take over the Wells Fargo Center. Last season, the trip began on December 18th and lasted through January 3rd. They'll probably start on the road this year, as well, but the trip won't be nearly as long as it has been in the past. There's also no guarantee the trip will take them to the West coast. It could be a "local" road trip with stops that would allow them a home cooked meal.
Anyway, there are i's to be dotted and t's to be crossed, and we've got a ton of work to do to get ready for some basketball. The first step is for the union to reclaim interest (if that's what it's called), then the agreement needs to be finalized and formalized, then voted upon by both sides. Assuming that happens, then we'll get the schedule and start thinking about actual decisions.
Here's a quick update on where the Sixers stand against the cap/tax:
- Currently, Brand, Iguodala, Nocioni, Williams, Turner, Speights, Holiday, Meeks and Brackins are under contract for a total of $54,117,266.
- The salary cap will be the same as last season, so $58,044,000.
- The Sixers will probably sign Vucevic, I would assume for 120% of slot, so somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.69M (I sincerely hope the practice of 120% of scale being the norm is thrown out with the old CBA, but I'm not optimistic)
- Then you have the two qualifying offers hanging out there for Thad Young ($3,992,108) and Spencer Hawes ($4,051,024).
- When you add in Hawes and Thad, plus the Voose, the Sixers are at $63,574,498. Or less than $6.5M below the luxury tax threshold.
- They can afford the full MLE ($5M) without going over the tax, assuming they don't re-sign Thad or Hawes to a long-term deal with a first-year value more than $1.5M higher than their qualifying offer. If they renounce or lose either of those guys, it would create more room under the tax, but wouldn't create enough cap room to do anything with even if both QO's were rescinded, then Bird Rights were renounced.
- If they use the amnesty exemption on Brand, it would drop their number to about $46.5M this season, then they could also rescind the QO to Hawes and get right to the edge of a max contract, which they could extend to...who knows? Nene?
- If they use the amnesty on Nocioni, they'd have to jump through a bunch of other hoops to make it worthwhile in any way.
Much, much more to come when some more details become available, but that's the best lay of the land I can offer at this point.
Did you see this about amnestied player auctions?
http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2011/11/27/2590432/nba-amnesty-clause-auction-lockout
Wow, that's crazy. If the Sixers used their amnesty clause on Brand or Iguodala, you'd have to think any contender with cap space will make runs at both of those guys. I'd imagine anyone in need of a wing or power forward could bid 7-10 mil for both of those guys. Anyone know of a possible team that would do that?
How many contenders are under the cap?
I don't expect a lot of players of significant talent to be waived
But a million dollars n Gilbert as a bench player might work?
I'm wondering if it's for the entire contract. Even if a crappy team with cap space like Sacramento theoretically bid the most for Iguodala because contenders are hamstrung, that would be interesting. Let's say they won and bid 60 percent of Iguodala's contract. Would they get him for 7-10 million for three years? If so, that's pretty crazy, and a good value buy.
Now of course I don't want to get rid of Iguodala and am just using him as an example, but that's very interesting. It works with Brand too.
From what I read in the sbnation article the bidding teams bid on a porton of the contract. Highest bidder pays that portion and the waiving team pays the balance.
I wonder if the waived player has any say. Can they refuse to go to the bidding team?
Well I guess the idea is that it's like a trade, except a trade where the trading team is forced to accept whichever team offers the most money. So players can threaten to not show up, but otherwise I don't suppose they have any choice in the matter.
Hmmn, doesn't say anything about teams bidding on their own players, but you'd have to think that wouldn't be allowed, right?
Well, when you amnesty a player you have to pay, as I understand it, the amount of the amnestied player's salary that isn't eaten by another team. Amnesty just means a player doesn't count against your cap number, I thought; they still get paid their guaranteed money. So if you bid for your own amnestied player, you'd just pay him his full salary. So no.
You'd pay him his full salary, but only the portion you're paying as the winning "bidder" would count against the cap. So in Brand's case, if they bid 50% and won, then only half of his salary would count against the cap.
Oh I see. Well I guess that's an attractive possibility... and probably one that isn't allowed under the deal.
It would be a calculated risk, I guess. The most the Sixers could bid would be somewhere around 60% of Brand's contract (and remain under the cap), but I'm not sure how cap holds figure into the amount you're allowed to bid. Say they got him for $10M, then essentially they'd just free up $8M in cap space for nothing. If they bid $10M and lose him, then they're on the hook for $8M of salary and they free up $18M in cap space. I think it would be really tempting for a lot of teams to amnesty guys they otherwise maybe wouldn't. Like maybe Joe Johnson, you amnesty him and put in a 50% bid.
It can't be allowed, though. I don't see any way. Though it would kind of a be a leg up for the teams that are under the cap, and they kind of deserve a leg up. Teams over the cap couldn't put in bids on their own players, or anyone else's for that matter.
I believe that before the union 'reforms' the two lawsuits must first be dropped. So I believe those players who filed suit must see the formal proposal and find it acceptable enough to drop their suits. Then the union forms?
From my insanely limited understanding of labor/antitrust law, it ought to work the other way around. The union can reclaim interest whenever it wants. Once it does reclaim interest, the lawsuits are dead, whether or not the plaintiffs (who of course were put up to this by the union, it's not as if they were acting independently) like it. Basically, you can only have a lawsuit with the disclaimer, but you can reclaim with pending litigation.
That all said, that's not how it will work. They'll ask to dismiss the suits first, then they'll reclaim and actually write a CBA.
I sincerely hope that the Sixers reevaluate the idea of extending that 4 mil qualifying offer to Big Spence...that really seems like a terrible idea. You might be able to pick somebody else up for a similar price that you don't have to steal minutes with in your starting lineup
I would use the amnesty clause on Andres Nocioni. Rescind the offer on Hawes and resign Thad to 4 years 39 million: 7.5 million, 10 million, 10.5 million, 11.5 million (TO)
I would then sign Jeff Foster for 1 million and Sean Williams for 1 million. (I know there's a lot of hype for this guy, but he has to better than Speights, right?)
I'd probably look for some way to dump Speights and Brackins as well.
In that scenario, what's the point in using the amnesty clause? You aren't using the cap space, and you aren't saving any money. It's a complete waste.
I'm using the cap space to resign Thad and add two centers.
It's not going to add cap space if you re-sign Thad. You're going to have to use exceptions either way.
Does Iggy's value go back up now that teams know what the cap will be? And how much anti-Iggy feedback do you guys feel was posted on the teams new website?
I would hate to see him traded just to change the face of the team without a plan in place but his trade options should be better.
The thing that has always scared me about Iguodala is that his trade value is significantly lower than his actual value. After looking at the proposed trades we've seen in the past, I would estimate that it's about 30 percent lower, not just because the players they would get back aren't as good as Iguodala. It's that they also are around the same age and have hit their ceiling or have even worse deals. Then again, we never really know what was offered to the team for him during his career.
One could argue that if they trade him for 70 cents on the dollar, then the plan is just to tank (And yes, I'm sure the Sixers got plenty of feedback about him!).
I'm not sure it goes up or down at this point, but teams should be able to better peg it. With so much uncertainty about the CBA, any trade for a contract with some length left to it was a big gamble.
Don't forget, the cap holds for Young and Hawes are greater than the qualifying offer. Previously, this would have been 300% of the last year of their previous contract, but in the new CBA this has been reduced to 250%, which puts the cap holds for Young and Hawes at $7.2 million and $7.4 million rather than their qualifying offers.
My article for SBN Philly on some of the new changes and its affect on the Sixers:
http://philly.sbnation.com/philadelphia-76ers/2011/11/28/2591607/the-new-cba-and-how-it-affects-the-76ers