Question for those in the know

[Evantime34]

Danny Ainge said that we only have the $3 MLE to work with. However, I thought that was only available to teams over the luxury tax ($70 MM). We are currently at around $62? Is the cap hold of Green, Baby, and the draft picks bring us up $8 MM to $70 MM? Can't we just renounce Baby then have the full MLE to work with?

[Who]

Resigning Jeff Green is enough to put Boston over the top.

Need to renounce Green to get full MLE.

[Chris]

Resigning Jeff Green is enough to put Boston over the top.

Need to renounce Green to get full MLE.

Yup.  And even if they could pull it off and stay around 72-73 million, I don't think Danny would do that, because it would mean that he couldn't take on more salary via trade, and would take away an important option he wants to have later in the season.  This is the killer part of the new rules.  If you use the regular MLE, then you create a hard cap for your team at $74 million, that cannot be surpassed at any point during the season.

[Evantime34]

Resigning Jeff Green is enough to put Boston over the top.

Need to renounce Green to get full MLE.

shouldn't his cap hold only be the qualifying offer?

[Who]

Resigning Jeff Green is enough to put Boston over the top.

Need to renounce Green to get full MLE.

shouldn't his cap hold only be the qualifying offer?

Sorry, was struggling for a clear way to answer your question.

There was a good article on Sports Illustrated talking about the MLE under the new CBA and they talked about Boston as an example. So I'll just link to that, it'll explain it in a more clear-cut way than I would.

http://nba-point-forward.si.com/2011/11/26/the-mid-level-and-bird-rights/

Here’s what they got, according to a source familiar with the deal:

• Every team can use the full mid-level exception, provided doing so does not take the team more than $4 million over the tax line.

• Sounds great for the players, right? Here’s the rub: If you use the full mid-level to get to or approach that barrier looming $4 million over the tax line, you cannot cross it by re-signing your own free agents via Larry Bird Rights. You can cross it to sign rookies or players on veteran minimum contracts. (Update: 8:29 p.m.: The NBA informs me via Twitter that teams in fact cannot cross that barrier $4 million over the tax line via veteran’s minimum deals if you first use the full mid-level).

Let’s use a real-world example: The Celtics have about $66 million in salary committed to seven players next season, putting them about $4 million under last year’s tax line of $70.3 million, which we’ll use as a projected tax level for the upcoming season. Using the full mid-level on, say, Jason Richardson, would take the Celtics’ payroll to $71 million — over the tax line. Under the owners’ old proposal, Boston would have thus been prohibited from using the full mid-level.

Under the current proposal — the one to which the two sides have tentatively agreed — Boston could offer the full mid-level to Richardson. But it would leave itself only about $3 million of room with which to sign its own free agents — Glen Davis and Jeff Green being the headliners — using Bird Rights. In other words: Using the full mid-level would likely mean losing both Green and Davis.

The Celtics could continue spending beyond that $4 million barrier provided they do so via non-Bird deals — veteran minimum contracts, for instance. It is unlikely the Celtics could sign either Davis or Green — young players seeking a payday — with minimum contracts. They might be able to persuade a ring-chasing veteran for that amount, though.

In effect, the compromise here is that teams just under the tax level must choose between using the full mid-level or re-signing their free agents to fair-market deals.

They make these things too complicated. Too many rules.

[Roy H.]

Resigning Jeff Green is enough to put Boston over the top.

Need to renounce Green to get full MLE.

shouldn't his cap hold only be the qualifying offer?

The "cap hold" actually exceeds the qualifying offer by quite a bit; the hold itself, under the last CBA, would have been over $13 million.

However, even projecting the cap even with the qualifying offer included, our committed salary would be $70.3 million.  Without getting into the nuances of cap holds / roster charges (which add around $2.5 million), adding the $5 million MLE to the $70.3 million would take us over the $74 million hard cap for teams using the full MLE.