How much can C's save. Trading Hauser, Jrue, Zinger

[KG Living Legend]

 Assuming no Nets fantasy trade. Straight up trades between 2 teams.  Can we even shave 15 million this year? What's the most we could theoretically save. Realistic trades.

 For Jrue use the Mavs, Kings, Pistons as examples.  I don't know who wants Porzingis.  Magic would be a good start for Hauser.

.we certainly can't get under the luxury tax correct.

[DefenseWinsChamps]

 Assuming no Nets fantasy trade. Straight up trades between 2 teams.  Can we even shave 15 million this year? What's the most we could theoretically save. Realistic trades.

 For Jrue use the Mavs, Kings, Pistons as examples.  I don't know who wants Porzingis.  Magic would be a good start for Hauser.

.we certainly can't get under the luxury tax correct.

I?m not sure what you mean by Nets fantasy trade. The nets intentionally have cap space this year as they rebuild to gather additional assets in trades. Their intention has been to be the team that absorbed bad contracts for assets this off season.

There?s also a number of teams that have trade exceptions that could absorb Hauser, or could be the third team that absorbs contracts the Celtics would have to take back when they trade away a player.

Those aren?t fantasies. Those are the ways the NBA does business every offseason-season.

[KG Living Legend]

 Nets doing us a big favour is fantasy unless we are giving them a first rounder.  The T.E. are more realistic.

[jambr380]

Trading Hauser into a MLE/TPE, then taking back $26M in salary for Jrue and $24M in salary for KP (125% rule for those trades) saves us $22M, which is just enough to get under the 2nd apron.

But we could then easily turn around and trade a player or players from those deals and take back even less money. Guys on smaller contracts could even just be absorbed into cap space or additional exceptions.

Those 3 players make a total of $73M next year. We could keep just over $30M in traded for contracts and actually duck the tax, but it would take a lot of maneuvering with secondary and possibly even tertiary deals.

It's going to be quite easy to get under the 2nd apron. Even if nobody wanted Jrue or KP and Brad was given a mandate to absolutely get under, we could still trade Hauser and then waive and stretch KP. Not ideal since we'd be on the hook for $10M/yr of dead money over the next 3 years, but it would drop $30M in salary. That would likely even give us enough to re-sign Al and/or Luke.

[KG Living Legend]

Trading Hauser into a MLE/TPE, then taking back $26M in salary for Jrue and $24M in salary for KP (125% rule for those trades) saves us $22M, which is just enough to get under the 2nd apron.

But we could then easily turn around and trade a player or players from those deals and take back even less money. Guys on smaller contracts could even just be absorbed into cap space or additional exceptions.

Those 3 players make a total of $73M next year. We could keep just over $30M in traded for contracts and actually duck the tax, but it would take a lot of maneuvering with secondary and possibly even tertiary deals.

It's going to be quite easy to get under the 2nd apron. Even if nobody wanted Jrue or KP and Brad was given a mandate to absolutely get under, we could still trade Hauser and then waive and stretch KP. Not ideal since we'd be on the hook for $10M/yr of dead money over the next 3 years, but it would drop $30M in salary. That would likely even give us enough to re-sign Al and/or Luke.

 Excellent summary Jambr. Tp.

[Ilikesports17]

 Assuming no Nets fantasy trade. Straight up trades between 2 teams.  Can we even shave 15 million this year? What's the most we could theoretically save. Realistic trades.

 For Jrue use the Mavs, Kings, Pistons as examples.  I don't know who wants Porzingis.  Magic would be a good start for Hauser.

.we certainly can't get under the luxury tax correct.

I?m not sure what you mean by Nets fantasy trade. The nets intentionally have cap space this year as they rebuild to gather additional assets in trades. Their intention has been to be the team that absorbed bad contracts for assets this off season.

There?s also a number of teams that have trade exceptions that could absorb Hauser, or could be the third team that absorbs contracts the Celtics would have to take back when they trade away a player.

Those aren?t fantasies. Those are the ways the NBA does business every offseason-season.

I've seen plenty of Nets trade fantasies where they eat like 20 mil in salaries for 28 or some other late first, or sometimes even for free.

The Nets are the only team in the league with space and they have 4 first round picks this season. They aren't eating a big contract so they can have a 5th late first this year. Any trade that involves them will need to result in them getting either a young high potential player or a future first that projects to be a lottery pick.

The whole league needs them to be their third team so they can be picky

[DefenseWinsChamps]

 Assuming no Nets fantasy trade. Straight up trades between 2 teams.  Can we even shave 15 million this year? What's the most we could theoretically save. Realistic trades.

 For Jrue use the Mavs, Kings, Pistons as examples.  I don't know who wants Porzingis.  Magic would be a good start for Hauser.

.we certainly can't get under the luxury tax correct.

I?m not sure what you mean by Nets fantasy trade. The nets intentionally have cap space this year as they rebuild to gather additional assets in trades. Their intention has been to be the team that absorbed bad contracts for assets this off season.

There?s also a number of teams that have trade exceptions that could absorb Hauser, or could be the third team that absorbs contracts the Celtics would have to take back when they trade away a player.

Those aren?t fantasies. Those are the ways the NBA does business every offseason-season.

I've seen plenty of Nets trade fantasies where they eat like 20 mil in salaries for 28 or some other late first, or sometimes even for free.

The Nets are the only team in the league with space and they have 4 first round picks this season. They aren't eating a big contract so they can have a 5th late first this year. Any trade that involves them will need to result in them getting either a young high potential player or a future first that projects to be a lottery pick.

The whole league needs them to be their third team so they can be picky

So this is a great point. You are right that the Nets can be picky.

But there aren't very many teams looking to dump the amount of salary that the Celtics are. Realistically only the Cavs and Suns will be aggressively looking to shed salary because of being in the 2nd apron.

The idea that a team will get a lottery pick or a really good young prospect for taking a bad salary is not historically accurate. That's never happened. The going rate for a salary dump is either a later first or several seconds, depending on the desperation of the dump and the quality of the player that is being dumped. 

Now, I do agree with you that the Nets are not going to be interested in another draft pick in this draft, unless they do a huge consolidation trade first.

But look at those rosters. Who are the likely salary dumps that are too big to fit into a mid-level exception, which many teams will have? Hunter (23m), Allen (20m), Beal (no-trade clause and reportedly does not want to be traded), Allen (16.8m). There's no doubt the Nets could facilitate with some of them, but at those salary levels, the Hawks, Bulls, and Kings and all in play (and the Nets actually have a sizable TPE that could be used as well). All those teams would be interested in players like the ones on the list above.

In other words, there's more competition than you are mentioning here.

The biggest competition is the Durant trade, because I believe the Suns will not only be looking for a big haul back, but will want to get out of the 2nd apron.

After that, there just aren't many realistic bigger salary trades that need cap space to facilitate the goals of the team trading the large salary.

[tazzmaniac]

 Assuming no Nets fantasy trade. Straight up trades between 2 teams.  Can we even shave 15 million this year? What's the most we could theoretically save. Realistic trades.

 For Jrue use the Mavs, Kings, Pistons as examples.  I don't know who wants Porzingis.  Magic would be a good start for Hauser.

.we certainly can't get under the luxury tax correct.

I?m not sure what you mean by Nets fantasy trade. The nets intentionally have cap space this year as they rebuild to gather additional assets in trades. Their intention has been to be the team that absorbed bad contracts for assets this off season.

There?s also a number of teams that have trade exceptions that could absorb Hauser, or could be the third team that absorbs contracts the Celtics would have to take back when they trade away a player.

Those aren?t fantasies. Those are the ways the NBA does business every offseason-season.

I've seen plenty of Nets trade fantasies where they eat like 20 mil in salaries for 28 or some other late first, or sometimes even for free.

The Nets are the only team in the league with space and they have 4 first round picks this season. They aren't eating a big contract so they can have a 5th late first this year. Any trade that involves them will need to result in them getting either a young high potential player or a future first that projects to be a lottery pick.

The whole league needs them to be their third team so they can be picky

You don't need to use the Nets unless you are trying to dump the big salary all at once.  You can send a bigger contract to a 3rd team getting back a smaller contract which could then be moved to a 4th team.  Obviously, the players can't be dead weight and need to be somewhat desirable to a few teams and their contracts can't be onerous. 

[tazzmaniac]

Trading Hauser into a MLE/TPE, then taking back $26M in salary for Jrue and $24M in salary for KP (125% rule for those trades) saves us $22M, which is just enough to get under the 2nd apron.

But we could then easily turn around and trade a player or players from those deals and take back even less money. Guys on smaller contracts could even just be absorbed into cap space or additional exceptions.

Those 3 players make a total of $73M next year. We could keep just over $30M in traded for contracts and actually duck the tax, but it would take a lot of maneuvering with secondary and possibly even tertiary deals.

It's going to be quite easy to get under the 2nd apron. Even if nobody wanted Jrue or KP and Brad was given a mandate to absolutely get under, we could still trade Hauser and then waive and stretch KP. Not ideal since we'd be on the hook for $10M/yr of dead money over the next 3 years, but it would drop $30M in salary. That would likely even give us enough to re-sign Al and/or Luke.

Waving and stretching KP would be stupid.  You can theoretically get under the 2nd apron by just trading Jrue.  Trading Jrue and Hauser should certainly do it. 

[Vermont Green]

Trading Hauser into a MLE/TPE, then taking back $26M in salary for Jrue and $24M in salary for KP (125% rule for those trades) saves us $22M, which is just enough to get under the 2nd apron.

But we could then easily turn around and trade a player or players from those deals and take back even less money. Guys on smaller contracts could even just be absorbed into cap space or additional exceptions.

Those 3 players make a total of $73M next year. We could keep just over $30M in traded for contracts and actually duck the tax, but it would take a lot of maneuvering with secondary and possibly even tertiary deals.

It's going to be quite easy to get under the 2nd apron. Even if nobody wanted Jrue or KP and Brad was given a mandate to absolutely get under, we could still trade Hauser and then waive and stretch KP. Not ideal since we'd be on the hook for $10M/yr of dead money over the next 3 years, but it would drop $30M in salary. That would likely even give us enough to re-sign Al and/or Luke.

Waving and stretching KP would be stupid.  You can theoretically get under the 2nd apron by just trading Jrue.  Trading Jrue and Hauser should certainly do it.

Holiday and Hauser are about $42.5M combined.  If you are able to trade them both and replace them both with min contracts, then yes, that is comfortably below the second apron, so long as pretty much every other roster spot is a min contract.  As others have said, Hauser can probably be traded into someone's space or exemption.  Very unlikely for Holiday.  Best case is take back two or three contracts totaling about $25M (save about $7M) and then trade one of those contracts into another team's space or exemption. 

Save $10M for Hauser
Save $7M for first Holiday Trade
Save $12M by flipping a contract taken in the Holiday trade.

Even this is then tight once you fill out the rest of the roster.  Probably means you can't sign Kornet unless he accepts a min contract.  You can probably trade Hauser without attaching a pick.  Maybe Holiday too.  But then the flipping of the new contracts would probably require giving up some picks.