Can you explain how this works financially? Why would we be able to completely this trade, but not one for Cam Johnson?
Actually, I am not totally sure my idea as proposed even works now. Ron Harper Jr is making more than originally reported, so I need to recalculate. But the Celtics under my original idea would be right near the 1st apron, with Watson making $22 million next year. Johnson makes more ($23 million) but also has about $4 million in incentives. While considered unlikely, those count against his hard cap number so a team cannot go over the hard cap using unlikely incentives (ie his cap number is over $27 million for these purposes, far higher than we can afford unless we trade Pritchard).
Wouldn't we have issues with salary matching with a sign and trade, plus first apron hardcap issues? As you say it would work better if you added Pritchard to the deal.
No, because we can use the Simons TPE to get around matching on our end. The issue with matching is on Denver. They need Watson to make at least double Hauser?s salary because of the base-year compensation rules and being over the second apron already, but that is already the salary he seeks so it is not a major hurdle. The hurdle is just having enough room under the hard cap swapping in Watson for Hauser. We are just short of having double Hauser?s salary space, so we would need to swap out a low salary player for Dillon Mitchell to be able to afford it. But one of Walsh or Scheierman is expendable anyway with Watson on the roster, and that player does not need to go to Denver; just somewhere to create cap space.
So you would sign and trade Watson ($23.65m) into the Simons TPE, then send out Hauser +picks to Denver ($10.8m) in a separate deal, for a net incoming of $13.65m, to add to an existing active cap of $201.5m so that's $214.4m, vs a hard cap of $209m, so we would need to send out $5.4m to afford it, which would be Baylor + Walsh ($5m) or Baylor + Garza ($5m). Or is my math wrong?
Your math is wrong. Watson makes $22 million in year 1, with 5% raises, to get my salary number, and that is what we need to fit. The first step is releasing Banton, who is non-guaranteed. That brings us down $198.7. Then trading Hauser $187.9, so we are a little over $21 million in hard cap space and need about $900k more. The difference between Walsh, Scheierman, and Garza compared to Mitchell is between $1.05-$1.45 million, so sending out any one of those three and adding Mitchell would give us the proposed $22 million in hard cap space for a sign-and-trade. We would be at 14 players after the transactions.
EDIT: You edited as I quoted, but the part of the deal where we send out small salary and sign Mitchell likely needs to involve a third team in a separate transaction to clear space. Denver can only absorb Hauser. As they are above the second apron, they cannot take on more salary than they send out in a trade. They can also not use a trade exception from a prior season, and I do not think they have any from this year. That means they cannot take Scheierman or Walsh, because both require trade exceptions. Garza they could take under the minimum-salary exception rule. You do not lose that over the second apron.
And yes, it would put the Celtics in the tax a little. Hence the title of the thread.