This is what people seem to be missing. The only way we can trade someone and reduce salary is by trading to a team that has cap space or a trade exception. Teams with cap space are generally not very good and would have no use for spare parts that we'd be trading. Not sure about teams with trade exceptions but my guess is that they would be looking for more than someone like Jordan Crawford.
So we have to take back at least 75% salary in a trade. Not sure how much over the line we are, but we'd likely have to trade someone with a bigger contract to make that 25% enough of a savings to get under the line.
The other alternative would be to give up a pick for another team with space to absorb one of our guys.
Good points.
One more consideration people have to keep in mind is that when you make a deal later in the year, the actual
savings is the
prorated difference in salaries through the remainder of the season.
Remember: Your ultimate final cap number is the amount you end up actually paying out in player salaries by the end of the season (June 30).
For example, if we made a trade at exactly mid season sending Bass' 6.5M & Crawford's 2.1M & Fab's 1.1M contracts out (9.7M total) and took back a player or players making, say 7.275M (75%) that wouldn't actually save the contract difference of 2.425M.
That's because we would have already paid half of their contracts. The savings is the difference in the half that still needs to be paid to them and the half of the new, cheaper contracts. Or, half of the difference in the face value: 1.21M.
This is why, unloading salary now might be the better move.
Teams that are still well under the salary floor can take small contracts and dump them for you if you pay for it and give them incentive.
An example would be to send Crawford plus 2.1M cash AND a future 2nd round pick to Philly. That completely removes his entire salary from the coming season's books. They can keep him for free or waive him if they want.
The problem is, that still may not be enough savings. Because while getting that 2.1M drops us below the tax threshold, it leaves an open roster spot dangling. If you add even a minimum contract player to fill it (due to say, injury), you could end right back up over the tax line.
And we only have a 3.2M total cash allowance to send in such deals.
So ... the BEST scenario might be for Danny to find a bigger deal still, now, before or early in the season. If he can find an under-the-cap trading partner that would be ideal, and the deal wouldn't need to be quite so big. If he has to deal with an over-the-cap team, then he needs a bigger deal in order to increase the difference in outgoing-incoming salaries, because the other team can only take a certain amount of salary more than they send us. And, of course, 3 or even 4 team trades are always possible ...
Finally, just to bring all this back to Wilcox ...
Like most, I see no scenario where Wilcox ends up on the Celtics. But the fact is we DO retain his Bird Rights. And that means that he could still be potentially useful as a trade piece because he could be packaged for salary filler via sign & trade. The same way Bogans was moved to us.
So there is still a chance he has a part to play.
