Veteran center Omer Asik, acquired in last season’s Nikola Mirotic with the Pelicans as a salary-matching piece, was unlikely to play at all this season for the Bulls. Still, Chicago’s decision to release him over the weekend in order to sign Shaquille Harrison was “stunning” to Eric Pincus of Basketball Insiders (Twitter link), who referred to Asik’s contract one of the best trade pieces in the league.
[RELATED: Bulls sign Shaquille Harrison, cut Omer Asik]
Of course, Asik didn’t have trade value in the way that star players have trade value, but his contract was an intriguing potential trade chip for a couple reasons: It was signed under the league’s previous Collective Bargaining Agreement, and he was owed a partial guarantee of just $3MM on his $11.98MM salary for 2019/20.
Under the league’s new CBA, a team trading a player with an $11.98MM salary with a $3MM partial guarantee would only get to count that contract for $3MM for salary-matching purposes, limiting its appeal in a potential deal. However, if that same contract was signed under the old CBA – like Asik’s – it counts for its full $11.98MM for salary-matching purposes. That would have made it appealing to teams looking to cut costs during the summer of 2019.
For instance, let’s say that the Knicks wanted to make a run at Kevin Durant in the summer of 2019 and needed to move as much salary as possible to clear a maximum-salary slot. Cap rules would have allowed Chicago and New York to swap Courtney Lee (who has a $12.76MM salary for 2019/20) straight up for Asik. The Knicks then could’ve waived Asik, stretching his $3MM partial guarantee across three years and leaving just $1MM on their cap.
The Bulls might not have wanted Lee, and more parts may have been required to make such a deal acceptable for both sides, but that’s just one example of how Asik’s modest partial guarantee – and his old contract – provided some value. That $11.98MM cap hit could be useful for salary matching in all variations of trades and wasn’t a negative asset since it wasn’t guaranteed.
By comparison, a player like Avery Bradley has a contract structure similar to Asik’s for next season ($2MM partial guarantee on a $12.96MM salary), but signed his deal under the league’s current CBA. If the Clippers wanted to trade Bradley after the season, he’d only count for $2MM for salary-matching purposes rather than $12.96MM, making a deal tricky.
It’s possible that Chicago wouldn’t have found any use for Asik on the trade market next summer, especially since the team may be far enough below the cap to take on contracts in trades without matching salaries. Harrison will also certainly help the club more in the short term, and the Bulls may eventually be able to remove Asik’s contract from their cap altogether if he’s deemed medically ineligible to continue his career. Still, it’s somewhat surprising that the team didn’t wait a little longer before deciding to cut bait on him.
With Asik no longer under contract, there are just two notable players who signed contracts under the old CBA and have partial guarantees for next season — one is Cavaliers guard J.R. Smith ($3.87MM guarantee on $15.86MM salary) and the other is Suns forward Ryan Anderson ($15.64MM guarantee on $21.26MM salary). If either of those players is dealt during the summer of 2019, he’d count for his full salary for trade purposes, rather than just his guarantee amount.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
There’s Pax going all Pax again!
Speaking of miroric why did the bulls trade him and not Portis? Wasn’t sure why the deal happened the way it did, I know the events (the punch from Portis)
Probably just because Mirotic was a much better fit in NO
not going to pretend the bulls front office is smart (or even decent) at their job, but “they could have flipped him for avery bradley or ryan anderson” isn’t a good argument.
That certainly wasn’t argued anywhere in this article. They literally CAN’T flip him for Bradley.
The point was that a salary in the $12MM range is often a valuable piece for matching purposes in all variations of trades, and Asik’s contract was particularly unique as one of a small handful of deals around the NBA that could be used for that purpose without the other team actually having to pay him $12MM. Now that’s no longer an option.
Man the NBA cap system is starting to look like the IRS tax code. Weird exceptions and inconsistencies everywhere.
I’m an accountant and even my head starts spinning when I try to make sense of all this stuff.
I think the key part of this is that theoretically, Asik was trade bait but in practice, not useful. They aren’t going to take on any salary next year, ESPECIALLY since if Asik is medically ineligible, which could remove his $3 million guarantee off the salary books. If they traded him for someone, they would lose that potential space. No team is trading someone of value on an expiring deal this year for Asik. The Bulls are trying to clear as much 2019-2020 cap space as possible. Therefore, Asik was basically useless and just eating up a roster spot.
I’d push back on two things here:
1. Trading Asik straight up for another player isn’t the only way he could’ve been used in a trade
2. Opening up as much cap room as possible isn’t the goal in and of itself, unless you have specific players you want to use it on. Using that cap flexibility to acquire core pieces is the goal, which could be done in a trade.
Here’s another hypothetical example: Let’s say the Celtics decide this year that they want to keep both Kyrie Irving and Terry Rozier and need to trade Marcus Smart without taking long-term salary back to make re-signing Irving and Rozier more viable. They make Smart available on draft night. With Asik’s contract in hand, the Bulls could offer Asik (to match Smart’s nearly identical salary) and a draft pick. Without Asik, there’d be no realistic salary-matching option for the Bulls. (Again, the Bulls’ level of interest in Smart would be debatable, but this is just an example.)
Now, as I mentioned in the post, if they intend to clear a bunch of cap room in July, the Bulls don’t NEED salary-matching contracts — if they want to trade for a player, they should be able to just absorb him into their cap space at that point. Having Asik would just would have given them more options in June.
Anyway, despite what the headline may imply, this post is not about criticizing the Bulls (I thought the move was a little surprising, but not “stunning” like Pincus suggested). This was more about drawing attention to an unusual cap-related rule that could still be exploited next summer. Removing Asik from the equation just means it won’t be the Bulls that do the exploiting, which is fine.
I know we all like to hate on GarPax and I don’t want to defend him, but this is really NOT a bad move as I laid out above. Criticism when criticism is due. Not just because we all negative bias.
I agree
Not everyone is going to understand the lost opportunity, but then, it takes two to trade, and maybe nobody would be interested enough in the benefit to trade for it. No interest has been reported, nor in JRSmith.
As I see it, about the BENEFIT:
1.It is attached to Asik’s contract, not to his talent. Asik’s on-court contribution is irrelevant.
2.It must be traded to be realized, so it is another team that will realize it; in theory that team will trade assets to the Bulls for it.
3.It is a savings of about $9mil to next year’s roster cost for capspace purposes, if traded for a player contracted for that year.
4.That player should be worth the money– better than Asik– because the Bulls will be paying that player, instead of paying $3MM (Asik’s payoff) for nothing.
5.It has no benefit this year. Asik is due $12MM regardless of contribution.
6.IDK about the medical thing. If it was to cancel the contract then it would also cancel the benefit. But if it cancelled this year’s guaranteed $12MM obligation to Asik,then a medical cancel is overall probably a good thing for the Bulls.
7.This sort of trade has happened before. I don’t recall details.
Uh “GarPax” is not a him it is a them…two people with a mashup, like Bennifer…and, yeah, they have no inkling of how to use cap space or contracts in trades. Incompetent and apparently unfireable.
Yep… your last sentence is about as accurate as it gets in regards to the Bulls’ FO. Paxson is JR’s pet rock, and Forman is his convenient patsy when JR’s son decides to finally shake things up.
For those that aren’t Bulls fans, it isn’t surprising. Don’t expect them to do anything smart, or that will actually benefit the team. They don’t care about winning at all.
It’s just a crony jobs program for Reinsdorf, Paxson, and Forman. That’s all.
They get to cash their exorbitant checks, every single week, and never have to worry about losing their jobs, because there’s absolutely ZERO….and I mean ZERO accountability.
It’s worse than a government job, as far as service goes. I stopped watching and going to games. Until that front office is gone, it’s always business as usual.