Hoops Rumors Originals

The NBA’s salary cap is really a misnomer of sorts, since it doesn’t place an absolute limit on salaries. Teams routinely zoom past the cap, and it’s assumed they will do so, with features like cap exceptions and the luxury tax built into the collective bargaining agreement. Still, it’s possible that teams can end up with a truly “hard cap.”

The use of the non-taxpayer’s mid-level exception, the biannual exception or the acquisition of a player via sign-and-trade limits a team to dishing out no more than $4MM in excess of the luxury tax threshold. The tax line is $84.74MM for 2015/16, so the hard cap for this season is $88.74MM.

Six teams have triggered the hard cap, meaning their salaries can’t exceed $88.74MM from now through June 30th, 2016, and more may join those six throughout the season. Still, none of those six teams are anywhere close to their hard cap amounts. Only two of them are within $10MM. The Rockets seem like the most likely candidate to impose a hard cap on themselves among those that haven’t so far, since they’d have to do so to sign No. 32 overall pick Montrezl Harrell for more than the minimum. They’d also likely come closer to that $88.74MM amount than any of the teams so far hard-capped.

This listing includes information on how each team triggered its hard cap and the amount of money the clubs have left to spend. A slightly different calculation is involved with the hard cap as opposed to the standard salary cap, and these estimates reflect that. The estimates are based on guaranteed salary, since hard-capped teams can cross the $88.74MM line with non-guaranteed money as long as they manage to find a way under before that salary becomes guaranteed. Also, required tender amounts to second-round picks aren’t included in these estimates, since teams still have about another month to decide whether to make those tenders.

Hornets
Hard cap created: Signed Jeremy Lin via biannual exception
Estimated room left under hard cap: $12.657MM

Grizzlies
Hard cap created: Signed Brandan Wright via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated room left under hard cap: $9.09MM

Timberwolves
Hard cap created: Signed Nemanja Bjelica via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated room left under hard cap: $16.117MM

Pelicans
Hard cap created: Signed Dante Cunningham and Alonzo Gee via non-taxpayer MLE
Estimated room left under hard cap: $10.085MM

Knicks
Hard cap created: Acquired Kyle O’Quinn via sign-and-trade
Estimated room left under hard cap: $17.317MM

Wizards
Hard cap created: Signed Alan Anderson via non-taxpayer MLE; Signed Gary Neal via biannual exception
Estimated room left under hard cap: $7.254MM

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

The primary component of Hoops Rumors is our day-to-day coverage of news and rumors, but we also maintain reference information that puts NBA player movement into context and allows you to see where your favorite team stands. One of our most prominent tools, particularly at this time of year, is our Free Agent Tracker. Thanks to pro basketball database guru Mark Porcaro, we also have a comprehensive listing of every draft rights held player and a round-by-round look at traded draft picks through 2021. Both are freshly updated as of today.

Draft rights held players, aka draft-and-stash prospects, are players who have been drafted but have yet to sign NBA contracts, often for a period of several years. It’s a common phenomenon with draftees from outside North America, but as our database shows, many of them are homegrown. In all, teams possess the rights to 112 unsigned draftees, though that number includes a handful from the 2015 draft who are expected to sign sometime this summer. Not surprisingly, the Spurs lead the NBA in draft rights held players with 13.

The round-by-round traded pick listing looks ahead to next year and beyond, and it demonstrates just how often picks change hands. As many as 14 of the 30 first-round picks in 2016 may change hands, and there are a whopping 24 stipulations attached to 2016 second-round picks. Thanks to teams like the Sixers and Celtics who commoditize them, teams have traded several dozen second-rounders for the next several years, including four for 2021 already.

Check out these updated databases and other resources listed on the right sidebar!

Here’s a look back at the original analysis generated by the Hoops Rumors staff this past week…

• Sam Amico, the founder and editor of AmicoHoops.net and a broadcast journalist for Fox Sports Ohio, will write a weekly feature for Hoops Rumors with news, rumors and insight from around the NBA. He posted his initial column this past week, and it can be found here.
• Chuck Myron looked at how underclassmen fared in the 2015 NBA Draft.
• If you missed the week’s live chat, you can view the transcript here.
• Chuck ran down the list of players who were dealt during the 2015 offseason with at least $10MM in guaranteed money left on their respective deals.
• Zach Links highlighted some of the better basketball blogs around in his weekly installment of Hoops Links.
• We ran down the list of players who survived past their contract guarantee dates.
• If you missed any of our daily reader-driven discussions, be sure to check out the Community Shootaround archives.
• Chuck ran down the number of free agent signings made by each franchise this offseason.
• Here’s how you can follow Hoops Rumors on social media and RSS feeds.
• We reviewed out commenting policy. Play nice everyone.

The Hawks and Nets proved three years ago that just about any contract is liable to be traded. Brooklyn agreed in the summer of 2012 to take Joe Johnson and the remaining four years and $89,295,016 on his contract from the Hawks. The Nets paid a record amount of luxury tax in 2013/14 in large measure because of Johnson’s bloated deal, while the Hawks deftly reconstructed their roster, paying only about $57.8MM last season, less than the $63.065MM salary cap, for a 60-win team. The Nets, since the trade, have topped out at 49 wins, and last season they won only 38 times in the regular season before losing a first-round series to top-seeded Atlanta.

It’s perhaps with the wisdom of that deal in mind that teams have seemed hesitant to take on large contracts this summer. The greatest chunk of guaranteed salary changing hands was only $20MM, and that’s spread over the four years of the extension the Suns gave Marcus Morris months before trading him to the Pistons. Spencer Hawes, who possesses the contract traded this summer with the next greatest amount of guaranteed money left on it, signed for the mid-level exception last year. Teams showed willingness to take on large expiring contracts, with Roy Hibbert and David Lee on the move, but no team committed to taking on consecutive seasons of eight-figure guarantees. Ty Lawson is on this list, and he would have topped it but for the sacrifice of the guarantee on his salary of more than $13.213MM for 2016/17.

Here are the nine players traded so far in the 2015 offseason with at least $10MM in guaranteed money left on their respective deals. Note that the figures reflect their post-trade cap hits, so any trade bonus money is included. All figures are rounded to the nearest $1K.

• Marcus Morris, Suns to Pistons (four years, $20MM)
• Spencer Hawes, Clippers to Hornets (three years, $18.48MM)
• Tiago Splitter, Spurs to Hawks (two years, $17.35MM)
• Roy Hibbert, Pacers to Lakers (one year, $15.592MM)
• David Lee, Warriors to Celtics (one year, $15.494MM)
• Nicolas Batum, Trail Blazers to Hornets (one year, $13.125MM)
• Carl Landry, Kings to Sixers (two years, $13MM)
• Ty Lawson, Nuggets to Rockets (one year, $12.404MM)
• Gerald Wallace, Celtics to Warriors (one year, $10.106MM)

The Basketball Insiders salary pages were used in the creation of this post.

Which of these contracts would you least want your team to be on the hook for? Leave a comment to let us know.

Texas is known for going big, and this year, NBA free agency is no exception. The state boasts not only the most celebrated free agent to change teams in LaMarcus Aldridge, but also the two teams that corralled more free agents than any other in the league. The Spurs and Mavericks have reached deals with 11 free agents each over the past month.

Aldridge is one of them, of course, as the suburban Dallas native eschewed the Mavs to instead sign with the Spurs. Dallas almost convinced the free agent who might have been the next most sought-after to change teams, but DeAndre Jordan skipped out on his deal with the Mavs to return to the Clippers, who’ve had a fairly sizable haul of their own, with eight free agent agreements so far.

Part of the reason for the heavy volume of deals in San Antonio and Dallas has to do with both teams getting an early start on building their training camp rosters, and the number of expiring contracts that they were carrying at the end of last season obviously plays a role, too. Still, to put the scope of their free agent activity in perspective, the entire Northwest Division has only reached agreement with 13 free agents so far. That includes the Jazz and Timberwolves, who’ve struck deals with just one free agent apiece.

Both Utah and Minnesota have signed draft-and-stash prospects and players taken in this year’s draft, so it’s not as if they’ve been dormant this month. Indeed, teams across the league have engaged in trades, extensions and even rare renegotiations, as the free agent market represents only a portion of the player movement around the league.

Still, it’s worth wondering whether factors like the lack of a state income tax, relatively mild weather, and track records of success have helped the Spurs and Mavs to the top of the list below, even if the Rockets lag behind in this category. Note that the numbers here, drawn from our Free Agent Tracker, include agreements to sign that haven’t become formal signings yet.

Number of free agent deals by team:

• Mavericks, 11
• Spurs, 11
• Kings, 9
• Clippers, 8
• Knicks, 8
• Nets, 8
• Cavaliers, 7
• Raptors, 7
• Pacers, 6
• Pelicans, 6
• Celtics, 5
• Suns, 5
• Trail Blazers, 5
• Bulls, 4
• Heat, 4
• Hornets, 4
• Magic, 4
• Pistons, 4
• Rockets, 4
• Bucks, 3
• Hawks, 3
• Lakers, 3
• Nuggets, 3
• Sixers, 3
• Thunder, 3
• Warriors, 3
• Wizards, 3
• Grizzlies, 2
• Jazz, 1
• Timberwolves, 1