Trade & FA 2024-25:

[DanSchwartzgan]

Some pertinent details

1 Other than trade kickers paid, post-season trades in June do not impact a team's tax, as tax numbers are already determined, as of the last day of the regular season.   Thank you.  This is helpful information to know.


2 If you are not hard-capped at Apron 1, you do not have to do things to stay under that number.  This has been my working assumption, but good to have it confirmed.


3 "You do THJ/Maxi for Grant in 23/24. ".....THJ-Maxi for Grant in 23-24 is more than 100% for DAL (and oddly, for POR too) so it creates a hard cap.  This is what I was asking about the other day.  I found a Bobby Marks video from two months ago.  He details that as soon as the season is over, even teams under the apron can't "take back more money in a trade" or they will be hard-capped in the new season.  In fact, they can't do any of the things that will get you hard capped in the new season once the old season ends unless they find a way to stay under the apron in the new season.

He also talks about how the league looks ahead at your finances to the new season.  What wasn't plain from the video was the situation where a trade didn't take back more money in the current (just finished season).  I was trying to frame the THJ/Maxi deal as "not" taking back more money because it isn't "in June".  Grant makes more in 24/25 because his salary goes up while THJ's goes down.  What you are saying is the league applies the standard in both time frames.  You can't take back more money using salaries for both the old NBA year or the new NBA year.  Mark's didn't address that.


4 Obtaining a 2024 2nd rounder has the potential to help on the salary front, but is only useful if there's a player you can get that is actually worth having on your roster. If not, your roster is effectively only 13, which is problematic if you also lack the ability to spend and add when injuries occur.  I was actually trying to make the second rounder the 15th player as I intended to use the TP MLE for the 14th player because I thought I had found a trick to keep from getting hard capped.

Thanks for your help in clarifying these items.