(09-27-2024, 10:15 PM)SleepingHero Wrote: @KeithSmithNBA
Not sure how S&Ting DaQuan Jeffries really helps. He's not currently on the roster for New York, so that doesn't fully change the math here.
Looking at Spotrac post-trade salaries for NY, it appears that the Knicks had cap flexibility to end up with the payroll that results from KAT for Randle/DD, but the issue was the trade itself didn't match. The end payroll result has NY with room to keep player 14 and then landing around 188.1M. They can't cross the 2nd apron of 189.931M.
The trade match itself for NY requires a dollar-for-dollar match, so they need to send out another 9M or so.
It looks like DQJ is getting a really nice contract out of the deal for a scrub player. CHA is over the cap, but best guess is they will be using their 7.983M Room MLE as a TPE under the new rules. That's still about $1M short of a match, so they will need to send a player off their roster that isn't newly signed, who CHA can also take legally. My guess is Bates-Diop (minimum salary) is the other player, while DQJ gets the bulk of the $7.983M room MLE, whatever is the smallest remainder it takes to make the KAT trade legal. That number will be around 6.2M if my math is correct.
I also suspect CHA will get the WAS 1st rounder owed to NY for eating all this ugly salary. It has modest protections (its best outcome would be a pick near the bottom of the lottery in 25 or 26).