(06-07-2023, 06:30 AM)DanSchwartzgan Wrote: Thanks for all of that. I'd seen where TPE's expire each year, but didn't dream it would be at the end of the regular season. Yikes!
It seems really imperative that if Dallas wants to make a splash this summer, they need to either:
1. Get most of their work done in June
2. Get themselves well below the first apron and then do the things they want to do to get right back up to it (even if it hard caps them this year). Maybe that is some or all of the TPE. Maybe that is a trade with greater than 110% matching. I'm more convinced than I was before that Kyrie's number is going to be flexible. Whatever we have left up to a hair below the first apron.
Trading down in the draft for picks, players and to reduce salary starts to make more sense (Utah has multiple TPE's that would absorb McGee). Maybe you S/W Bertans or maybe you S/W Reggie's guaranteed amount. But if you want a sizable trade spread and use of most of the MLE, you can't stand still.
Once you have the team you want in place, you can fiddle around the edges (TP MLE and 100% trade matching) if you stay under the first apron. Or, you can drift over the first apron and kind of screw your flexibility. This may really hurt the little cottage industry that exists around player movement at the TDL and in the offseason.
" Get most of their work done in June "
A note about this -- after June 2023, the transaction season in May-June becomes more blurred with July. Of particular note is that starting at the end of the regular season a year from now (and each year thereafter), what you do after your season impacts whether you are hard-capped for the ensuing season. (IOW, if you use "greater than 100% trade matching" in a 2024 draft day trade, for example, you will be hard-capped at Apron 1 through the end of the 2024-25 regular season). And in May 2024 the added limits for teams over Apron 2 hit as well (no aggregating, no cash tips to another team in trade, no snt's either way in trade).
If you are above Apron 1, it will be easy to drop salary, but virtually impossible to add it via trade. And over Apron 2, all you have are trades and minimums and re-signing your own.