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:toastQuote:
Originally Posted by BLACKJACK21
http://www.holtcat.com/images/PartsStorePDF/tile1.jpg
I might have to find something to buy up in there . . .
If I lived down south I would defenitely buy several spurs tickets, I am however stationed up in the midwest.
Good job all around by Holt / RC / Pop. I'm excited to be a spurs fan right now, and if everyone stays healthy I think they can win it all.
To me, the coup de grace was stealing McDyess and basically using Rasheed as the smoke screen bitch. Kudos :toast
We soon shall see if this was the "right move" but what seems evident the past few years is Rasheed is a quitter who I think would have undoubtedly quit on the spurs at some point when the going got tough. McDyess will give it everything he's got right up till the end. That's the kind of player you want on your team setting the example, especially with so many young players like the spurs have.
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Originally Posted by timvp
Getting knocked out in the 1st round.
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Originally Posted by Bruno
Yes, but do you have the info on how many of those lower-end contracts are using exceptions?
Dice for sure is using MLE, and I don't think that counts against cap. Do we have any other exempts out there?
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Exceptions
Because the NBA's salary cap is a soft one, the CBA allows for several important scenarios in which a team can sign players even if their payroll exceeds the cap. The exceptions are as follows:
Mid-level exception
A team is allowed to sign one player to a contract equal to the average NBA salary, even if the team is over the salary cap already, or if the signing would put them over the cap. This is known as the Mid-level exception (MLE). The MLE may be used on an individual free agent or split among multiple free agents, and is available to any team that exceeds the salary cap at the beginning of the offseason. The Mid-Level Exception for the 2008-09 NBA season was $5.585 million.[5] The MLE is $5.854 million for the 2009-10 NBA regular season.[6]
An example would be the Toronto Raptors' acquisition of Jason Kapono during the 2007 off-season.
Bi-annual exception
The bi-annual exception may be used to sign any free agent to a contract starting at $1.672 million in 2005-06, but cannot be used two years in a row (and if the $1 million exception from the previous CBA was used in 2004-05, the bi-annual exception cannot be used in 2005-06). Like the mid-level exception, the $1 million exception can also be split among more than one player, and can be used to sign players for up to two years, with raises limited to 8% per year. This exception was referred to as the "$1 million exception" in the 1999 CBA, although it was only valued at $1 million for the first year of the agreement.
An example of the $1 million exception was the Los Angeles Lakers' signing of Karl Malone to a contract before the 2003-04 season.
Rookie exception
The CBA allows teams to sign their 1st-round draft choices to rookie "scale" contracts even if their payroll exceeds the cap.
Larry Bird exception
Perhaps the most well-known of the NBA's salary cap exceptions, it is so named because the Boston Celtics were the first team permitted to exceed the salary cap to re-sign one of their own players (in that case, Larry Bird). Free agents who qualify for this exception are called "qualifying veteran free agents" or "Bird Free Agents" in the CBA, and this exception falls under the auspices of the Veteran Free Agent exception. In essence, the Larry Bird exception allows teams to exceed the salary cap to re-sign their own free agents, at an amount up to the maximum salary. To qualify as a Bird free agent, a player must have played three seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent. This means a player can obtain "Bird rights" by playing under three one-year contracts, a single contract of at least three years, or any combination thereof. It also means that when a player is traded, his Bird rights are traded with him, and his new team can use the Bird exception to re-sign him. Bird-exception contracts can be up to six years in length.
Early Bird exception
This is the lesser form of the Larry Bird Exception. Free agents who qualify for this exception are called "early qualifying veteran free agents," and qualify after playing two seasons without being waived or changing teams as a free agent. Using this exception, a team can re-sign its own free agent for either 175% of his salary the previous season, or the NBA's average salary, whichever is greater. Early Bird contracts must be for at least two seasons, but can last no longer than five seasons.
A much-publicized example for this would be Devean George, who vetoed his inclusion into a larger trade during the 2007-08 that would have sent him from the Dallas Mavericks to the New Jersey Nets because he would have lost his Early Bird rights.
Non-Bird exception
Free Agents who qualify for this exception are called "non-qualifying free agents" in the CBA, meaning they do not qualify under either the Larry Bird Exception or the Early Bird Exception. Under this exception, teams can re-sign a player to a contract beginning at either 120% of his salary for the previous season, or 120% of the league's minimum salary, whichever amount is higher. Contracts signed under the Non-Bird exception can last up to six years.
Other exceptions
Minimum Salary Exception: Teams can sign players for the NBA's minimum salary even if they are over the cap, for up to two years in length. In the case of two-year contracts, the second-season salary is the minimum salary for that season. The contract may not contain a signing bonus. This exception also allows minimum-salary players to be acquired via trade. There is no limit to the number of players that can be signed or acquired using this exception.
Traded Player Exception: If a team trades away a player with a higher salary than the player they acquire in return (we'll call this initial deal "Trade #1"), they receive what is called a Traded Player Exception, also known colloquially as a "Trade Exception". Teams with a trade exception have up to a year in which they can acquire more salary in other trades (Trade #2, #3, etc) than they send away, as long as the gulf in salaries for Trade #2, #3, etc are less than or equal to the difference in salary for Trade #1. This exception is particularly useful when teams trade draft picks straight-up for a player; since draft picks have no salary value, often the only way to get salaries to match is to use a trade exception, which allows trades to be made despite unbalanced salaries. It is also useful to compensate teams for losing free agents as they can do a sign and trade of that free agent to acquire a trade exception that can be used later. Note this exception is for single player trades only, though additional cash and draft picks can be part of the trade.
Disabled Player Exception: Allows a team that is over the cap to acquire a replacement for a disabled player who will be out for either the remainder of that season (for in-season injuries/deaths) or the next season (if the disability occurs during the offseason). The maximum salary of the replacement player is either 50% of the injured player's salary, or the average salary, whichever is less. This exception requires an NBA-designated doctor to verify the extent of the injury.
Note that while teams can often use one exception to sign multiple players, they cannot use a combination of exceptions to sign a single player.
Thank you Mr. Holt, and the rest of the FO for a Spurstacular summer!:toast
Now...NBA 09-10 season...hurry up please, im bored..:flag:
:rollinQuote:
Originally Posted by alamo50
Yeah, maybe Holt got used to all the money he was making off the deep playoff runs, and the first-round loss was a cold glass of water to the face.
I'm almost to the point where I think CIA Pop might have thrown that first series to the Mavs on purpose, to really shake the owner/FO up and make them realize they had better get Tim some more help...and fast.
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Originally Posted by CaptMike
Everything counts against the cap.
Spurs only have minimum contracts to offer now.
Would Bruce take the minimum to come back?Quote:
Originally Posted by timvp
Not true; not everything counts against cap. That's why they are called exceptions.Quote:
Originally Posted by timvp
"The Mid-Level Exception- A team can sign any free agent using the exception, which is defined as a league average salary that doesn't count against the cap. "
None of the exceptions listed count against the cap. I just don't know who has used what on what.
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As not mentioned earlier, the salary cap in 2008 was 55.63 million dollars. What you'll notice immediately is that numerous teams spent more than that in '07-'08, including the Hornets (who spent 62.42 million dollars). What you'll also notice is that most of these teams didn't pay any luxury taxes for being over the cap. Why? The threshold for paying luxury taxes isn't the same as the salary cap itself. If you exceed a payroll of $55.63 million by using legal exceptions, the league won't come after you.
If you exceed the league defined number 67.87 million dollars, that's where you run into trouble. $67.87 Million is the luxury tax threshold. Cross that, and you pay double on every dollar you exceed it by. Last year, the Knicks exceeded it somewhere in the 20 Million dollar range (22.05 I believe), and this year they exceeded it by 28 MIL if I'm not mistaken. So last year, they paid 44.1 million in luxury tax, and this year they should pay 56 million.
Those exceptions allow teams to exceed the salary cap. That doesn't mean they don't count against the cap. When it comes to having to pay the luxury tax, everything counts.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptMike
sorry I am a salary dummy but does this mean Holt have to pay 20-24mill as a result?>Quote:
Originally Posted by Bruno
Um... no. Exceptions let you exceed the cap without paying tax.Quote:
Originally Posted by timvp
Exceeding the cap never makes you pay tax. Exceeding the luxury tax line makes you pay tax. Exceptions are the only things you can use to sign players when you are over the cap. The salary cap and luxtax line are 2 different amounts of money.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptMike
Exceptions allow you to exceed the salary cap without paying tax ... up until the luxury tax threshold. The luxury tax threshold this year is around $70 million this year. The Spurs are going to have around $80-82 million in contracts. All of which is taxable.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptMike
I'm not sure what your point is. You don't think the Spurs will have to pay $10-12 million in luxury tax? You think you've found a loophole the rest of the inhabited world missed?
No, exceptions let you add players if you are over the salary cap, but they do count toward the luxury tax.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptMike
In Appreciation of Peter Holt
The presumed net worth of Peter Holt, CEO and owner of Spurs Sports & Entertainment, is around $80 million, making him one of the least wealthy owners in the NBA. Mr. Holt’s wealth derives from HOLT CAT, the nation’s largest authorized dealer of caterpillar machines, of which he is also CEO. Given the housing crisis that the United States has been experiencing since the fall of 2008, it’s safe to assume these are unnerving times for a man whose livelihood is based on the sale of construction equipment.
(I was unable to find financial data on HOLT CAT but the stock price for Caterpillar Inc., a company to which HOLT CAT’s fortunes are closely aligned, has fallen by nearly half since September 2008.)
Considering the financial pressure Holt is currently under, he did something brave yesterday: He allowed R.C. Buford to send the Spurs at least $10 million over the luxury tax line.
With a collective salary of $72,054,727, the Spurs were already $2.13 million dollars over the tax line (set by the NBA yesterday at $69.9 million) before they signed Antonio McDyess, Marcus Haislip, and Malik Hairston.
For every dollar the Spurs spend over the line, they must pay a one dollar tax to the league. By signing McDyess to the full Mid-Level Exception and Haislip to the full Bi-Annual Exception (most likely), the Spurs are now a solid $10 million over the line. In that number I have yet to include the recently signed contract of Malik Hairtson (the details which are unknown), and the still unnegotiated contracts of DeJuan Blair and Jack McClinton. In short, the Spurs just committed themselves to paying anywhere from $12 to $15 million worth of luxury tax dollars this upcoming season.
Peter Holt took a serious financial hit yesterday and he did so for the good of the franchise you love.
It’s hard to feel sympathy for a man whose net worth is counted not just in millions but in tens of millions, but compare Holt’s situation to Mark Cuban’s, whose net worth is presumed to be north of $2 billion, and you begin to recognize the commitment Holt is making to the franchise. When the Mavericks head into the luxury tax, Cuban hardly feels the prick of a pin. Holt and the rest of the Spurs ownership group commit a significant fraction of the franchise’s net worth to the team’s success.
Mr. Holt’s financial commitment to the team is significant to no one more than the 3 individuals we adore most: Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, and Tony Parker. Whether by only requesting reasonable contracts or restructuring their contracts to allow the team to acquire the necessary supporting cast, over the last several years the big three have done their part to ensure the Spurs are in a position to compete for championships. By allowing the front office to take the steps they took today, Holt has kept up his end of the bargain.
In 2008, the median income of a household in San Antonio was $39,140. Over the last 12 months, that figure has surely gone down. I have just begun graduate school and am now neck deep in student loans. For all intents and purposes, you could say my net worth is zero. Given that most sports-related financial figures exist in millions, not thousands, it’s hard to feel like you can affect the life of a man like Mr. Holt. But you can.
Buy a ticket. Buy season tickets. Hell, buy a backhoe for all I care. You alone may speak the language of thousands, not millions. But there are over 2 million people in the greater San Antonio metropolitan area. We speak in millions. Fans have been known to organize financial boycotts of their favorite franchises when they disapprove of the ownership (see Cincinnati Bengals Fans for a simultaneously righteous and hilarious example). We can express approval with our wallets as well.
And remember, the franchise consists of more than just the Spurs. Go to Austin Toros games. Go to Silver Stars games. The franchise is deeply committed to the success of those two teams as well.
In many people’s opinion, the Spurs were teetering on the edge of irrelevance. By giving R.C. Buford and Gregg Popovich the necessary freedom, he has helped bring them back to the center of the contender debate. And he has done so during a time of great financial uncertainty. For this, Mr. Holt, we are deeply appreciative.
http://www.48minutesofhell.com/2009/...olt/#more-3621
:tu
I would buy season tickets this year if I lived in SA. Guess I'll have to save a little money and buy some extra merchandise when I am at the game.
You're dumb.Quote:
Originally Posted by CaptMike
We who are about to Post Salute You!!!
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Originally Posted by timvp
timvp just filling the void after the untimely loss of one, Billy Mays.:smokinQuote:
Originally Posted by timvp
Isn't it like Christmas morning? I know that's how we are feeling up North too.
Most other teams are tightening the belts, but everyone that thinks they can win is opening the wallet. From a fans standpoint, you have to love it.
The Silver Lining of the Salary Cap Cloud
July 8, 2009 5:40 PM
As ESPN's Marc Stein broke some news about the NBA salary cap level for 2009-2010, and more importantly about some surprising NBA projections about what it might be for 2010-2011. Any team that hoarded cap space for the summer of 2010 is, today, faced with the possibility that they may have far less available than they had hoped.
While the memo had bad news for the basketball staffs, looking to spend more and more to acquire talent, I expect the memo was borderline thrilling to some, including poor teams, many owners and the bean counters who worry about teams' balance sheets.
There are four ways this memo might make them happy.
$6.5 Million in Cash for Every Team on July 29
Remember the NBA's escrow system? Basically, reported amounts for player salaries are not precisely the amounts they get. Instead, a percentage of every player salary is held aside, in escrow. At the end of the year, the league tallies up how much players made as a percentage of the league's "basketball-related income."
If the basketball-related income was high, then the players get their money back.
If the basketball-related income was low, then the owners get a mulligan on some of what they agreed to pay the players.
The result, is a pretty good recession buster for the owners. At the moment there's nearly $205 million in the escrow account. $194 million of that, according to the memo, will be distributed equally to the 30 teams on July 29 -- meaning each team gets $6,467,847 in cash. The rest goes towards benefits (a long story), meaning teams will also each be spared $363,087 they would have been expected to contribute for next year.
In effect, each team will get about $6.8 million, the vast majority in cash.
Lower Salaries for the Same Players
The news in the memo, undeniably, has the potential to simply reduce the price of top basketball talent (Andre Miller or Shawn Marion for the mid-level exception, anyone?). Any team hoping to sign LeBron James or any other 2010 free agent now has more impetus than ever to shed salary.
One of the biggest effects this could have will be on players who are soon to come off rookie deals hoping for max contracts. Think about someone like Brandon Roy. The maximum contract for veterans like LeBron James or Dwyane Wade is calculated as a percentage of his previous year's salary -- basically, they can get a 5% raise. So they're largely unaffected. But Roy is still earning rookie scale, and is looking for much more than a 5% raise. His maximum is based on the league's basketball-related income, which has gone down and could go down further.
Which means the maximum he could get each year is almost certainly going to be less than what, say, Chris Paul got in his extension.
Does that mean players like Roy might, in light of that, sign a shorter deal to get to free agency sooner? (In free agency, players have the ability to make even more.) It's certainly possible.
Luxury Tax Disbursements to 23 Teams
You probably know about the NBA's luxury tax. A refresher: Teams pay one dollar to the NBA for every dollar they spend in salary in excess of a certain amount, which we now know was $71.15 million this past season. That means seven teams will pay, and they are, as Stein reports:
New York ($23,736,207), Dallas ($23,611,661), Cleveland ($13,707,010), Boston ($8,294,664), Los Angeles Lakers ($7,185,631), Portland ($5,899,356) and Phoenix ($4,918,136).
The other 23 teams, however, each get 1/30th of that money back, in cash. That means the 23 teams not listed above are each about to get $2,911,756, which is not a bad little shot in the arm.
Help for Low Revenue Teams
If you're doing the math at home, you'll realize that the luxury tax arrangement means the league is sending out 23 luxury tax payments, and each one of those is a 30th of what they took in.
So, inspector, where are the other seven 30ths? It is something I have always wondered.
Meet the NBA's Revenue Assistance Plan for low revenue teams. I'll be honest, I don't know much about this, but I can tell you it's described a little in the memo from the NBA Stein reported on:
In accordance with the league's Revenue Assistance Plan, the remaining $20.4 million of "undistributed" tax funds will be used to fund assistance payments to teams for the 2008-09 season.
(Under the Plan, up to $49 million of assistance will be paid to low-revenue teams for the 2008-09 season. The assistance payments will be funded in three tiers: first, with "undistributed" tax funds ($20.4 million); second, to the extent that additional funding is needed, with contributions from the 30 teams in proportion to each team's local revenues (up to one-third of total assistance payments); and third, to the extent that additional funding is needed, the shortfall will be funded with distributions from league entities.)
Anyway you slice it, that's up to $49 million for the team's sorriest teams. How it is divided and under what terms it's disbursed is unclear.
This might not seem like all that much. But consider those teams that are hurting. They're trying to sell tickets for tens or hundreds of dollars a pop, or season tickets for thousands. Faced with difficult economic times, many teams have laid off front office staffers with regular working salaries.
Now all 30 of those teams will have a $6.8 million shot in the arm. 23 of them will get an additional $2.9 million in luxury tax. And the lowest revenue teams will apparently be getting even more funds than that -- even as player salaries likely get cheaper.
A bad day, to be sure, for those dreaming of being tens of millions under the cap. But not so dire, I suspect, for those who write the checks.
http://myespn.go.com/blogs/truehoop/...Cap-Cloud.html