Whenever a team sign a player or do a trade, there aren't only basketball considerations but also financial considerations. Here is a look at Spurs' financial status:
Spurs 12-13 salaries :
Players with a guaranteed contract :
Spurs have 15 players with a fully guaranteed salary:
Manu Ginobili: $14,107,492
Tony Parker: $12,500,000
Tim Duncan: $9,638,554
Boris Diaw: $4,500,000
Tiago Splitter: $3,944,000
Matt Bonner: $3,630,000
Danny Green: $3,500,000
Kawhi Leonard: $1,809,840
Nando De Colo: $1,400,000
Patrick Mills: $1,085,120
Cory Joseph: $1,074,420
Dejuan Blair: $1,054,000
Gary Neal: $854,389
Aron Baynes: $239,588 (count for $432,220 against the tax)
Tracy McGrady: $10,052
Stephen Jackson*: $10,059,750
James Anderson*: $160,826
The total salary for these 15 players is $69,568,031 ($69,760,663 against the tax)
The Luxury Tax:
What is the luxury tax?
The luxury tax is a mechanism whose first goal is to reduce the differences between the richest and the poorest franchises by penalizing teams that overspend the others teams. This mechanism will be stronger after the 2012-2013 season when the new progressive luxury tax will apply. In 2013-2014, a repeater tax will be added to even more penalized teams that are consistently over the tax.
The triple penalty system:
A team above the tax is three time penalized. First, they had to pay the $ for $ tax. Second, they don't get a share of the luxury tax money given by the NBA to teams. Third, it makes it more likely to have to pay the repeater tax in the future.
The last two effects push teams that are just above the tax threshold to go under it.
Luxury tax threshold in 12-13:
The 2012-2013 luxury tax threshold is $70.307M.
Total luxury tax paid in 12-13:
6 teams should paid some luxury tax for a total amount of $71M. These teams are: Lakers($30M), Heat($13M), Nets($13M), Knicks($10M), Bulls($3M) and Celtics($2M).
Teams below the tax will get 1/48th of this, that is to say $1.48M.
Impact of the luxury tax on Spurs for 12-13:
Pop said won't pay the tax. The tax threshold will be basically a hard cap for Spurs this year.
Spurs are $546,337 below the tax.
Spurs 13-14 salaries :
Players with a guaranteed contract :
Tony Parker: $12,500,000
Tim Duncan: $10,361,446
Boris Diaw: $4,702,500
Danny Green: $3,762,500
Nando De Colo: $1,463,000
Kawhi Leonard: $1,887,840
Patrick Mills: $1,133,950
Cory Joseph: $1,120,920
Aron Baynes: $788,872
The total salary of these 9 players is $37,721,028
Players with a partially guaranteed contract:
Matt Bonner: $3,945,000
His contract is $1M guaranteed and becomes fully guaranteed on June 29th 2013.
Total salaries:
These 10 players have a combined salary of $41,666,028
The 2013 summer and Spurs' cap space situation:
Spurs might be way under the cap next summer and have a lot of money to go after free agents. While it's obviously very early to talk about it, some points can still be made.
The amnesty rule:
On the paper, two players can still be amnestied by Spurs: Bonner and Parker.
However, the situation is complicated for Bonner. His 2013-2014 contract becomes fully guaranteed next July before the window to use the amnesty on him.
If Spurs want to get ride of Bonner next summer, they have two ways of doing it:
- Waiving him in June. It will cost them only $1M but Bonner cap hit for 2013-2014 will be $1M.
- Using the amnesty on him in July. It will cost them up to $3.95M but Bonner cap hit will be $0.
I doubt Spurs will be using the second option because it is way more costly. Bonner might agreed to push back the deadline to waive him by a couple of weeks to allow Spurs to sue the amnesty on him without having to pay his full salary. He might do it as a nice gesture or more likely against a raise of the guaranteed part of his contract or a quicker payment schedule of his buyout.
The stretch provision:
For players signed under the current CBA (Duncan, Diaw, Green, Leonard, De Colo, Mills and Joseph), their salary can be spread over twice the remaining years in their contract plus one. It reduces the cap hit.
For example, Spurs can waive Diaw and spread the last year of his contract over 3 years with a $1,567,500 cap hit each year.
Cap hold:
The cap hold is the amount that free agent count toward team salary.
For Ginobili, there are no tricks to use since their cap hold will be higher than their new salary if Spurs re-sign them.
For Blair and Neal, it's different. They have a low cap hold and Spurs might use it to go over the cap by re-signing them last. Blair cap hold is $2M and Neal cap hold is $1.1M.
Splitter is in an in-between situation. Splitter might very well be paid more than his $7.5M cap hold.
Spurs first round pick:
With Livio Jean-Charles, Spurs have a player who will be stashed overseas and will count for $0 against the cap.
The room exception:
It's a new exception for teams below the cap. Its value next summer will be $2.652M with a max length of 2 years.
Salary cap for 2013-2014:
The NBA early projections for the salary cap is $58.5M.
How much cap space Spurs could had in the 2013 summer:
It's early to answer at that question but let's give it a try.
Let's make first some assumptions:
- The salary cap is $58.5M.
- Spurs use the amnesty rule on Bonner.
Spurs team salary in the 2013 summer:
Tony Parker: $12,500,000
Tim Duncan: $10,361,446
Boris Diaw: $4,702,500
Danny Green: $3,762,500
Nando De Colo: $1,463,000
Kawhi Leonard: $1,887,840
Patrick Mills: $1,133,950
Cory Joseph: $1,120,920
Aron Baynes: $788,872
Roster cap hold: $490,180
Roster cap hold: $490,180
Roster cap hold: $490,180
Total: $39,191,568
In this scenario and with a $58.5M salary cap, Spurs will have $19.3M in cap space next summer.
Spurs 14-15 salaries :
- Tony Parker has a $12,500,000 salary than is $3.5M guaranteed. The contract becomes fully guaranteed on June 30th 2014.
- Tim Duncan has a $10M contract with a player option. However, his salary might be increase to $10,361,446 because his current contract doesn't respect the CBA.
- Danny green has a $4,025,000 salary.
- Kawhi Leonard has a $2,894,059 salary that is a team option. Spurs must pick it before November 1st 2013.
- Cory Joseph has a $2,023,261 salary that is a team option. Spurs must pick it before November 1st 2013.
PS: Go to ShamSports for a salary tab and more details about contracts' specifics. Thanks to Sham for his great work.
Last edited by Bruno; 06-29-2013 at 02:08 PM.
great piece of work. thx!
question: Spurs are 1.15 million below the threshold. if they sign a veteran to the minimum (let's say K-Mart), that's 1.35 million and would push them into tax territory. or does this signing only count for the 762 K of a 2nd year player and Spurs would stay under the tax line? (if I remember right, the old CBA had this rule)
It depends on the length of K-Mart contract.
If it's an one year contract, then Spurs will only pay him as a 2 years vet that it to say $854,389. The league will pay the rest and only the part paid by Spurs will count against the tax. Spurs will stay below the tax.
If it's a two years contract, even if the second year is a team or player option, then Spurs will have to pay his full salary. The full salary will count against the tax and Spurs will be above the threshold. They will then need to do a move like trading or waiving Blair to go back under it.
Thanks Bruno! Great information!
I've updated the first post with Leonard and Joseph options picked up. There is too now a projection of Spurs cap space for next summer.
To sum it up, Spurs should have between $22M and $28M in cap space next summer.
Nice as always Bruno
I always learn something new from your salary threads.
The best part of this year's thread is not having to see Richard Jefferson eating almost 10m of cap space.
Assuming SJax is still here, his and Manu's cap holds will remove our entire cap space until they are sorted out will they not?
For example, could we waive Jackson (thus removing his cap hold), sign a big free agent then resign him with the MLE?
I wouldn't worry too much about the cap holds. The Spurs will have to make decisions on Manu, Jax, Splitter, and Diaw if he opts out. If they retain all four players, there isn't likely to be any cap space.
As to the second part of your post, the Spurs would not have to waive Jackson as he would already be a free agent. If they were to renounce his rights to sign a big free agent with cap space, then they would no longer have the full MLE to use. In that case, they would have have a smaller exception, the "room MLE" at their disposal.
Thanks, that makes sense.
So lets say we have $22m cap space with Manu, Jackson, Splitter, Neal and Blair all free agents. Which do we keep and for how much?
Could we possibly get Manu and Jackson for around $9m or less? $5m Manu, $4m Jax? Would leave us with $13m for a free agent big man like Milisap, Jefferson or Josh Smith, although I expect Smith to command more.
@Bruno , I have a Bonner question: Say the Spurs get Bonner to agree to push back his deadline until after the amnesty date so that they can release him without accruing a cap hit. For argument's sake, we'll just assume Bonner does this out of the kindness of his heart and that only $1 Million is guaranteed as planned. Bonner would then go onto the amnesty waivers and possibly (though improbably) receive bids. If someone bids on him, does that mean his salary gets taken out of the money that they Spurs own him, and thus that they'd only own like $146,000, or is it taken out of the non-guaranteed portion first? If he were to receive bids of more than $1 Million, what would be the amount the Spurs would have to pay?
Well, I clearly am not familiar with that @ technique yet...
A rule of the amnesty waiver is that the minimum bid can't be lower than the non-guaranteed part of a partially guaranteed contract.
With your scenario, the minimum bid for Bonner would $2,945,00.
Spurs will have to pay Bonner the difference between his full salary and the waiver claim. For example, if a team claim Bonner for $3.2M, Spurs will have to pay Bonner $745K.
Even if Tiago has some inconsistent moments, as long as he stays realtively healthy and produces like he has been Spurs are going to be in a tough spot. Tiago is in a good spot to receive a solid contract it would seem, so the question will be how much? Do the Spurs want to lock him up early? Or would they be willing to match a good offer? Depending on who's available in FA that makes the question tougher.
The other tough variable is how well Manu holds up and how the Spurs do in the playoffs. They will likely have the cap space to keep most everyone of their own FA's, but will they continue to stay the course? Will Manu retire or ask for a lot of money?
If Manu comes back, I think he, Splitter and Jack are pretty much going to take up all of the Spurs' cap room in the offseason. The three of them will probably cost about $20 Million. If Manu retires, I could see the Spurs not resigning Jackson immediately and looking for ways to use their cap room with Splitter as a possible sign-and-trade candidate. The way Splitter's playing he's worth at least Asik's contract right now.
I don't think Manu is in too much of a position to ask for a lot of money. The Spurs gave him his max contract already, and it's hard to argue that he's been worth it this year. He's a part of the Big 3 and an attraction to the Hispanic community, but he's not Duncan. He doesn't have the sway to hold them for than $8 Million or so. He's also said before that he's not looking for another big payday.
If you mean an extension, that is not possible.
They'll tender the qualifying offer to make him a restricted free agent and they'll keep him as long as the numbers don't get too stupid.
As to Manu, Duncan set the standard for a final contract. His salary this year is about 45% of his previous salary.
That's right - but they can offer him an actual "contract", correct? So they can't "extend", but they can offer the QO, make him a RFA but then sign a new contract immediately, right?
They can work out all the details at any point that the two sides are able to agree. He can't sign a new contract until after the July moratorium, with July 10, 2013 being the earliest possible date.
Great thread Bruno. It provides info that I like to think on. Now if I could only get my laptop to fit on the back of that bathroom thing that I nap on? Thanks!
Baynes apparently a team option of $2m next year. He had better be worth it, as $2m might be the difference between getting a legit big man in free agency or not.
^ He can't actually have an option for that much. There's a lot of misinformation going around right now, but as it stands, he can only get a 4.5-percent increase of whatever he gets this year (or the minimum next year, if that's greater). The max he can get is 500k this year, so he can get no more than 522.5k next season. He's not getting $2 Million in any two years combined, let alone in one year.
Is it then a 4-year, $2M contract? Including the non-guaranteed years that is.
If it was just a four-year deal (and there's some debate about that right now), with 4.5-percent raises and no minimum, it would be a $2.09 Million deal. But his contract will get bumped up to the minimum for the final three years, which will raise the value to 3.2 Million. He'll get $788,872 in year two, then his option years are $915,243 and $981,084.
Here's a table to minimum salaries: http://www.cbafaq.com/salarycap.htm#Q16
It doesn't affect Baynes this year, because 500k is more than the pro-rated part of the minimum contract.
Does the 400K buyout count against the salary cap for this year?
It doesn't . Teams are allowed to give up $550K to bought out an international player with salary cap situation.
A couple of points regarding Baynes contract:
- Whatever exception Spurs use on Baynes, it will have roughly the same impact on Spurs luxury tax situation this season. A player (outside of second round picks) can't count for less than a 2 years vet minimum salary player against the tax. If Spurs signed Baynes today (Jan 12), the prorated 2 years vet min salary would be $482K. Spurs have $491K left on their MLE and $547K on their LLE.
- Baynes will have little impact on Spurs next season cap space even if his contract is guaranteed for that season. He will have a $789K salary but Spurs team salary will be reduce by a roster charge of $490K. Baynes will eat, in the worst case, $299K of Spurs cap space.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
