The Waive And Stretch: Cap Smoothing, Late Season Transactions, Buyout Check-In And More
Welcome back to another edition of The Waive and Stretch Newsletter. A quick shameless plug to note that I am looking to work in basketball in any capacity and would love to connect with anyone in the industry or trying to break in. Please feel free to share this Substack with anyone who might find it interesting. Let's get into it!
What Caught My Attention This Week
Woj’s Article On CBA Negotiations
Amidst all of the trade deadline madness, Woj dropped an article about the ongoing discussions on the new labor market between the NBA and NBPA that you can read here. In the article, Woj touched on some interesting priorities that are currently being discussed and debated on within negotiations. These include the “upper level spending limit” and the Union’s strong resistance to it, how to incentivize playing in more regular season games, ending the one-and-done early entry rule, and finally, working on a cap smoothing plan. Though it was just one bullet at the end of the story, the cap smoothing portion was what caught my eye the most. It seems to be a foregone conclusion that there will be some sort of smoothing mechanism implemented after what came from the unsmoothed cap spike in 2016. This got me thinking what smoothing may have looked like in 2016, and so I put together the table below.
Essentially, I just took the 2015-2016 pre spike cap of $70,000,000 and took a fixed percentage increase that brought it to the actual 2019-2020 cap of $109,140,000, resulting in the “smoothed” salary cap numbers for the in-between years. Obviously this would have had a much different impact in the summer of 2016, as the cap only would have gone up $8.2 million instead of $24.1 million. This way, every player would’ve in theory gotten access to the cap spike money as it was spread out over four free agencies instead of one. This seems to be a priority of any smoothing mechanism, as Woj stated in the article that the plan would “avoid a repeat of the cap spike in 2016 that disproportionately rewarded one class of free agents and selected teams.” I am eager to hear more on how the League plans on implementing a smoothing plan for the 2025-26 cap spike, as I’m sure that is a major focus of current CBA negotiations.
Three Things To Keep An Eye On This Season
1. Late Season Signings
Now is about the time where you see teams convert their two-ways or sign 10-day guys who have impressed to multi-year contracts at minimum money. Teams save some of their mid-level exception money for this exact reason, as the ones who have access to the Non Taxpayer Mid-Level Exception can sign guys for up to four years. This a a relatively risk free move for teams, as they can potentially lock in a rotation player for multiple seasons at a team friendly deal. As for the player, they are able to make some extra money than they otherwise would have. Some examples of players from last year who were signed to multi-year deals towards the end of the year after playing on 10-day contracts or a two-way include: Wenyen Gabriel, Haywood Highsmith, Trendon Watford, and Daishen Nix. Already this year we have seen the Spurs ink Charles Bassey to a 4-year deal, the Wizards signed Jordan Goodwin to a 3-year deal, and Admiral Schofield and Ish Wainright signing 2-year deals in Orlando and Phoenix respectively. Some other candidates include Ty Jerome and Anthony Lamb in Golden State, Mfiondu Klabengele and JD Davison in Boston, Theo Maledon in Charlotte, Terry Taylor in Chicago, Jamal Cain and Orlando Robinson in Miami, as the Heat have been active with this type of move in the past, and Trevor Keels and DaQuan Jeffries with the Knicks.
2. Buyout Check-In
With the deadline to be bought out and still be playoff eligible coming up on March 1st, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look and see who could still be bought out, who has been bought out and not signed yet, and what teams are still in the market to fill out their roster. It seems that most of the major buyout candidates have already signed with their new teams in guys like Russell Westbrook, Danny Green, Reggie Jackson, Patrick Beverley, Terrence Ross, Kevin Love etc. However, as for players that still could potential receive a buyout, I am looking at names like Nerlens Noel, Derrick Rose, Cory Joseph, and Dario Saric. I think all could spark interest in playoff teams looking to add depth. The guys that pop to me that have already been bought out and are still yet without a new team include: John Wall, Will Barton, Stanley Johnson, and Serge Ibaka. Teams that still have open roster spots and could be in the market for a buyout acquisition include the Milwaukee Bucks, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks, Golden State Warriors, and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
3. The Race For Fifth
It would seem that the four teams with the worst records in the league are locked into being the following, in no particular order: Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Detroit Pistons, and Charlotte Hornets. As for the fifth worst record in the league, that is up for grabs. Before Sunday’s games, there are 11 teams with win totals between 25 and 30, and that doesn’t even include the Utah Jazz at 31 wins. It doesn’t seem as though too many of those teams are dead set on tanking the rest of the season either, as the only team to be a real seller at the trade deadline was the Jazz, though the Pacers and Magic may realize the opportunity and start sitting guys down the stretch. From an odds perspective, the difference from being in that fifth spot versus one of the last spots in the lottery is massive, as you can see in the below chart from Tankathon.
The play-in tournament throws another monkey wrench into things, as all these teams are in the hunt for the 7, 8, 9, or 10 seeds in their respective conferences. I’m keeping my eye on how the lottery standings shake out week-to-week and will be fascinated to see who wins the race to fifth, no matter how slow that race may be.
Fake Signing Of The Week
Player: Kyle Kuzma
Team: Washington Wizards
Deal: 4 Years, $104 million